Event sponsorship is a great opportunity for corporations to gain a competitive advantage in the contemporary world of business. Events are essential marketing platforms for any kind of business because people from different places and cultural backgrounds come together during such occasions.
Hence, events enable corporates to increase market coverage within a very short time by marketing products and services to new potential customers. On the other hand, large events are expensive, and thus organizers allow corporate sponsorship as a way of cutting down the cost of events. Being a good marketing opportunity, corporates take sponsoring in good faith.
Fly Emirates is one of the most renowned corporations in the world today. It is a leading example of corporations that have gone beyond their cultural heritage to unite people of all backgrounds through business, and it uses events as a key marketing strategy. It sponsors different kinds of sports events such as football, rugby, Formula 1 races, golf, and cricket, among others.
In most cases, it sponsors events that involve other corporations offering different kinds of products and services. However, Fly Emirates has its own sponsored events that are not open for other corporate sponsors such as the Dubai Jazz festivals, among others. This paper will look at the two existing events sponsored by the Fly Emirates, one of which is open for other sponsors and another that is not.
On football events sponsorship programs, Fly Emirates sponsors many football teams such as Real Madrid and Arsenal football clubs in Europe, among others. Football is the leading sports event in the contemporary world in terms of the size of fans. In addition, the European Football Leagues are the most-watched games in the world.
Hence, corporations that have an opportunity to sponsor football events to gain a competitive advantage by promoting goods and services to a large world population, which forms part of potential customers. Secondly, motorsport is one of the leading sports in the world, and the Fly Emirates is a global partner of the leading motorsport, viz. the Formula 1.
Grand Prix events are hosted by the developed nations that have the capacity to build the expensive sports facilities, and thus the Fly Emirates is proud of sponsoring such an event (Cornwell, 2008). Many people across the world love motorsports, and they follow up the sport through media from different places around the globe.
By sponsoring these two events, Fly Emirates, as a business organization, has its sponsorship objectives, which include competitive advantage over other firms in the airline industry, marketing its products and services to a large population, acquiring business licenses in the world’s leading destinations, attracting competent human capital, and profit maximization (McDonnell & Moir, 2013).
Competitive advantage is the goal of every corporation as it expands a firm’s market share, which translates into increased revenues. The Fly Emirates has achieved a competitive advantage over the years through sports events sponsorship, which enables it to reach out to the entire world as a target market. The sports viewers get the impression that the Fly Emirates offers the best air transport services, and it has a competitive state of the art aircraft through the convincing messages aired through video advertisements.
Secondly, Fly Emirates seeks to market its products and services to a large population through a sports sponsorship program, and it has since achieved that goal. A vast majority of the population has great confidence in the airline services, and this goal has been achieved through event sponsorship programs as a major choice of the communication channel.
In addition, the airline has acquired customers’ trust and confidence by ensuring that it delivers what it promises to potential customers through advertising by making sure that it offers high-quality services to customers coupled with operating its business with state of the art aircraft (Cornwell, 2014).
Thirdly, Fly Emirates endeavors to acquire business permits and licenses in leading destinations across the world. It is often a complex process of acquiring business permits in some countries across the world. Every country has its airline corporations, and thus allowing other carriers into the airspace poses a competitive threat.
Therefore, governments introduce policies that complicate the licensing process in order to mitigate competition threats. However, it is the desire of every country to be associated with excellent corporations because they promote economic growth, albeit indirectly. Since the Fly Emirates has attained world recognition through event sponsorship, it has become easier to acquire business permits across the globe. In addition, sports are often seen as national heritage, and host countries welcome sponsors to operate in their economy due to bilateral advantages accrued in the process (Collett, 2008).
Fourthly, it has been an objective of the Fly Emirates to acquire competent human capital through the event sponsorship program. First-class corporations are competitive and thus desirable to the competitive labor force. In order to retain competence in terms of service provision to customers, the airline hires the most qualified candidates from across the globe. Hence, it has widened the talent search coverage through event sponsorship programs.
Some airlines have lost competent staff members to Fly Emirates because it offers attractive employees’ packages (Getz, 2012). Finally, profit maximization is the ultimate objective of any corporate organization, and thus it is an objective for the Fly Emirates as well.
Event sponsorship is an effective marketing strategy for both creating awareness and attracting a large population of potential customers. It is expensive but highly rewarding to the corporate, and thus it has contributed greatly to the tremendous growth of the airline by enabling it to make huge profits.
