Fixing 40The International Olympic Committee is contemplating relaxing Rule 40’s ban on non-Olympic sponsorship during Olympic Games.The InTeRnaTIOnal OlympIC Committee (IOC) has indicated its willingness to relax Rule 40 and amend Rule 50 following a march executive board meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Both rules directly impact athlete sponsorships in the weeks surrounding the Olympic Games.

Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter states that: “except as permitted by the IOC executive Board, no competi-tor, coach, trainer or official who participates in the Olympic Games may allow his person, name, picture or sports performances to be used for advertising purposes during the Olympic Games.”

Under the proposal, the IOC would allow generic, non-Olympic advertising during the Games.

Changes to Rule 50 would “increase the maximum size of a manufacturer’s identification while respect-ing the clean field of play to prevent conspicuous advertising.”

Both proposals must be approved at the July IOC session in Kuala lumpur to take effect.

Rule 40 was particularly unpopular with athletes representing several countries who organized a Twitter campaign during the 2012 london Olympics, using the hashtag “WeDemandChange2012.” among athlete concerns: a lack of freedom to engage in so-cial networking on behalf of sponsors during the Games; and a strangling of potential long-tem deals with non-Olympic sponsors that might potentially run afoul of Rule 40.

Supporters of the existing Rule 40 argue that ath-letes have far more to gain by granting exclusivity to Olympic sponsors just before and during the Games than they would by broadening opportunities for non-Olympic sponsors.

Relaxing the restrictions of Rule 40 is a positive step forward for athletes, says Connie deBoer, presi-dent of action Sports management in north Vancou-ver, an agency specializing in both sports sponsorship and placements of athletes in film, commercials, tele-vision and print media.

“I’m in favour of anything that helps to secure more sponsorship dollars for athletes,” she says. “many of the Olympic athletes I’ve worked with are really

stretching themselves to keep sponsors happy, but as the event approaches, that becomes more and more difficult. It’s especially important to give the athletes that substantial cash injection they need early on so that they can focus their energies on their sport in the crucial days and weeks before the Games.”

The agency often places athletes in commercials, some because they’re recognizable athletes and oth-ers simply because the role requires an athletic type – a skier, snowboarder or rower, for example.

“The question currently arises as to whether the commercial will be seen as sponsorship that conflicts

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“If you took Rule 40 at its word, you’d have to pull every video game featuring the likeness of an nBa player from the market while they’re competing in the Olympics.”

VoLUMe

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apRIl 2015

pan Am organizers want enthusiastic support, but not ambush One Of The leSSOnS of the 2010 Winter Olympics is that the best defence is a good offence. In the year leading up to the Vancouver Games, the commercial rights protection team hit the road, pop-ping up at marketing conferences and in major corporate board-rooms with detailed guidelines that attempted to draw a solid line between enthusiastic support and ambush. It did not silence the cries of ambush as the Games drew nearer. Those intent on gaining maximum leverage from the Games (without paying the rights fee) knew where the line was drawn, and several balanced themselves right on it. But when weighed against past and subsequent Olympic Games, the effort of Games organizers appears to have paid off.

Organizers of the Toronto 2015 pan am and parapan am Games hope to be able to say the same thing once the final curtain falls this summer.

“We truly do value the investments that our partners have made in the staging of the games,” says Chris Doyle, manager of Com-mercial Rights management at the 2015 pan am and parapan am Games, “and part of their investment includes commercial rights protection, so were are constantly monitoring the marketplace to ensure those rights are protected.”

major events, particularly those enjoying a large dose of pub-lic funding, must always reconcile two competing pressures: build enthusiasm among the public, who are cutting one cheque, while protecting the commercial rights of partners, who are cutting an-other cheque.

most commercial infringement comes from companies that want to support the games but don’t know where the infringement line is drawn, says Doyle. his group hopes to have made that clear, or clearer, with the December 2014 publication of a guideline that is available on the 2015 pan am games website (http://images.to-ronto2015.org/system/asset_pdfs/2544/original/public-and-busi-ness-community-guidelines.pdf)

[CAUSES]

Jayman walks the talkResidential home builder Jayman Built, a supporter of the mS Society in various capacities for over a decade, is the new title sponsor of all mS Walks in alberta, now known as the Jayman built mS Walk. according to the mS Society, the partnership will allow it to increase it commitment to mS research.Three generations of the Westman family, founders of Jayman Built, have been impacted by neurological or autoimmune disorders as well as friends and family of many Jayman team members.This sponsorship builds on Jayman’s existing partnership with the mS So-ciety. In October, Jayman announced hitting hard for mS, an initiative that sees Jayman donating $100 for every regular season hit the edmonton Oilers and Calgary flames make this year. To date, hitting hard for mS has raised over $175,800 in support of the mS Society.Contact: Careen Chrusch, Jayman Built, cchrusch@jayman.com.

