MGT301 Principles of Marketing Graded Discussion BOARD (GDB) NO.2 Fall 2014

[education-2014]

TOPIC: Using Sponsorships as a Marketing Tool

A VODAFONE CASE STUDY

Vodafone Group’ a British multinational telecommunications company, a second largest mobile telecommunication company in the world, having its headquarters in London. The company is operating in more than 21 countries and working as partners with over 40 other countries. The company provides Information Technology and telecommunication services in more than 65 countries.



MGT301 Principles of Marketing Graded Discussion BOARD (GDB) NO.2 Fall 2014



POINT OF DISCUSSION:

In the light of the above paragraph, would it be appropriate for Vodafone to invest millions pounds in sponsoring these sports activities and could this sponsorship brought synergy for Vodafone?

Solution Ideas

Anybody can identify with lessons of high performance and performance psychology and develop their capabilities if they are motivated to – regardless of whether they are fans or not. Lane4 specialise in taking these performance insights and applying them into work environments in order to deliver bottom line results.

One way this has been done recently is through taking BT’s customer service department on an Olympic journey. We developed a programme called ‘The Difference is You’ which addressed their ‘Right First Time’ customer service KPI.

They adopted Olympic goal setting and coaching techniques to work towards targets, as well as ‘belief wall’ and ‘balanced scorecard’ exercises which many Team GB athletes had used. In addition, Olympic athletes delivered talks about their performance techniques which employees were encouraged to relate to their own roles afterwards. After mapping the tools of athletes to those of employees, Right First Time scores rose from 80% to 89% following the programme and employees learnt transferable performance techniques.

Generating these internal benefits isn’t something that happens accidently. Similar to external activation, it takes a deliberate approach, creativity and a high degree of effort. The range of performance development opportunities sponsorship assets can provide is limited only by imagination and Synergy and Lane4 can currently target programmes to areas including leadership development, resilience, talent management, developing high performing teams, innovation, leading change and coaching.

By considering both internal and external targets while planning the sponsorship strategy and developing a programme for each can multiply the return on investment.

The next blog in the series will look more specifically at how lessons from Sport Psychology can be used to enhance the benefit organisations can get from the other side of sponsorship. We will explore recent examples of companies that have already begun to do this, looking at how they made it a success.

[education-2014]

A manufacturer has four sponsorship options:
1). A manufacturer’s brand (or national brand) is a brand created and owned by the
producer of a product or service (Examples include IBM and Kellogg).
2). A private brand (or middleman, distributor, or store brand) is a brand created and
owned by a reseller of a product or service.
3). A licensed brand (a company sells it’s output under another brand name).
4). Co-branding occurs when two companies go together and manufacture one product
(General Mills and Hershey’s make Reese’s’ Peanut Butter Puffs cereal).
Combined brands create broader customer appeal and greater brand equity.
It may allow a company to expand its existing brand into a category it might otherwise have
difficulty entering alone. But at the same time there are certain disadvantages of combine branding
like:
?? Complex legal contracts and licenses are involved.
?? Coordination efforts are often difficult.
?? Trust is essential between partners. It is often hard to come by.