Author: Katie Cavanagh

How to Make an Impact through Social Media: Slingshot Sponsorship Partner with That Lot 16th October, 2013

Slingshot Sponsorship is delighted to announce a partnership with That Lot Creatives to provide a Bootcamp service on how to make an impact through social media. The Bootcamp aims to provide organisations with an insight into the sponsorship industry with a focus upon developing sponsorship proposals and approaching and securing sponsorship. Over the past three years, Slingshot Sponsorship has developed the Bootcampto become a highly tailored service suited to all organisations.

Jackie Fast, Managing Director, Slingshot Sponsorship stated: “We have successfully delivered tailored Bootcamps for over 50 organisations. The success of the Bootcamp has been through Slingshot’s insight into the development of the sponsorship industry and it felt like a natural progression to advance the offering into the digital sphere. Social Media has become an ever increasingly important tool and we are thrilled to be working with That Lot to develop an astute Bootcamp for future clients.”

That Lot is a new social media agency, headed by writer, comedian and Twitter obsessive David Schneider (150,000 followers and counting) and the UK’s foremost professional tweeter, David Levin (@BBCApprentice and @BBCTheVoiceUK).

David Schneider commented: “David Levin and I have worked closely with Slingshot to create informative, enjoyable workshops that give individuals and companies the tools to really cut through online platforms. We want to make sure that people leave our course inspired and able to tweet and post with impact and humour.”

The courses form part of the Bootcamp offering from Slingshot and can either be added to the current Sponsorship Bootcamp or provided on a standalone basis.

David added: “I’m a bit of a Twitter evangelist, keen to spread the word about how to do Twitter better. Working with Slingshot is a great fit for us. I’m not saying that, together with them, we’ll turn every company or individual Twitter feed into @OscarWilde, but we’re confident we can help people grow their influence online enormously.”

Opportunities for the Social Media Bootcamp are currently available.

The Age of the Guerilla Marketing Campaign is Upon Us 18th September, 2013

A Slingshot favourite, Arcade Fire (yes, they are of Canadian origin – and yes, we are reminded of this each time they grace the office speakers – our MD’s Canadian) recently embarked upon a marketing campaign of epic proportions to promote their fourth studio album, Reflektor. For the past month or so, music blogs alike have been roused by the appearance of guerilla graffiti across the streets of the United States. For months, bloggers questioned the ownership of these cryptic symbols; fans were handed out at both Lollapalooza and FYF Festival emblazoned with the symbols and sightings began to spring up across Europe and through various social media channels. All of this, for an album release.

Gone are the days, it seems, of albums being released through traditional marketing campaigns – billboards being hung weeks prior to the release date and artists trudging around one radio station after another. Of course, these channels are still very much a part of the routine, but it seems that the advance of digital and social technology has disrupted the traditional model – opening a plethora of opportunity for those musicians with a unique vision, or ones (ahem, Katy Perry) that wish to wow with extravagance.

In light of the influx of guerilla and viral marketing campaigns, I have decided to put together my top 3.

The xx – Coexist

In poll position – For the release of their follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘xx,’ The xx embarked upon a marketing campaign that embodied so perfectly the power of word of mouth in the digital age. On 3rd September 2012, The xx gave one fan the location of a website which hosted a preview of the album Coexist. The Coexist streaming site featured a map tracking shares as they occurred with a beautiful visualisation, inspired by Aaron Koblin’s flight patterns. Just twenty-four hours after the stream was shared with a single fan on Facebook, the site crashed from the millions of streams, with the average user spending 2.1 hours on the site and what is more, you were able to see all of this unfold from your computer screen.

Nine Inch Nails – The Year Zero

Fans of Nine Inch Nails had been eagerly awaiting the release of the band’s new album; after examining one of their tour t-shirts fans realised thathighlighted letters from the shirt spelled out the phrase ‘I am trying to believe.’ As it turned out, this was a website filled with cryptic messaging. As fans began to delve deeper into the digital sphere, more and more clues began to emerge, phone numbers were uncovered within tracks and when called, fictional characters answered; flash drives containing the complete album were left in public toilets and Google Maps was utilised to award fans with free tickets and NIN memorabilia. NIN’s marketing campaign brought back the excitement of discovering music, making it all the sweeter.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Not necessarily as show-stopping as the two previous examples, but the release of Radiohead’s seventh album, In Rainbows, wholly shook up a very stagnant music industry. Never one to shy away from controversy, Thom Yorke et al decided to dispel the on-going issue of illegal downloading and released their album directly to fans, with an offer; wait for it… to pay whatever they wanted. With 3 million downloads in the first year and $10 million in revenue, In Rainbows swiftly became the band’s most successful commercial success to date. What is most significant about this marketing campaign is that it restored faith within the music fan – emphasising that fans really are still willing to pay.

