Also in this special report:
* Grand Prix: On the streets p.B4
* Greater Vancouver Open: Hot ticket p.B4
* East Coast Music Awards: A joyful celebration p.B6
* Abbotsford International Airshow: Clear skies p.B6
* Canadian National Exhibition: A place of firsts p.B8
* The Calgary Stampede: ‘The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth’ p.B8
* Canadian Music Week: Cool
* Chinese New Year Festival: Cultural showcase p.B10
As Strategy reported earlier this year, the passage of Bill C-71 in April effectively prohibits tobacco companies from taking title sponsor positions at live events in Canada after October 1998.
Since their ability to promote their wares through conventional media is highly restricted, tobacco companies have long been among the largest corporate sponsors of arts and sports events in this country.
If significant dollars from the tobacco industry are no longer available, then event organizers will find themselves competing ever more intensely for sponsorship revenues from new sources. Accordingly, they are going to have to become more aggressive, and show greater creativity when it comes to researching their prospective client base, positioning their events to the marketing community, tailoring those events to meet advertiser needs and creating sponsorship packages.
For this report, Strategy surveyed a representative sampling of major events across the country to find out how organizers ensure that their properties will appeal to sponsors, and how they identify and approach their client base.
The event is still two years away – but the marketers of the next Pan American Games have already been working for the last two years to line up sponsors.
The Games will take place in Winnipeg from July 24 to Aug. 8, 1999. The Pan Am ’99 Marketing Project, a joint venture of Connecticut-based Millennium Sports and First Event Sports & Sponsorship, a division of Vancouver-based Palmer Jarvis Communications, is marketing the Games on behalf of the Winnipeg-based Pan American Games Society.
Founded in 1951, this quadrennial event is staged the year prior to the Olympic Summer Games, and features all of the same sports that will be on the following year’s Olympic slate. The 1999 Games in Winnipeg will host approximately 6,500 athletes from 42 countries.
The Games operate under the auspices of the Pan American Sports Organization (paso) in Mexico City, a group recognized by the International Olympic Committee. This association with the Olympics means that there is, to some degree, already a qualified market for sponsorship of the event.
National sponsors of the Canadian Olympic Association and international sponsors of the Olympic movement are the first to be approached for Pan Am sponsorship, says Jack Vincent, head of Millennium Sports and managing partner of the Pan Am ’99 Marketing Project.
There are several tiers of involvement for Pan Am sponsors, from the partner level, which is in the several-million-dollar range, down through national sponsors, suppliers and supporters.
One of the primary benefits for sponsors, Vincent says, is the extensive broadcast coverage. The advertising inventory in and around the broadcast is owned and packaged by Pan Am ’99.
The Games will be broadcast each day for about five hours on cbc and tsn. An agreement with the Latin American broadcasting union, oti, guarantees prime-time coverage in all Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations of the Americas – a potential audience of 350 million. An agreement has also been signed with the Caribbean Broadcast Union, and a deal is close to being worked out for u.s. network and cable coverage.
In addition to tv and signage packages, Pan Am sponsors will get space in the Games program, and have their logos featured in the awareness campaign for the Games (‘Where the Americas Come to Play’) that is now underway.
The stage at the main entertainment area for the Games has been named for Royal Bank of Canada, and other naming opportunities are now being developed for interested sponsors.
Major companies to sign on so far include Manitoba Telephone System, Xerox Canada, Investors Group, Great West Life Assurance, Royal Bank of Canada, IBM Canada and Manitoba Public Insurance. Ford Motor Company of Canada recently came on board as an official sponsor, and has pledged to provide the 900 vehicles needed for the event.
Unlike some Canadian sporting and cultural events, Vincent says, the Pan Am Games will feel no effect from the ban on tobacco company sponsorship, since the statutes of paso prohibit any association of the Games with tobacco products.
