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We live blogged and tweeted from Croke Park throughout Thursday at the Irish Sponsorship Summit.  These were some of the many highlights as we saw them at the time…
1700 The Industry super panel has Jonnie Cahill from O2, Paddy Power, Richard Tierney of Live Nation, Derek McGrath from ERC and Max Hamilton of the FAI.  Some twitter debate over gender imbalance but there are some great ideas being thrown around.  Takeaways include the balance of pre booked revenue for ERC is 80% TV, 20% sponsorship.  This figure prompted some good debate later on twitter including between Ali Donnelly of ScrumQueens and RTE’s Michael Corcoran.  We will return to this in next week’s Sport for Business Weekly. Jonnie Cahill gave us a great story to illustrate how it is the smallest details of a campaign that often give the best value.  When the Point became the O2 they offered a bounty of €500 to any taxi driver who corrected one of their marketing team if they got into the car and asked to go the the Point.  They only handed out €3,000 in total but every taxi driver fulfilled their wishes because they never knew who it was in the back of the cab.  Smart!
1610 Gavin O’Doherty is giving perhaps the strongest presentation of the day in relation to the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.  Content including footage of Al Pacino and Michael Madsen helps but the suggestion on the psychology and philosophy behind why when and where a brand should sponsor is neatly frame. The four key take aways that the relationship between sponsor and brand has to be credible; you have to be able to clearly identify the shared values between the propoerty and the company; you have to bring passion and push the rights holder all the time; you have to plan every detail and then review what worked. Great things don’t just happen.
1515 Susie McCullough from NI Tourist Board says that UK Sport insists on sponsors being part of the bid for any major event and that New Zealand has protected rights of sponsors at mejor events in law. Lots of public money going into sport in NI in coming years. Exciting times.
1430 Spar’s groundbreaking product placement with RTE and Fair City. Interresting detail on how the two sides worked together in a sensitive environment.  How Spar’s strict store guidelines had to be adapted and how RTE’s initial fear of alienating the audience was overcome.
1330 Paddy Power sponsored a point kicking competition on the pitch. Five lucky players, not including me, and the winner was Tipperary marketing exec with Kraft, Shane Guest. Went then for 1 in 50 chance to win €25,000. Had to settle for €250 free bet instead. Good branding for PP and Airton sister company
1230 Paul Hession, Bernard Brogan, Hugh Cafferky and Niall Woods in the player panel. The added value of getting to know the sportat star as a person is massive. Bring in the marketing teams, have a chat, find out what works. Bernard spent years studying business. He looks on himself in terms of being a brand. Wants to work with partners that fit his life, his choices and the ethos of the GAA. Social media is a good measure. Engaging with fan base shows human side and makes the relationship so much richer.
1130 Stephen O’Leary is talking in the social media stream. It’s about conversation, not broadcast. Spot the opportunities to engage fans and build something from outside your plan.You can build real engagement which drops into the community conversations that brands have never been able to reach before. “you’ll never guess what Rabo did for me..
1030 Nathan Horner form Procterr and Gamble outlined how they are linking together corporate support of the Olympics with brand involvement in individuals.Sponsorship is done in order to sell products.The engagement has to make people love the brand. He also highlighted the importance of content being grabbed at every opportunity and made to world hard through al media. Marketing teams have had to change the waythey work, plan and think. Stronger together.
0950 Ray Kelly from Musgraves has spoken of the natural fit between The community ethos of Supervalu and Centra with the GAA. The measured value of Supervalu sponsorship was €2.7 million. The real importance though was in increasing brand scores on its monthly tracking surveys by 12 %. This produced real extra loyalty and more sales.
0925 Darragh Moloney gets things under way.  Sam Maguire and Liam McCarthy are at the back of the room which is always a good start.  The Irish sponsorship market is worth €120 million