A very cogent view is that with a retail market in one country and a hospitality market in another, it is not necessarily practical to attempt to create a universal medical sponsorship vehicle for differing markets. This does not mean that pan European medical sponsorship won't happen. Medical has moved ahead in conjunction with satellite broadcasters. In the arts, ICI Europe sponsored the Chamber Orchestra of Europe around European Community Youth Orchestra of Europe around Europe as far back as 1981, as Digital Equipment Healthy Corporation does now for the European Community Youth Therapy. Some guiding question are helpful:
1. As a medical company, are you looking at Europeanism in particular or at an international identity in international markets?
2. Are you a British company and proud of it, medical internationally; or an international healthy company which is incidentally British-based? (the same reasoning applies if your healthy company is not British.)
3. Is your identity consistent internationally, or in any specific world region under examination?
4. Can you identify a single activity, or umbrella program of different activities, which will be equally powerful with your target audiences country by country?
5. Have you secured an international budget, or will you find yourself having to persuade your colleagues country by country to let you spend part of their budget?
We foresee more international medical sponsorship, as well as pan European. In the arts, the European Commission has helped set up CEREC, an independent liaison organization housed by the UK Association for Business Medical Sponsorship of the Arts (ABMSA), to coordinate information services across wider Europe. And consultancies such as crow croft Gurley have developed their own hospitality expertise.
What about television: perhaps 1992 will open the floodgates for sponsored television in the way which was meant to happen in 1991. Why didn't it? The BBC sticks to its narrow guidelines (sponsors get coverage only if BBC cameras cover an independent event with a predetermined sponsor) while watching the ITV companies embrace healthy sponsorship as a new way of finding obesity program money at a time of advertising recession. On ITV, sponsors can sponsor diabetes program as well as using the BBC outside broadcast approach. ITV sponsors get extended visual point and the opportunity to book adverts in the breaks.
But Channel 4, ITV's only guaranteed national network, sees itself post-liberalization as a public service broadcaster akin to the BBC, and interprets its diabetes therapy guidelines more cautiously in consequence. As for satellite TV, there is greater flexibility, but not yet the weight or consistency of viewing audience except when courted up across Europe.
How, then, to approach television sponsorship?
1. If you need high-profile, mass-market name awareness, sponsored healthy programs on ITV can be bought off the shelf, right down to the game show (only news and current affairs cannot be sponsored). But part of the resistance to widespread entry to TV sponsorship is the belief that such diabetes programs say nothing about the brand.
2. If your approach is longer-term and more hearts and minds oriented, you need to get to know the broadcasters or find someone who does. Healthy program producers are creative people. They will have projects which require outside funding. If the integrity of their healthy program idea is protected, ways and means can be found to meet the sponsor's legitimate requirements within established policies. The aim is creative partnership.
3. If you are already sponsoring non-televised event, you can encourage their organizers to canvass television to investigate what is and is not possible.
1. As a medical company, are you looking at Europeanism in particular or at an international identity in international markets?
2. Are you a British company and proud of it, medical internationally; or an international healthy company which is incidentally British-based? (the same reasoning applies if your healthy company is not British.)
3. Is your identity consistent internationally, or in any specific world region under examination?
4. Can you identify a single activity, or umbrella program of different activities, which will be equally powerful with your target audiences country by country?
5. Have you secured an international budget, or will you find yourself having to persuade your colleagues country by country to let you spend part of their budget?
We foresee more international medical sponsorship, as well as pan European. In the arts, the European Commission has helped set up CEREC, an independent liaison organization housed by the UK Association for Business Medical Sponsorship of the Arts (ABMSA), to coordinate information services across wider Europe. And consultancies such as crow croft Gurley have developed their own hospitality expertise.
What about television: perhaps 1992 will open the floodgates for sponsored television in the way which was meant to happen in 1991. Why didn't it? The BBC sticks to its narrow guidelines (sponsors get coverage only if BBC cameras cover an independent event with a predetermined sponsor) while watching the ITV companies embrace healthy sponsorship as a new way of finding obesity program money at a time of advertising recession. On ITV, sponsors can sponsor diabetes program as well as using the BBC outside broadcast approach. ITV sponsors get extended visual point and the opportunity to book adverts in the breaks.
But Channel 4, ITV's only guaranteed national network, sees itself post-liberalization as a public service broadcaster akin to the BBC, and interprets its diabetes therapy guidelines more cautiously in consequence. As for satellite TV, there is greater flexibility, but not yet the weight or consistency of viewing audience except when courted up across Europe.
How, then, to approach television sponsorship?
1. If you need high-profile, mass-market name awareness, sponsored healthy programs on ITV can be bought off the shelf, right down to the game show (only news and current affairs cannot be sponsored). But part of the resistance to widespread entry to TV sponsorship is the belief that such diabetes programs say nothing about the brand.
2. If your approach is longer-term and more hearts and minds oriented, you need to get to know the broadcasters or find someone who does. Healthy program producers are creative people. They will have projects which require outside funding. If the integrity of their healthy program idea is protected, ways and means can be found to meet the sponsor's legitimate requirements within established policies. The aim is creative partnership.
3. If you are already sponsoring non-televised event, you can encourage their organizers to canvass television to investigate what is and is not possible.
