Now more than ever, organisations need to think more creatively about how they can link their sponsorship proposition to the bottom line through the performance of their people. Lane4 has worked with a number of Olympic and other global sporting sponsors to drive employee engagement and thus performance through their sponsorship. We recommend a two pronged approach: Building the Strategy and Making it Come Alive.
Building the Strategy In this economic environment, every penny of sponsorship money is scrutinised by the board, the media and the employees. Some may be wondering 'What a waste of money, what have we got to do with the Olympics?'
Communicate why! It is critical to describe to the organisation why the deal has been done, and how it relates to the business strategy, particularly for those employees who are not sporty. Sounds simple, but this is easily overlooked.
Understand where to focus on people Make sure you have a clear understanding of the purpose of the sponsorship internally. What are the internal challenges this sponsorship will overcome? It is then possible to evaluate the potential return on investment. In our experience with large-scale and international sponsorship this more often than not results in eight figure sums valuations. This knowledge is critical in deciding how much to bid for the sponsorship initially, and then where to focus the organisation's effort.
Making it Come Alive
Vision and Values One way to ensure that your sponsorship feels authentic is to 'match' organisational vision and values to those of the sponsored event in a very deliberate and strategic way.
Sponsorship is a uniquely powerful opportunity to embed performance orientated values (for example, Olympic values such as excellence, team work, striving). Such values are highly tangible, evocative and apolitical in that they project and promote an unbiased set of beliefs and goals. The coupling of 'Olympic' with a firm's values and goals ensures that employees can leave aside pre-existing prejudices and agendas and take ownership irrespective of seniority or function.
Engaging the workplace You can also build a great place to work by bringing your sponsorship alive in the workplace. Your employees can live and breathe the sponsorship with campaigns such as
Staff ambassador programmes to drive understanding of why the sponsorship is happening - and being able to clearly communicate this to customers
Health and nutrition advice for employees to reduce illness and improve concentration levels
Creating a performance mindset Olympic sponsorship can provide a powerful mindset and context for talking about performance. It grants a common language for all individuals within a team or organisation, whether this is communicated verbally, online or even on meeting room walls Goal setting The organisation can adopt an Olympic inspired goal setting process - pulled directly from Olympic athletes. Breaking down an important long-term goal into achievable daily goals ensures that each small success builds towards the 'gold medal' performance.
Talent development Attract, retain and uncover talent by developing 'corporate athlete' programmes. These programmes can realise potential by bringing your talent closer to the world of elite performance. Use exclusive rewards and activities to recognise high performance and key behaviours- explore themed experiences e.g. 'A day in the life of an elite rower' - to incentivise your top talent.
Whatever you do, look beyond the tired clichéd activities to really inspire and motivate your employees to achieve their personal best performances.
Matt Rogan is commercial director and Mark Richardson is senior consultant at Lane4
