This past weekend I took a quick trip down to NYC to visit some old friends and take care of some holiday shopping. Of course, despite the tugs from my girfriend, I could not help but stop and analyze what some companies were up to as far as sponsorship and activation.
One of the moments that really pushed me to take out the camera and notepad was upon seeing a Metro PCS promotion in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan. There was a woman dressed up in a purple Metro PCS outfit, standing on a corner outside a subway stop. Now this seems like a perfect opportunity to shout your message, right? Too bad it wasn’t working out as planned.
Even though that particular corner wasn’t the busiest citywide, the real problem was the lack of enthusiasm from the employee. The hired worker basically just stood there, not going up to anyone and looking totally non commited to her role. As we pointed out a few weeks ago in discussing the Charmin pop up in Times Square, with its outstanding engagement approach, peoples attitudes are the KEY to on street promotions. If you smile and interact with everyone that passes by, you have a much higher success rate than just standing there (Duh!).
Another two potential customers walk by, unengaged.
Now that we establshed that the Metro PCS promotional worker should have been more effective, lets take a look at who else was responsible for this quiet city corner.
While we are not sure whether this particular promotion was a result of a local store or the national headquarters, we are sure that a person in charge should make sure that everything is working! From a corporate perspective, if they are providing a promotional budget for a local store to hire this girl, shouldn’t they make sure the local store knows how to run the event properly? And from the other side, if corporate is running the promo, shouldn’t they have someone from within operating hands on when training the staff and picking a location? Either way, choosing and managing proper staff would do worlds to make this promotion more effective.
Hopefully in the future, Metro PCS and other companies with good ideas should take it a step further to make sure their plans are carried out with the same energy that was used in the creation process.
If you have ever been to the Futbol Fiesta prior to a Mexican National Soccer Team game then you already know that it offers a party like atmosphere including loud music, games, player appearances, and dozens of other activations presented by the sponsors. If you are a first timer (like I was last month in Dallas when Mexico played Colombia), then you are in for quite the experience. If you like to see passionate fans, engaged by equally ardent sponsors, than look no further!
Not only did Home Depot engage fans by offering them the chance to directly participate with the soccer game, they also encouraged the use of their retail products and sent people home happy with free memorabilia. It seems to make perfect sense why the Home Depot activation was one of the busiest we saw.
The results of the survey offered some critical opinions of corporate spending on sports sponsorships. While 23% of respondents agreed that companies should spend less on sports sponsorships, an even greater number respondents (48%) said that they actually become angry when discovering that a corporation has a hospitality or VIP box at a sporting event. 
This image of “Stealth Spending” that The New York Times presents when discussing this year’s U.S. Open runs parallel to the idea of “Modesty Marketing” suggested by Performance Research just a few months ago when presenting our study at the 2009 IEG Annual Sponsorship Conference. The majority of respondents in the Performance Research study agreed that in today’s economy, it is more important than ever for companies to appear humble (64%). The consistency between the aformentioned results and the actions at the event show how the corporations are listening to the public. By paying for the events, but not widely promoting the fact, the corporations are able to maintain a sponsorship marketing program while managing to look more conservative in the public eye. 