[ENTERTAINMENT]

Keeping watch on Big BrotherBig Brother Canada launched its third season on march 23 with a slate of returning and new sponsors.Back this season are The Brick and Twistos. The Brick is the Big Brother house’s official furniture provider and contributes a $25,000 gift card to the competition’s grand prize. new sponsors include OxiClean laundry Detergent, shomi, KfC, Ramada and pizza pizza. all sponsors are tightly integrated into the broadcast and activate through extensions outside the broadcast. The program airs during prime time on Global on mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays.

[SPORTS]

pan ams sign up a few moreMaytag Canada is the Official Appliance and Athlete Laundry Services Sup-plier for the 2015 pan am and parapan am Games in Toronto. maytag will equip all athlete residences in the CIBC pan am/parapan am athletes’ Vil-lage with laundry rooms, amounting to over 400 washers and dryers.ports Toronto has signed as a games supporter, providing a combination of financial support and value in kind through its watercraft, equipment, infrastructure and personnel.Porter Airlines, which was announced in December 2014 as the games’ offi-cial airline, unveiled one of two Bombardier Q400 aircraft featuring Toronto 2015 sport pictograms. The pictograms combine to create a pattern that represents the TOROnTO 2015 Games motto “United We play.”

[SPORTS]

Women’s World Cup (finally) signs anotherThe surprisingly thin ranks of national sponsors of this summer’s fIfa Women’s World Cup got a bit thicker with the recent announcement of Trend micro as a national supporter. Trend micro joins Bell and labatt, bringing World Cup organizers halfway to their goal of six national partners for the summer 2015 tournament.Trend micro is a US-headquartered IT security company. according to a fIfa release, Trend micro will leverage its sponsorship to raise awareness about the company, as well as its mission to the make the world safe for exchanging digital information.

W h A t ’ S h A p p e N i N g

Where crowds gather, ambush marketers follow. Organizers of the 2015 pan am/parapan am Games will be ready.

2 The SpOnSORShIp RepORT apRIl 2015

The guideline states its purpose as to “provide the general public and business community with information on how to show their support for the TOROnTO 2015 Games without infringing on the rights of the TOROnTO 2015 pan am/parapan am Games Organiz-ing Committee (TO2015) or its Official Partners.”

The guideline provides examples of rights infringement, and also examples of how companies can engage with the excitement of the games without receiving a phone call from Doyle and his team. Doyle says he has also reached out to the corporate community.

“I consistently meet with our commercial partners, our municipal partners, our government partners and other third parties to edu-cate the marketplace on the guidelines,” says Doyle.

Organizations that cross the line should expect to receive a phone call from Doyle. “I would take a friendly, educational approach.” So far, most infringements appear to be the innocent products of en-thusiasm. “most entities will agree to remove in infringing content,” he says, and in only a few instances has he had to draw upon the pan am games’ legal department.

“I think most people aren’t really attempting to ambush us at this point,” says Doyle. “We’re not seeing major category infringements from major blue-chip companies. perhaps that’s a legacy from Van-couver and the work that they did.”

Infringements are also happening mostly online, says Doyle. To date, his team has had to address about 70 instances of infringe-ment, and websites and social content are accounting for approxi-mately 60% of the action.

major public events leading up to the games have attracted street teams, he says, and his team has worked to shut them down. he expects more of that during the games themselves. The land-scape of the many games venues has been assessed and Doyle feels he has a good handle on likely spots for ground-level ambush. If street teams show up, he promises he’ll be ready. n

take part in the Canadian Sponsorship Landscape StudyIn faCT, consider it your civic duty as a member of the Canadian sponsorship community.

The Canadian Sponsorship landscape Study (CSlS) is the indus-try’s barometer. It is a measure of its health and its direction, and its accuracy depends on the participation of Canadian sponsors, prop-erties and agencies.

let’s not forget that in the days before the CSlS, marketers relied on the familiar shorthand of dividing US numbers by 10. What the CSlS has clearly revealed is that the Canadian market is a unique place, and that the “10% rule” had many of us chasing our tails.

