When popular trend changes, events are the first place that organizers will see where trend is headed. We are finding an increasing need to dig back into face-to-face marketing. There are now adults that don’t know what it’s like to not have the internet, smartphones and digital comforts at their fingertips. As a society and the pioneer in technology worldwide, the United States has had its struggles with balancing out mobile device and media use. It seems parents are increasingly aware of how their children are affected by media, the internet and the amenities of smartphones.
We are also seeing a change in how technology affects marketing to consumers. Consumers are overwhelmed by changes in our country and our political status. It’s hard to tell what’s real, what we can trust and what is a farce, miscommunicated, or just simply incorrect. This has largely affected how consumers communicated and want to be communicated to, there is an increasing need for transparency and the number one thing that must change, is the way Americans are marketed to and how corporations sponsor marketing efforts. Previously, it was a major revenue stream to have a big corporate sponsor buy-in to a product for a premium logo and ad space. These days, sponsorship is still a possibility, there just needs to be a level of transparency when communicating sponsorship to the audience.
The most unique approach is to ask sponsors to do a little more than just pay out and submit a logo or ad space. Inviting potential sponsors to collaborate based on each partners goals and objects, what they hope to accomplish together and to use the buy-in as a fund to create something new and original. Gone are the days of “MAKE THE LOGO BIGGER” just because you paid for it! There are many levels of utilizing the concept of transparency to make sponsorships more palatable to consumers.
Assume that the end user is an intelligent base, that they want to learn something from sponsorships. A project that is shared between the sponsor and attendee or a data driven display that involves information that is relevant to the attendee is something that is shared and creates a relationship with the attendee and the sponsor. Giving the experience or memory something to bookmark the sponsor with, the attendee has freedom to further share this experience and further engage with the sponsor out of free will.
Sponsorships have a lot of untapped potential, the potential to utilize revenue for interesting data, experiences and to uncover new information. We can view this unknown time of transparency and changing sponsorships for the better, grow with the trend and learn from our end users.