Business Insight 56 – Sponsorship (blog & vlog)

In the meantime, we had decided to get into sponsorship of sport. As previously discussed, the double glazing industry had a deservedly bad reputation and seemed to always be the main (and always negative) feature on one or more consumer rights programmes.

Our in-house accountant at the time, Don Taylor, was a very keen golfer, and it was decided to approach The Professional Golf Association (PGA) to see what opportunities were available. Golf was seen as the perfect partner for us, as the sport and its participants had one of the key demographics that we were trying to reach, and in its own right had an impeccable reputation (which we hoped would rub off on our image and differentiate us from our competitors).

The Southern PGA Championships were available and a deal was struck for the sponsorship. It would cost £10,000, plus another £10,000 for the infrastructure of the tournament, tented village, spectator seating etc., plus a further £10,000 for marketing the event (including a television and press advertising campaign) – so that’s £30,000 in total.

The event was scheduled (with all the other regional events throughout the UK) for early September and the PGA guaranteed a good turnout of Ryder Cup (i.e. top) players to participate, along with all the other entrants coming from the ranks of professional golfers usually employed by individual golf clubs across our region. It was the main tournament of the year for those lower ranking pros, and gave them a chance to shine.

The PGA said they would arrange for a retired (but top) ex-Daily Telegraph golf reporter to handle the PR. Don Taylor confirmed that indeed he had been an avid reader of his articles for years; how lucky were we!

INSIGHT 56:- From this point up until we sold the business in 2006, some form of sponsorship or community activity was always part of our marketing mix – because it worked.

 

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