The survey is online, available in english and in french, and completely anonymous and secure. The study continues under the leadership of norm O’Reilly, now the Richard p. & Joan S. fox profes-sor of Business at Ohio University, in partnership with the Canadian Sponsorship forum and ImI International.

all participants will be entered into a draw for a free pass to the Canadian Sponsorship forum in edmonton June 4 to 6. and, of course, participants will receive a copy of the study’s results.

access the survey online at www.sponsorshiplandscape.ca (eng-lish) or www.sondagecommandite.ca (en français). n

Rule 40> COnTInUeD fROm paGe 1with Rule 40 if it plays months later, during the Olympics,” she says. “a gold medal Olympian might do a car commercial as a recognized Olympic athlete, but others might be cast simply because they can fill the part of a high-level skier. At the point where the commercial is filmed, they may not even know whether they’ve qualified for the Canadian Olympic team or not. They may not even be recognizable to audiences as themselves when they shoot the footage, but if they happen to perform well or to win an Olympic medal, that commer-cial might fall under the scrutiny of Rule 40.”

Just how much difference a relaxation of Rule 40 will make to athletes depends on the exact wording of any changes, and how each country’s Olympic committee chooses to enforce it.

“These are big unknowns at this point and reasonability is the key to make sure that any changes are positive ones,” says Dan Cimo-roni, CeO of Toronto-based Cimoroni & Company, a client services and content provider specializing in sports. “If there’s too much grey area or the wording is way too subjective, then the subjectivity of enforcing the rule from individual to individual will also come into play. for example, if a sponsor runs an Olympic-themed sponsorship with an athlete throughout the year, then flips to something more generic only during the few embargoed weeks covered by rule 40, will that comply with the new rules?”

Cimoroni also notes that punishments for thwarting Rule 40 fall exclusively on athletes who have almost no leverage in quashing a sponsorship activation that may be perceived as an ambush.

“I can certainly say that it would be extremely cumbersome for an athlete competing in the Games to try to get something pulled once it’s in the market,” he says.

Cimoroni previously served as Senior Vice-president of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast media Consortium during Vancouver 2010 and the london 2012 Summer Olympics.

“from that experience, I would hope that there would be a re-gional filter for Rule 40 with a slightly altered set of rules within the host country,” he says. “The Olympic committee in each country will have a different model of delivery ranging up to an incredibly so-phisticated marketing and activation plan. During the Games when the volume and pace of sponsorship activation is so massive, the host will require some flexibility.”

Taking a reasonable approach to Rule 40 is the key its success as an enforcement tool, says Bill Cooper, Chief Operating Officer of sports sponsorship agency TORQUE Strategies with offices in Vancouver and Toronto, and former Director of Commercial Rights management for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics.

“In some regards, Rule 40 is almost unenforceable,” he says. “The only stick you have is the unsavoury action of taking away an athlete’s accreditation and disqualifying them from the Games. You don’t want to contemplate the PR ramifications of taking that step against what you’re trying to achieve. If you took Rule 40 at its word, you’d have to pull every video game featuring the likeness of an nBa player from the market while they’re competing in the Olympics.”

Cooper notes that enforcement during the 2010 Games was fil-tered through consistent criteria designed to weed out only cam-paigns that were malicious in both nature and intent.

“We had already created athlete guidelines that allowed long-

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standing campaigns featuring an athlete’s likeness during the Games window, provided the creative did not build an unauthor-ized association with the Olympic brand and the campaign wasn’t significantly altered or escalated within the Olympic Games window,” he says. “We had a very high resolution rate without turning to legal means. you don’t want to drive a wedge between the athlete and the sponsor.”

The ideal scenario for a relaxed Rule 40 would mirror the Ca-nadian approach, he says, balancing the rights of the Games, the Olympic sponsors and the athletes: “By allowing each party to tell the story they’re entitled to tell, you won’t cannibalize each other.”

The proposed changes to Rule 50 are less specific, but may ad-dress variations in the size of manufacturer logos between sports products.