Slingshot Sponsorship Nominated for 4 Categories at the Corporate Engagement Awards 2013 20th August, 2013

Slingshot Sponsorship has been shortlisted for four categories at the Corporate Engagement Awards 2013 for the agencies’ work with the What Car? Awards, Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions and Digital Unite’s Spring Online. This is the third consecutive year that Slingshot Sponsorship has been recognised at the Corporate Engagement Awards for its work within the industry.

With twenty-one categories in total, the awards are judged specifically upon strategy, execution and outcome. Slingshot has been shortlisted for Best Alignment to Brand Values through partnership or Collaboration (Digital Unite’s Spring Online & Carphone Warehouse), Best Collaboration for a Single Event (Little Noise Sessions), Best Collaborative Approach (What Car?) and Best Combined Partnership (Little Noise Sessions).

Managing Director Jackie Fast commented, “The Corporate Engagement Awards is the bench mark event for best practice in corporate sponsorship. Our nominations are testament to the innovative approach Slingshot takes with each of its clients and the platforms we have the opportunity to work alongside.’

The event is to take place on Thursday 26^th September at the Hotel Russell in Central London.

Slingshot Sponsorship’s Jackie Fast Shortlisted for Rising Star Award at Media Week Awards 2013 26th July, 2013

Slingshot Sponsorship’s Managing Director, Jackie Fast has been shortlisted for the Rising Star Award at this year’s Media Week Awards. Since founding Slingshot Sponsorship, Jackie has been at the forefront of young talent emerging from the sponsorship industry. Having only launched Slingshot Sponsorship three years ago, Jackie’s nomination for Media Weeks’ Rising Star Award is testament to her hard work and the influence she has had upon the industry.

Media Week’s Rising Star Award recognises young professionals working within agencies and media owners who are making a significant impact within their organisation and sector. The award seeks to honour and celebrate excellence within the media industry.

Jackie stated: ‘I am delighted to be shortlisted for Media Week’s Rising Star Award. Slingshot Sponsorship has a drive to building greater awareness of sponsorship’s value within other industries and this recognition is one small step towards that goal.’

This year’s event will take place at Grosvenor House on 24^th October, 2013.

Secret Cinema: The Changing Nature of the Live Experience 10th July, 2013

Last month, I was fortunate enough to get tickets for the first night of Laura Marling’s eagerly anticipated ‘immersive live music experience.’ For their most recent venture, the magical minds behind Secret Cinema – ‘a growing community of all that love cinema, and experiencing the unknown’ has teamed up with Miss Marling to launch Secret Music, alongside the release of her album ‘Once I Was an Eagle.’

Through their relatively short existence, Secret Cinema has grown a fan base of epic proportions and, if my experience last month was anything to go by, I can understand why. Secret Cinema has an innate ability to transport attendees into a different world, delivering first class events based upon a truly unique model, which in my opinion, is beginning to alter the future of the live experience.

After purchasing my ticket for the event, I received an invitation dated 1927, a dress code of Vintage Black Tie and a list of required objects that ranged from a bouquet of flowers for the mistress of the house, a photograph of an ex-lover and a satchel filled with unwanted clothes. The venue for the evening was the ‘Grand Eagle Hotel’ an old school that was filled with butlers awaiting your arrival, giggling maids, croquet on the front lawn, a smoking room with women lazing on chaise lounges watching gentlemen play chess and pool, rooms named after Marling’s songs filled with film projections, wild leaves and tree trunks. Actors milled in and out between guests playing out narratives and creating whispers of secret happenings – and then, of course, a beautiful set from Marling herself.

Yet aside from the immense production throughout the evening, one thing stood out for me, the complete absence of camera phones. Upon arrival, each guest was politely asked to hand over all technology, which meant the entire evening was void of irritating flash and smartphone screens shining on your face, everyone was there simply, for the experience – and it was wonderful.

The banning of camera phones has begun to be implemented at more and more gigs, with bands such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Savages championing their absence – requesting that guests fully immerse themselves in the live experience.

From a sponsorship point of view, this is an interesting occurrence. At its core, sponsorship is about engaging with audiences, and enhancing the overall experience of events – and in many instances low budget filming disconnects attendees from this. What is more, in many cases, videos popping up around YouTube ruins it for all those with tickets eagerly awaiting the event.

