Every brand has a proven tool to get noticed by its audience: Sponsorship

What does a brand need to do to stand out among all other brands? How can audiences become familiar enough with a brand to recognize it and associate it with specific products? And how can a brand be top of mind at the most critical moment — the moment of purchase?

Getting noticed is the starting point, the foundation of every successful commercial action — and today it is incredibly difficult. Attention is a rare commodity. People only grant it when there is a genuine underlying interest, and the conventional advertising machine ignores this completely. Traditional advertising addresses everyone, whether interested or not. I am quite sure you constantly come across people walking with their eyes glued to their phone screens, often having to step aside to avoid a collision.

Oblivious to what is happening around them, focused only on their device — constantly checking emails, the latest Facebook post, Instagram photos, a gossip site… while waiting for the train, the bus, or standing in the supermarket checkout queue.

And if they are not absorbed by their phone (where they are still continuously bombarded by unsolicited ads), they are hit by thousands of external stimuli: billboards, signs, radio commercials, text messages, emails, call center calls, and so on. Naturally, the audience “raises its defenses” and becomes almost impermeable to the messages directed at it.
Their alert level for certain products or services rises again when they actually need to buy them. If you want a new car and have your eye on a particular model, you start noticing many more of them on the road. If you want to change your hairstyle and are inspired by someone’s look, you will suddenly notice plenty of similar styles around you. Your radar switches on for what you need, when you need it — everything else is background noise.

It is easy to understand, then, that getting noticed is an exceptional feat — one that only the fortunate few with unlimited budgets can achieve using traditional media.

We have all become incredibly hard to reach: out of self-defense, to escape the relentless flood of ads that do not concern us and overwhelm us every day. We tune out completely until we actually need something — then we go to Google, find products, compare them, research prices and customer service reviews.

What should a company do to communicate with its audience? How can it cut through the crowd and rise above the background noise? With sponsorship — perhaps sports sponsorship, but not only.

Here is how sponsorships work

The concept is simple… like all things that work well.

You need to reverse the process, stop seeking attention and make yourself sought out instead… but how? BY BECOMING INTERESTING: sponsor a cultural initiative or a charitable cause, a sport or a team — that is how you earn the spontaneous attention of consumers without interrupting them.

You need to sponsor something or someone: a charity, a sport, music or culture that your target audience appreciates and, out of personal passion and interest, follows regardless of your involvement. Something or someone they like, that holds strong appeal for them. Something your target focuses on and engages with pleasure.

Obviously you cannot sponsor at random — you need to choose exactly what your target loves, because every sport is different and speaks to different audiences, just as any other medium does. The readers of the Financial Times are different from those of a local newspaper, just as the audiences of golf and sailing are certainly different from those of motocross.

The favorite rider’s bike, the beloved team’s jersey

Your brand must become an active part of the spectacle consumers have decided to watch, the cause they believe in and want to support — entering their world quietly, walking alongside them. In this way you will be appreciated in a non-intrusive manner and, over time, you will be valued and associated with their passion.

Because in a period in which we are offered everything at every moment, only what truly fascinates us matters — everything else is just noise.

Industry research confirms that consumer attention is one of the scarcest resources in contemporary marketing.