Article actual date: Mar 5, 2021

A Note on Event Sponsorship

Sponsorship can be best defined in economic and marketing terms as an exchange relationship involving payments made to events by external organisations or persons, for specific benefits provided by the events.
– Donald Getz, ‘Events Studies’

Event sponsorship has been utilised as a tool for monetisation and marketing for as long as we can remember. Perhaps to the general public, the word ‘sponsorship’ conjures images of multinational corporations — their logos embedded onto the center circles of sports stadiums and their slogans lighting up billboards in concert arenas.

The reasons for event sponsorship typically overlap across various industries, localities and clienteles. These include product differentiation, heightening visibility, driving sales, shaping consumer attitudes and increasing brand awareness.

The element of sponsorship cannot be detached from the core of Jublia’s involvement in the business-to-business (B2B) events industry. In fact, the Harvard Business Review reported that the most popular event type to sponsor is ‘Industry trade shows and conventions’, surpassing others such as ‘Music festivals’ and ‘Thought-leadership workshops’ [1]!

From our research, we have consolidated 5 bite-sized statistics showcasing the urgency of sponsorship attention on virtual and hybrid platforms:

• Wild Apricot, a management software service provider, reported that virtual event sponsorship was the second most popular form of revenue building amongst its membership organisations, only after admission fees [2].
• For those who plan on conducting virtual events in the near future, more than 50% intend to monetise through event sponsorship [3].
• According to EventMB, sponsorship stands as one of the top 3 obstacles faced by planners, only after engagement and insufficient tech knowledge [4].
• The event tech landscape of 2020 indicates that more than half of those who pivoted to virtual were unsuccessful in being profitable [5].
• Another worrying statistic from the report showed that 70% of event professionals fell short of recouping at least 25% of their annual revenue [6].

Elevate Your Sponsorship Game with Jublia’s One-Two Combo of Sponsorship Management and Sponsorship Ads

Here at Jublia, we are not only committed to providing the best virtual and hybrid experience for your event’s key stakeholders and general attendees — we also believe in delivering exceptional value to you, the event organiser.

We understand that generating revenue through sponsorship is a critical component of your portfolio and thus we have been keeping a keen eye on the ever-evolving challenges of monetisation.

Over the past few months, one of our top priorities has been to lighten the burden of monetisation for our partners. We are extremely thrilled to announce the release of our Sponsorship module which includes two features: Sponsorship Management and Sponsorship Ads.

Take Ownership of Your Sponsors with Sponsorship Management

Organisations vary in market size and financial capacity. As such, event organisers may offer different packages to accommodate their specific budgets and needs. This tier-based segmentation allows sponsors to differentiate themselves from their competitors and create an air of exclusivity around their brand. With our Sponsorship Tier system, organisers will not miss out on any monetisation opportunities.

Organisers can easily add multiple Sponsor Tiers and customise them in the Tier Settings where they can customise the Tier Name and Tier Colour. There’s even a colour picker provided to get your desired colour, right down to the exact hue, saturation and lightness!

How does this translate to what the viewers see? Simple — these sponsorship tiers will be reflected in the virtual lobby of your event based on priority. All entities, be it companies, people or products, will be upranked on the search results page accordingly. For instance if you have allocated 3 separate tiers (Gold, Silver, Bronze), Gold sponsors will be shown first, followed by Silver and then Bronze while other exhibitors and delegates will be shown below these sponsors.

Grab Their Attention with Sponsorship Ads

Jublia’s events typically draw an insanely high volume of traffic. For example, the Autumn Sourcing Week 2020 | ONLINE generated over 200,000 total match visits and over 1 million total profile views over the course of the event! With such tremendous figures, Ad Banners are a simple, effective way for your organisation to get noticed and maintain a consistent presence.

There are two types of ads available for you — the ‘Header Banner’ which appears on the top of every page on the Web App and the ‘In-Between Banner’ which appears after 7–9 profiles on the Web Apps’ People and Product listings.

As a bonus, we’ve compiled 3 empirical-based tips for you to maximise the potential of Sponsorship Ads:

• Remember, your banners don’t have to be static images! According to research, animated ads command extended attention and elicit greater excitement, thereby increasing Click-Through-Rates (CTR). Add a dynamic banner to stand out from the crowd and gain better engagement with your audience (Source).
• Avoid ‘Banner Blindness’! Research shows that a medium level of colour (not too light nor too dark) yields the highest CTR. Stay away from overly-striking shades and ensure that the words do not clash with the banner background (Source).
• Congruence plays a significant role in the effectiveness of ad banners. The higher the ad’s relevance to the event, the higher the credibility of your brand and organisation. (Source).

Virtual and Hybrid-focused Sponsorship

From building brand awareness to securing new customers, the benefits of event sponsorship transcend both online and offline. That said, the unique characteristics of each format type necessitates some rethinking in our approaches.

At Jublia, our work revolves around the key concept of maximising the potential of virtual and hybrid. Modern problems require modern solutions — your sponsorship strategy should be designed to leverage the existing digital space present in your virtual or hybrid event.

If you would like to learn more about our Sponsorship Management feature, simply reach out to us at info@jublia.com or get in touch with whoever you know from Jublia. We look forward to addressing your monetisation concerns with our latest solutions and technology.