“Snowboards, for example, have always featured larger manu-facturer logos off the rack and there’s always been a tolerance for that,” says Cooper. “Changes to Rule 50 may create more of an equal playing field for all sporting goods manufacturers.” n

CiS attempts a downtown toronto takeoverIn The VaST ShaDOW cast by that american sporting institution called march madness, the Canadian Interuniversity Sport national basketball championship searches for a flicker of light. Ryerson Uni-versity played host this year, hoping that its downtown campus in the middle of the country’s biggest media and corporate market-place would lead to a larger viewership on Sportsnet and heftier corporate support.

The hype began last fall, when former nBa star Bill Walton was lured to Toronto to take part in the tournament’s media launch. It continued in the weeks leading up to, and during, the tournament with a virtual takeover of downtown Toronto – wild postings, bridge and pole banners, subway ads, window wraps and a full streetcar

wrap. The program was executed jointly by Ryerson and Toronto agency BT/a.

promo crews hit downtown sports bars, particularly on nights when the Toronto Raptors were playing, with contests and ticket giveaways. It was, admits lynne Rozario, Corporate Sales manager at Ryerson’s mattamy athletic Centre, a “gentle ambush” of the Rap-tors, one she was comfortable executing because maple leaf Sports & entertainment (Raptors owners) have a working relationship with the mattamy Centre and supported various aspects of the tourna-ment.

Though the sum of the effort may not sound like much when weighed against other national championship, in the CIS it repre-sented a big change. CIS championship (with the exception of foot-ball’s Vanier Cup) tend to be campus events, drawing their crowds from the host school and a few busloads of fans from competing schools. Seldom do they spill into the neighbouring community.

One of the objectives of the effort was simply to raise the brand of the CIS. another was to attract more corporate sponsorship. The tournament was fortunate to have signed an unlikely brand at title: steelmaker arcelormittal Dofasco, a company that doesn’t even have operations in Toronto. But, says Rozario, the promotional push in downtown did catch the eye of the Downtown yonge BIa, which titled the final 8 fan fest, and mattamy homes, naming partner of the host venue. n

Mutual respect: ontario insurance merger results in expanded sponsorship programmeRGeRS anD aCQUISITIOnS are often accompanied by a sub-sequent rationalization (translation: reduction) in sponsorship and charitable efforts. not so for The Commonwell mutual Insurance Group with its head office in Lindsay, ON, which not only insisted on maintaining its sponsorship commitments post-merger — it in-creased them.

The Commonwell is the result of the January 2014 merger of three mutual insurance companies in Greater Ontario: farmers’ mu-tual Insurance Company of lindsay; Glengarry mutual Insurance Company of alexandria; and lanark mutual Insurance Company of perth.

“It’s easy to amalgamate and close down a couple of offices,” says Scott Crone, Vice president, Regional Development with The Com-monwell. “We’ve gone through great pains to make sure that we’ve maintained a representation and a physical presence in all of the re-gions we represent. We also insisted that our sponsorship program shouldn’t be diminished as a result of the amalgamation.”

The program was branded prior to the amalgamation as C.a.R.e. (Create a Ripple effect), operating out of lindsay since 2011. C.a.R.e. doled out $350,000 to registered charities in 2013 prior to amalga-mation and increased that to more then $400,000 in 2014 as the program was expanded to each branch.

“The C.a.R.e. program was once administered on an ad hoc basis, but now it’s got a little more structure to it,” says Crone. “We now review applications on a quarterly schedule. a mutual insurance company is owned by its members and we want to make sure that causes in each community are recognized.”

The CIS final 8 streetcar takeover was one of the social media successes of this year’s national basketball championships. The jury is still out on whether it had an impact on ticket sales or sponsorship.

apRIl 2015 The SpOnSORShIp RepORT 5

The program only considers applications from Ontario registered charities that focus on improving the quality of life for children, or measures to enhance health care and community safety. That en-sures not only that sponsorship dollars are concentrated on local partners, but that sponsorship benefits are also tangible and real-ized locally. Sponsor partners have included local food banks, the port perry hospital foundation, the Children’s Treatment Centre of Cornwall, the cardiac unit at Glengarry memorial hospital. Big Broth-ers Big Sisters of north Durham Region, the City of Kawartha lakes police Services Brown Bag Drinking and Driving awareness cam-paign, and Beyond 21, an organization supporting developmentally challenged young adults.

Crone notes that many insurance companies are amalgamating and retrenching into larger centres such as Toronto. That won’t cut it with a clientele drawn in part from rural areas and small towns where agriculture still forms a significant part of the local economy and a handshake is still a contract.

