Can you afford to just advertise a logo?

Here’s one… Imagine your creative agency coming into your offices to present their latest efforts at your brand TV campaign. They’ve been working on the brief for a few weeks, put the best agency talent on it and commissioned the best production teams in town to bring their vision to life… You’re excited, they’re excited. You sit in the viewing room as the account director awkwardly recaps the brief before clicking ‘play’...

It’s like putting your hand up in class but not saying anything when offered to do so. It’s pointless... 

The lights dim as your brand logo appears on screen; large, proud and slap bang in the middle… The anticipation builds, and builds, and builds, but nothing seems to be happening. Clients start wriggling in their seats, awkwardly wondering whether there’s something wrong. As they look around, they see the agency team all proudly watching on, excited to see what their clients think. Still nothing.… NOTHING. Silence. Logo on screen. Nothing else.

30 seconds later, the logo fades to dark as the lights illuminate the room. The faces of clearly disgruntled clients, shocked by what they’ve just witnessed, look to the account director. “Well” they say. “What do you think…?”

You don’t need me to complete this analogy (although I do love analogies) to know that the client was pissed and the account director was sent back to the agency, tail between legs. A brand ad with no message or proposition is not a brand ad. It is a waste of money.

So here’s the point of this Thursday Thought… If you have a sponsorship without any strategic approach or supporting activity, narrative or message, then you are literally advertising a logo…

Currently, too many brands locally and globally spend millions per year to advertise their logo through sponsorship, warm in the thought they are driving “brand awareness”. It’s crazy. If your ad agency presented a TV ad of your logo, you’d shoot them with a blunt spoon, so why are we doing it through sponsorships?

Let’s unpack this. I’m being particularly provocative with my assertion here, and am well aware of the power of logo attribution and association as a component of sponsorship. It’s a solid element of what’s on offer, but it cannot work alone. It can’t. We (the collective of agencies, experts, brands and rights holders) have to find ways to push beyond this passive use of the most priceless marketing opportunity available. Sure, your media valuation will look rosey, but…

Ask yourself this. “If we’re doing sponsorship for brand awareness, then what are we really needing to do? Dig deeper. I guarantee no brand needs brand awareness. Brand awareness in the modern era of attention deficit is a fallacy. Brands need more than just awareness. They need their audiences to know that they exist, what they provide and what that means to them as consumers to buy it; ergo a proposition…

Assume for a moment that your logo at the event got your audience's attention. Are you happy that you then say nothing? Of course you’re not. It’s like putting your hand up in class but not saying anything when offered to do so. It’s pointless.

The key to success here is thinking holistically about your opportunity. Think about life through your audience's lens. What matters to them? What are they doing before and after the event? What journey’s do they take to and from the event? How can I find relevant ways or places to exist in order to expand on the fact they may have ‘seen’ my logo at the event… I’m not suggesting you need to blurt it all out on your LED’s, but think about how to craft a connected narrative end-to-end.

To summarize: stop advertising logos alone. It’s lazy, wasteful and exacerbates the general belief that sponsorship doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work if all we do is slap a logo on it. Get creative. Get strategic. Think holistically. People care more about their passions than they do about the products they consume. When you sponsor something, you are given the privileged opportunity to exist in the moment, in culture and at points of heightened emotional engagement. Don’t squander it…