Week 9

This week's readings came from the course text book, 'Public Relations - theory and practice', from Jane Johnston and Clara Zawawi. Chapter 13, 'Sponsorship and event management' provided a helpful guide to managing events in concern with Public Relations, and sponsorship to aid organisation campaigns. The points that I felt were most important from the reading included:

• sponsorship is one of the most expensive tactics which can be chosen by an organisation.


• Events range in size and budget. The larger the event is, the more likely that it will need some form of sponsorship to aid the needs of the budget.


• Daniel Boorstin's four characteristics for a media attentive event: 1/ "It is not spontaneous". 2/ It is planned for the purpose of being reported. 3/ Communicates on a number of levels and uses ambiguity to create links. 4/becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.


• The text states that "Sponsorship is the purchase of specific rights and benefits associated with an event, organisation or individual." Sponsorship "...generates goodwill and provides opportunities to enhance the image and reputation of the organisation by association..."


• Benefits include the ability to "...lock out competitors, image association, hospitality for client entertainment, product sampling, signage rights, merchandising, networking with people of importance, media coverage, use of personnel for advertising; and promotions and sales opportunities."


• Philanthropic sponsorship: often community-based. As close to donation as sponsorship gets.


• Corporate sponsorship: "...sponsorship of an event or activity not normally linked to the sponsoring cpmpany's general business."


• Marketing sponsorship: the most popular form and is used as a marketing strategy. Used to generate prodit predominently through increased sales.


• "Understanding the motives and goals of the target audience is crucial when writing a sponsorship proposal." This is generally the first point of contact. Good practitioners will research the target organisation prior to the proposal.


• "...sell the sizzle (rather than the steak) of the sponsorship..."


• "Ambush marketing occurs when a company misrepresents itself as being associated with an event when it has no official, legal or moral rights to do so." This can destroy the concept of sponsorship. If there are a number of sponsoring organisations involved it is important that each takes ownership of its part of the sponsorship, definining both its benefits and rights.
• It is unlikely that a pr professional will be an expert at all areas of special event management, therefore it is common to contract their specific duties to third parties or committiees.
• Event types include: ..."conferences, sports activities, launches, openings, community or political meetings, breakfasts or dinners, lectures..." etc.
• Events are an opportunity to get a face in the media. Strategy will help choose which event is best for that organisation.
• The reasons for holding an event include "...the generation of media coverage, creating a platform for product demonstration, corporate/client entertainment and revenue generation."
• PR practitioners need to ensure that they grab the attention of the media through the wow (shock) factor before, during and after the event. This can be done through providing the visual, the unusual, human interest, spectacle and/or famous faces.
• Many sponsors feel that media coverage is a crucial component of sponsorship. Therefore it is important that PR practitioners meed these needs by attracting as much media attention as possible. This can be done through writing them a media release, providing media functions throughout the event, distributing a handbook to the media members and giving media members free tickets to the event.
• It is important that a media center be provided at events. It is also neccessary that these centers should be staffed by at least one PR practitioner at all times.
• A product demonstration is an event that provides the perfect forum for the launch or market of a specific product in effort to attract sales and generate publicity.
• Corporate/client entertaining: provides the opportunity to impress clients and further develop business opportunities, it is a valuable sponsorship benefit.
• Revenue generation: special events provide the opportunity to gain revenue for a business.
• Tonge's (1999) points to a successful event: 1/ Feasibility: important to undertake research to determine the "feasibility of the event". 2/ Planning: "The easiest way to determine the time it will take to organise the event is to work backwards from the event date and formulate a list of duties and a time management plan for implementation." It is common practice to form an event committee. 3/ Execution: important that the committee communicate together to ensure everyone knows what they are doing, what their role is. It is important to develop a critical path ("which detailes exactly what should be happening at any time") is important to form an effective event. 4/ Evaluation: this can be achieved through a debriefing meeting, an event assessment and a business activity assessment.
• "Careful budgeting is the backbone of any successful special event." The two main areas of budgeting include income and expenditure.
• Events involve the implementation of strong crisis and issues management practices and also a focus on risk management. It is helpful to foreshadow failure and negative occurrences and creating a plan to solve these.
• The O'Toole and Mikolaitis (2002) model for risk managent:

Identify -----> Evaluate -----> Manage -----> Output: risk response procedure & documents

I found this weeks reading to be really interesting because event management sounds to me like an interesting component of public relations. I have learnt how to best manage the planning of an event and the importance of careful choice of an event type for specific organisations. I also did not know about ambush sponsorship until now and it is suprising to see that organisations attempt to feed off others sponsoring work.