“having a physical presence in the area we serve is a competitive advantage,” he says. “We make that presence felt in our three re-gional offices and through our broker network. We will also be mak-ing brokers more aware of C.a.R.e. so they can promote it through their physical offices.”

Crone notes that the company has so far made little effort to publicize the sponsorships themselves, beyond simple cheque pre-sentation events and a notation on the program web site.

“I can tell you that we haven’t really broken a sweat promoting this,” he says. “part of that is being a mutual insurance company. Our members are ultimately responsible for the sponsorships, so we’re more likely to tell them what they did at the annual meeting.” n

Sometimes plain vanilla is all a sponsor needs (or wants)SIGnaGe. hOSpITalITy. It’s so last-millennium. Old school. That’s the messaging in sponsorship marketing media, including this one. It is the plain vanilla of sponsorship, the refuge of the indolent and creatively challenged.

for all this talk on the pages of this publication and elsewhere about the merits of out of the box activation, brands in certain cat-egories and at certain stages of development may find themselves quite comfortable within it. Sentry Investments, for instance, sees a great deal of value in the brand visibility and corporate hospitality it is afforded through its new 3-year partnership with the Toronto maple leafs and Toronto Raptors.

Sentry is an emerging mutual funds company, “a rising star” says Brian mcOstrich, Vice president of marketing. Since emerging from the 2008-09 recession, it has experienced phenomenal growth, ris-ing in asset value from $3 billion to $18 billion. It is also a pure B2B company, selling only to professional investment advisors.

It has, therefore, a relatively small and well-identified universe of prospects, and the challenge of building brand awareness within that universe and introducing prospect to Sentry’s line of products.

“Our penetration among the Canadian advisor community is in the high 30% range,” he says, referring to the percentage of ad-visors who do business with Sentry, “whereas a company such as

SpoNSoRShip WeeKNovember 2 to 6, 2015

We’Re a lITTle BIT laTe opening the gates for Sponsorship Week, but it’s not because we’ve been idly twiddling our thumbs.

Sponsorship Week has always been a day short of a working week, usually spanning monday to Thursday. This year, we’re pleased to announce that Sponsorship Week will span the full five days from november 2 to november 6, 2015. In partnership with The pitcher Group, Sponsorship Week will now feature a one day workshop exclusively tailored for fundraisers seeking to add corporate spon-sorship to their revenue stream. We’re calling it the Sponsorship Gut Check: Prepping Your Organization for the Challenges of Marketing-Centric Fundraising.

Why a Gut Check? Because corporate sponsorship is not just an-other revenue stream. It is a completely different way of looking at your organization and the external environment. Sponsored orga-nizations are not supplicants, asking for money. They are partners seeking joint business opportunities. Sponsorship calls for a new level of creative thinking and the occasional measure of compro-mise. To succeed, organizations anchored in fundraising must em-brace cultural and organizational change.

The rewards are significant, but the road to them can be bumpy, sometimes even catastrophic, unless you are properly prepared. and that’s what the Gut Check will do: meticulously lay out the culture and structure of a sponsorship-ready organization, and full prepare you to lead your charity or nfp through the changes necessary for success.

If you are preparing to embark on a sponsorship program for the first time, this session is a must-attend.

Sponsorship Week will also present two other powerful work-shops and one dynamite professional development conference, all conveniently held at Toronto’s Grand hotel and Suites. you may register for any one of the workshops or the conference, or bundle them together for the most powerful sponsorship learning oppor-tunity anywhere.

Here’s what’s coming up and where to find out more:November 2: The Sponsorship Gut Check (www.sponsorship.

ca/gutcheck.html – webpage opening april 15)November 3-4: Sponsorship Toronto (www.sponsorshipto-

ronto.com)November 5: The Sponsorship Boot Camp (www.sponsorship.

ca/bootcamp.html)November 6: The Municipal Forum on Sponsorship (www.

sponsorship.ca/municipalities.html)Want to know more? Call us at 705-653-1112 or email tsr@spon-

sorship.ca. nCOnTInUeD On paGe 6 >

fidelity might have a penetration rate among Canadian advisors somewhere in the 70% range.”

Given that difference, Sentry is quite happy with rinkboards at leafs games, in-stadium signage at Raptors games and rotating digital signage at both. The same goes for complimentary tickets and the ability to host key advisors at corporate events arranged by maple leaf Sports and entertainment. Though it may be the plain vanilla of sponsorship, “that is intentional on our part,” he says.

