Sponsor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
To sponsor something is to support an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. A sponsor is the individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor. Sponsorship typically benefits both the recipient (by providing material benefits) as well as the sponsor (as a marketing tool that enhances the sponsor's public image and provides access to a wider audience).
Sponsorship may be an arrangement to exchange advertising for the responsibility of funding a popular event or entity. For example, a corporate entity may provide equipment for a famous athlete or sports team in exchange for brand recognition. The sponsor earns popularity this way while the sponsored can save a lot of money. This type of sponsorship, known as cause-related, is prominent in the sports, arts, media and charity sectors.
When commercial radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920's, the programs were aired without advertising. Many radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers and programming was provided to sell radio transmitters and receivers. This lead to a system where radio and television programs were financed by selling sponsorship rights to businesses. Eventually, the broadcasters began selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses.
Sponsorship is also becoming increasingly important in education. Many companies want their logo on sponsored equipment in return. Formula One teams, for example, have heavily relied on the income from tobacco advertising. Other types of sponsorships revolve around companies paying for parts of television broadcasts and sporting events which bear their name. For example college bowl games now contain the name of their sponsor such as the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl.
Many times a company's motives for sponsorship are altruistic in order to create goodwill in the community which increases their good reputation. However, sponsorship is more commonly used to derive benefit from the associations created for a company's brand(s) or image as a result of the sponsorship.
People may sponsor an individual or group of people to undertake a fundraising task, usually for a charity or other cause requiring funding.
Sponsorship belongs to the promotional tool of Public Relations.
[edit] Behind the logo
In reality, sponsorship is ideally designed to improve income profits. As the unlikelihood a sponsoring corporation is losing money, or failing to reach profit margin targets, most critics would agree the idea of sponsorship is simply to create profits without consumer advantages. It can be said that corporations sponsor for the interests of themselves and not for the viewer, simply because they will not sponsor if they do not profit from it.
Sponsoring is not an easy deal, funding a single sponsor can cost millions of dollars, in normal circumstances the funds come from profits made from its customers, which many would agree is the proof of overcharging. For example, a single season to sponsor football in the USA could cost as much as $10m which could be better spent elsewhere, e.g charities, instead of investing such large amount of cash for the sole purpose to make extra profits.