The ban of camera phones at events also allows rights holder/artist to use video content and photos in an interesting and unique way, delivering it to the attendee as a kind of gift. As you can see below, each evening, the Secret Music team take a photograph of the audience and post in on their Facebook the following day for attendees to enjoy. Alt-J have also championed this with the creation of a new piece of technology called Soundhalo which delivers an entire live set for download immediately after it is performed.

For sponsors, having ownership of such precious memories allows them to communicate this back to event attendees, allowing the brand-consumer journey to continue further than the event itself.

I was well and truly immersed into another world for the Marling-Secret Music venture and I welcome more of these experiences in the future.

Slingshot Sponsorship to Deliver ‘Team Boris’ for the Mayor’s Charities at Prudential Ride London 2013 9th July, 2013

Slingshot Sponsorship has been announced as the representative agency for Team Boris raising funding for the Mayor’s Charities for this year’s Prudential Ride London which is taking place across the city during the 3^rd-4^th August 2013.

Throughout the Prudential RideLondon campaign, Slingshot Sponsorship will be co-ordinating ‘Team Boris’ – a London-wide campaign to promote the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s involvement with Ride London, on behalf of his charities that aim to support London’s future. Slingshot Sponsorship will be creating, developing and co-ordinating the Team Boris campaign with the objective of securing funding and support for the Mayor’s charities.

Developed by the Mayor of London and his agencies, Prudential RideLondon promises to be a world-class festival of cycling set in the beautiful backdrop of the capital city. The unique event combines fun and accessible elements of a free family ride in central London with the excitement of watching the world’s best professional cyclist’s race in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic and Prudential RideLondon Grand Prix. Amateur cyclists will also participate in the Prudential Ride London-Surrey 100 to raise money for the Mayor’s Fund for London, The Legacy List and the Mayor of London’s Fund for Young Musicians.

Jackie Fast, Managing Director, Slingshot Sponsorship expressed ‘We are honoured to be tasked with the development and co-ordination of ‘Team Boris.’ Being based in London, it is sometimes hard to believe the extent of poverty that exists throughout the capital, the Mayor’s charities are engaging in some truly inspiring work and we are excited to explore exciting opportunities around Prudential Ride London to assist this cause.’

The Mayor’s Charities run a range of projects that will create 500 apprenticeships and other employment opportunities for local young people; deliver 3,000 much-needed music grants to inspire young Londoners; provide 5,000 free breakfasts to hungry school kids; supply 400 reading volunteers to help children who are struggling and inspired over 3,000 school children with creative education projects connected to the Olympic Park – as well as supporting the capital’s most innovative arts organisations. These schemes ensure young Londoners achieve their full potential life, education, arts and music.

Please visit www.teamborislondon.com for more information and follow @TeamBorisLondon on Twitter for updates.

Driving the Future of the Sponsorship Industry – ESA Appoints one of its Youngest ever Board Directors 29th May, 2013

Jackie Fast, Managing Director, Slingshot Sponsorship, was announced this morning as one of the youngest ever individuals to be elected as a Board Director of the European Sponsorship Association. Jackie will now sit alongside fourteen other Directors; setting the standard for the sponsorship industry for coming years.

In the wake of the success of this year’s ESA Sponsorship Summit, which addressed significant shifts within the industry, ESA is set to further develop itself alongside its new Board Directors. Jackie’s appointment highlights ESA’s continued drive to enhance the industry – seeking to challenge the ethos and make significant contribition to its progression.

ESA was formed ten years ago with the premise to unify, strengthen and advance the business of sponsorship throughout Europe. The industry itself, once predominantly focused upon sport and large corporates, has profoundly shifted in this time. The body’s appointment of Jackie Fast to the Board conveys its recognition of the changing market, and the need for the industry to adapt with it – further promoting its role to inspire and innovate.

With the sponsorship industry worth €26.5 billion, the European Sponsorship Association will have a vital role in its growth and development into the future. The key issues identified by ESA include:

Proving Sponsorship’s Business Value
Providing value to members
Creating stronger links with brands and rights holders
Technology – the way in which sponsorship can best icnorporate its benefits
Thought-leadership

Jackie commented, “It is an honour to have been elected to the Board of ESA. I have admired ESA as an organisation since its creation; to have the opportunity to develop and contribute to its decision making process is a humbling prospect for me. I am looking forward to really developing ESA into a body that is not only vital and leading the entire sponsorship industry, but reflective and influential in the marketing industry.”

At the age of only 29, Jackie is forging a path for aspiring young sponsorship professionals to follow.

