Love fifteen

So I was at the Australian Open tennis on the weekend and I was thinking about big corporate sponsorships. Fresh data (Roy Morgan) shows Kia and Garnier dominating sponsor recall with non-sponsor adidas coming in 3rd ahead of everyone else (GE Money, Aviva, Evian, to name a few).

Most of the sponsors had experiential elements - there was an hour and half queue to get into the Garnier pamper experience.

What I didn't see though was anything except naming rights, sampling and experiential. I didn't see any offers, any promotions, anything encouraging me to get involved or visit a website.

Seems to me that these brands should think a little more about what happens after the 14 days - how to turn their sponsorships into something more long term, something more involving and interactive. I like Carling's UK sponsorship of music venues in this respect: they took over multiple venues in major UK cities permanently, rebranded them Carling Arenas, served the product, changed the ticketing so you can only book through Carling website...and so on. That is a more long term and effective strategy where they clearly own a very big meaingful piece of the real world all year.

I certainly didn't come away from the tennis thinking I had a more meaningful relationship with many of the brands. Has anyone got any favourite sponsorship case studies?