On the sponsorship program structure for the two events, both events have more than two sponsors. Sponsoring a football events is highly expensive, and thus it requires more than one sponsor in a bid to share the involved costs. The goal of the event organizers is to increase revenue collection, and in this case, the sponsor provides resources such as branded jerseys and stadia ornamentations, hence helping event organizers to cut the cost of such resources.
Therefore, in both events, there is no exchange of money but a mutual benefit (Day, 2011). In addition, on the event sponsorship rights in the two events, there is an acknowledgment of sponsorship through relations between event organizers and the airline.
There is name acknowledgment done by the branding of jerseys and sports stadia, which indicates the possibility of long-term associations. However, Fly Emirates is the official sponsor of the two events, whereby it has the right to do branding, unlike others who get an opportunity to do advertisements.
On developing a sponsorship program for the Fly Emirates, the event is a hot air balloon adventure. The event is designed as a sport, thus attracting both the media coverage and people interested in viewing through televisions.
The Fly Emirates will be the official sponsor, and it has a right to do branding on the balloons and place advert banners in the field as offering branded protective cloth ware to participants. The event allows other sponsors operating in different types of businesses to come in, do sponsoring through product selling, and pay for sponsorship. For instance, the participants and spectators need to be provided with facilities such as food and beverages, and thus Redbull shall be one of the sponsors.
Looking into the event, the targeted people are rich, and thus this aspect offers a suitable platform for advertising. The objectives of Fly Emirates in sponsoring this event are to market its airline services and provide an opportunity for people to recreate among others, as aforementioned. In contemporary corporate management practice, it is a norm to provide employees with team building activities as a way of enhancing their productivity in the workplace.
Therefore, this event offers an efficient platform for the corporation to offer the team-building opportunities to its employees (O’Reilly, 2008). On the other hand, Redbull is a beverage company, and thus it has the opportunity to advertise its products by sponsoring this event. During an event like this, people consume beverages highly in the form of ready-to-drink beverages and, most importantly, those that enhance physical activity by mitigating fatigue coupled with boosting energy production.
Redbull, as a beverage, can be used as both energy drink and a cold drink, and thus it is suitable for selling in this event. However, the Redbull, as a secondary sponsor, will be required to offer free drinks at the entrance as part of the sponsorship cost and sell more at designated centers across the field. This move will create a good platform for selling products to new customers after they enjoy free drinks at the entrance.
In addition, Redbull will have the opportunity to attain a competitive advantage over other firms that are in the same business, such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola, who will not be a part of the sponsorship program. Hence, this opportunity is worth exploiting for Redbull, as it will consequently increase profit turnover after advertising in the event (Degaris & West, (2013).
Normally, it is easy for events like this to get sponsorship from soft drink beverage companies due to competition in the industry, as well as the advantages that an event has on increased product sales. Hence, Redbull sees it as a privilege to be considered for a sponsorship program, unlike the Fly Emirates, which is an established corporation in a less competitive global airline market.
The sponsorship program is justifiable because it meets the minimum criteria required for an event to be sponsored. It has a target market whereby it targets the rich people who need to have the air balloon adventure.
The target market is also essential for other sponsors as they form part of the individuals that travel around the world for adventure, business, and other reasons, and thus the Fly Emirates is advantaged by sponsoring this event. In addition, the target market consumes many soft drink beverages, and given that it is a competitive market, Redbull has the advantage of sponsoring the event as well, for it offers a ready product for the market.
References
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Cornwell, T. (2008). State of the art and science in sponsorship-linked marketing. Journal of Advertising, 37(3), 41-55.
Cornwell, T. (2014). Sponsorship in Marketing: Effective Communication through Sports, Arts, and Events. New York, NY: Routledge.
Day, H. (2011). How to avoid sponsorship and hospitality becoming forms of bribery. Journal of Sponsorship, 4(2),100-104.
Degaris, L. & West, C. (2013). The effects of sponsorship activation on the sales of a major soft drink brand. Journal of Brand Strategy, 1(4), 403-412.
Getz, D. (2012). Event studies: theory, research, and policy for planned events. New York, NY: Routledge.
McDonnell, I., & Moir, M. (2013). Events Sponsorship. New York, NY: Routledge.
O’Reilly, N. (2008). Sponsorship evaluation. Journal of Sponsorship, 2(1), 8-10.