It’s not unusual for event marketers who represent corporate sponsors to find themselves kindly declining sponsorship offers as frequently as the special event planners who represent community event organizers hear such rejection.
What, then, convinces a company like Eli’s Cheesecake to participate as a festival sponsor at the Taste of Chicago since 1980 when the Taste was first organized? Or a wireless company like U.S. Cellular to invest significant marketing dollars to support the Taste as a title sponsor for several years in a row?
Every good cause can provide a compelling reason to attract corporate participation and investment for the various programs that they plan. The challenge faced by most event organizers is that corporate sponsors have a limited amount of time and resources to support the pitched requests.
Fortunately for special event planners of the Taste of Chicago, they are more frequently in a position to decline sponsorship requests than hearing rejections. That’s because the Taste is recognized for delivering awareness and financial benefits as part of the return on investment (ROI), their sponsors say.U.S. Cellular’s Perceptions of ROI for the Taste
“Our sponsorship guidelines require that we build a strong brand presence and create selling opportunities,” explains Kathy Volpi, regional director of marketing for U.S. Cellular, Evanston, IL (a suburb of Chicago). “There’s a fine line between sponsorship and corporate giving.”
With this in mind, U.S. Cellular’s sponsorship package includes a large tent that serves as the U.S. Cellular café, a space that includes two complete stores on-site at the Taste. In fact, 250 people within the U.S. Cellular organization (including area stores) volunteer their time to participate at the café; 42 volunteers are from the corporate headquarters.
Planning for the sponsorship begins in October, including details down to the level of premiums, coupons, customer food tickets, and more.
But what's critical to Volpi is that she follows up on the impact of its sponsorship to gather quantitative data by holding focus groups and phone interviews with those who attended the event. But that doesn't mean the qualitative perspective goes unnoticed. "Yes, we also receive a significant amount of buzz and feedback.”
Interestingly, Volpi mentions that U.S. Cellular sells a significant number of new sales contracts during the 10 days of the Taste. And although the sales don’t cover all expenses for the event, Volpi indicates that the awareness generated also reinforces sales in stores throughout the year.
To be sure, Volpi recognizes that the Taste offers U.S. Cellular a first class, premier event to invest her marketing dollars. “Chicago is our hometown and involvement is important.”
2007 was U.S. Cellular’s fifth year with the Taste. Other festivals sponsored by U.S. Cellular in Chicago include the Blues Fest and the Air/Water Show in the summer.
Eli’s Cheesecake’s Perceptions of ROI for the Taste
Marc Schulman, president of Eli’s, is in the enviable position of focusing on the qualitative impact of associating with the Taste because its product is loved so much by Chicagoans that the investment pays for itself.
“For us, it’s how we celebrate our birthday,” Schulman explains. “2007 is our 27th year in business and our 27th year with the event.”
At the Taste, Eli’s serves up more than 170,000 slices of pie each year.
Schulman attributes this success to community awareness that Eli’s is involved with the Taste. “We’re in this for the long term, the cumulative benefits of being involved over time. We have become well known by being involved with the Taste. That’s 27 years of goodwill.”
Schulman advises that sponsors should not be focused on sponsoring for only one or two years just to debut a product and then go away.
“You need to be involved for the long term. The benefits are not always formula based. A lot of times it’s relationship based. It’s being an active member of your community,” Schulman says.
While Schulman speaks subjectively about his sponsorship decision, that doesn’t mean that Eli’s doesn’t take a structured approach to its sponsorship. Planning is nearly a year long process.
“We have five team leaders who are running all the different components: booth operations, production in the bakery and scheduling, hospitality (customer event), cake (the big cake), logistics,” Schulman explains.
In fact, one Saturday at the Taste this year Eli’s had 130 people staffing its booth, and half of them were full time people at Eli’s.
Eli’s history with the city of Chicago actually started in 1940, when Eli Schulman (Marc’s father) opened his first restaurant, Eli’s The Place for Steak. And although the restaurants officially closed in 2005, the cheesecake remains famous.