Lessons the Sponsorship Industry should Learn from Kickstarter 15th May, 2013

Continuing from Jackie’s most recent blog, which expressed the inherent need for an understanding of sponsorship in every industry, I wanted to lead this blog in a similar vein. The past couple of weeks have seen the re-emergence of the platform Kickstarter into the blogosphere – a crowd-funding site that offers entrepreneurs, film-makers, artists, techies etc. a platform through which they can raise funding for specific ideas and projects.

Until a few weeks ago, many were unaware of Kickstarter until Mr Zach Braff (of Garden State and Scrubs fame) launched a campaign on the website to generate funding for his new movie ‘Wish I Was Here’ a kind-of-but-not-really sequel to Garden State – find his campaign video here. Through the website, and by the click of a button, anyone is able to become an investor in Braff’s film. What is more, those willing to sponsor are offered some pretty hefty benefits – ranging from larger investors being treated to a character in the film being named after them, to escorting Braff as one of his personal guests to the premier and after party – not bad.

Within only 3 days, Braff’s target of $2 million was smashed. Of course this was due, to a large extent, to Braff’s extensive networks (1,099,497 Twitter followers) and celebrity pals who helped him reach this goal. Yet despite the project’s success, Braff’s use of the site has come under immense scrutiny, with many citing this project to be one of (soon to be many) Hollywood overhauls on the website – which they believe will overshadow projects that really need to use the site to create contacts and source funding.

Despite the Hollywood backlash, the success Braff has gained through Kickstarter and the buzz his project has generated; has led me to identify 3 things the sponsorship industry should take away from this case study:

1) It is imperative to tap into passions – Sponsorship should always be about tapping into people’s interests and passions. As a marketing tool; the brands and rights-holders that have the most success, are the ones that really connect with what the consumer wants and understand what it is they need. Braff was able to build on the cult success of Garden State and use the affinity his fans have towards the film to help fund a new project, giving fans the opportunity to join him in the films journey.

2) Not just about the idea – Despite the success of Braff’s Kickstarter campaign, an overwhelming majority of Kickstarter projects lead to failure. As Michael C. Neel’s research shows, the campaigns that are the most successful are the ones that are able to promote and leverage networks, exercise connections and generate as much buzz as possible around the project. In essence, this is similar to sponsorship – those that are deemed ‘successful’ are the ones that are able to utilise every aspect of the relationship at hand – not just rely on the basic sponsorship or ‘idea’ itself.

3) Corporates should learn from crowd-funding – Some of the best ideas and projects gain fruition from smaller, grass-root platforms like Kickstarter; and it is important that these projects are able to gain funding. Sponsorship should be accessible and understood by all; not just large corporates – the funding of such projects will in turn help generate an already stagnant economy. Websites such as Kickstarter also offer first-hand insight into projects that are succeeding and those that are failing – offering corporates in real time, trends within specific industries.

Despite the criticism surrounding Braff’s use of Kickstarter, the re-emergence of the platform has emphasised once again, the need and capacity for sponsorship in all industries whether big or small.

Slingshot Sponsorship host workshop at Debut Contemporary 7th May, 2013

Slingshot’s Managing Director, Jackie Fast, appeared at Debut Contemporary last week to host a sponsorship workshop with emerging artists.

Debut Contemporary is an innovative platform aimed at talented and eager artists who wish to turn their art practice into a successful career and a viable business. Debut is the only professional development and career empowerment platform of its kind in the UK. Artists on the Debut Contemporary benefit from a wealth of opportunities including weekly workshops, access to a network of collectors, one on one mentoring sessions and the opportunity to exhibit at high profile events and gallery spaces.

Debut Contemporary ‘s key role is to assist artists who wish to make a career out of their talent. The economic recession and rising unemployment has been incredibly tough on those working within creative spheres. Debut Contemporary’s mission has been to overcome these challenges and give rising talent the chance to shine and get necessary exposure within the right networks. The platform offers individuals the opportunity to gain first hand insights and for others to pass on industry knowledge with the aim to increase a success rate of artists in the business – enabling them to live off their work and make some serious financial gains in the process.

Jackie volunteered to share her expertise in the field of sponsorship with the hope to encourage Debut artists to recognise its value. The workshop focused on a step-by-step guide to creating a sponsorship proposition and offered first-hand accounts of sponsorship in art.

Jackie stated ‘it was an honour to have the opportunity to host a workshop for so many talented artists. The recession has been tough on the arts, and sponsorship is the perfect solution for many of those struggling to make ends meet. It was great to host an interactive workshop with Debut Contemporary and I hope it was an insightful day for all those that attended.’

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