There is, perhaps, some corporate ego at work too. mcOstrich doesn’t’ deny it. Sentry is a family-owned company, and a partner-ship with mlS&e’s two prime properties “sends a message to our fellow competitors on Bay Street that we are putting a stake in the ground and that we are an emerging company,” he says.

The visibility will also build awareness of Sentry among the in-vesting public both at the air Canada Centre and through television broadcasts of the games, and that’s not wasted. familiarity with the brand among investors will benefit advisors who recommend Sentry products to their clients.

The partnership also includes an important philanthropic com-ponent through the mlSe foundation. Sentry has donated $65,000 toward the completion of the St. James Town multipurpose Games Court, a large outdoor recreational facility that will serve the coun-try’s most densely-populated neighbourhood, a five-minute ride from Sentry’s head offices on Bay Street.

mcOstrich says Sentry’s involvement will ongoing for the next three years. an announcement is forthcoming about Sentry’s role in program development and delivery at the refurbished facility, which may also include opportunities for employee involvement.

W h A t ’ S h A p p e N i N g[SPORTS]

another tees it up for Team RBCThat would be australian Jason Day, the newest member of RBC’s golf team.The 27-year-old Day is a three-time pGa Tour champion. he will add an increased global dimension to RBC’s stable of brand ambassadors.Day will wear the RBC shield on his golf apparel and golf bag and par-ticipate in future marketing initiatives and client events for RBC. he will also act as a global brand ambassador, particularly in support of charitable initiatives that demonstrate RBC’s commitment to kids and youth such as the RBCGolf4Kids online charity challenge.Contact: Shauna Cook, RBC, 647-534-1562, shauna.cook@rbc.com.

[SPORTS]

Subaru remains firm with IronmanSubaru has been involved with Ironman in Canada for more than two de-cades, dating back to the early 1990s with the grassroots series and Subaru Ironman Canada, and that’s not going to change any time soon. The car company has announced its return as the title sponsor of all Ironman tri-athlons in Canada for the 2015-2017 race seasons. The 2015 Subaru-Ironman partnership will include title sponsorship of all Ironman-owned and -operated Ironman and Ironman 70.3 races in Canada. Subaru will also be the title sponsor for shorter distance Ironman-owned triathlon events in the region, including Subaru Iron Girl Grimsby, the Sub-aru Ontario Tri-Series and the Subaru Western Tri-Series.Contact: Joe Felstein, 905-568-4959, jfelstein@subaru.ca.

[MUNICIPALITIES]

Toronto pays tribute to tree plantersTrees across Toronto, whose sponsors include sponsors include Toronto parking authority, Toronto hydro, enbridge Gas Distribution, hSBC Bank Canada, lomco landscape Contractors and Toronto parks and Trees foun-dation, was honoured by the City of Toronto earlier this year for its efforts to grow the city’s urban forest.The City hall ceremony singled out the program’s sponsors for their con-tribution to the volunteer planting of approximately 10.2 million trees in the city since 1999.

[EVENTS]

Skilled trades on displayUa Canadian piping Trades, a multi-craft union whose members are en-gaged in the fabrication, installation and servicing of piping systems, and the TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline Project have been confirmed as Pre-senting Sponsors of the 2015 Skills Canada national Competition (SCnC). This is the third consecutive year of partnership for UA Canada, and a first for TransCanada’s energy east project.This year’s competition will take place from may 27 to 30 in Saskatoon. more than 500 students will compete in some 40 skilled trades and tech-nology contests, ranging from carpentry, steamfitter/pipefitter and mobile robotics to welding, aircraft maintenance and fashion design.SCnC tests the best skilled trades students against exacting industry stan-dards configured by a National Technical Committee composed of skilled trades and technology experts from industry and education.

plain vanilla> COnTInUeD fROm paGe 5

Credit: CnW Group/maple leaf Sports & entertainment ltd.

Representatives of Sentry Investments and maple leaf Sports entertainment present Community matters with a cheque investing in the St. James Town community.

6 The SpOnSORShIp RepORT apRIl 2015

Receive TSR by emailhow? Simply send us an email (tsr@sponsorship.ca) from your email ad-dress, putting “email subscription” in the subject line. In the body of the email, give us the name and address as it appears on your mailing label.you will continue to receive your hard copy every month, In addition, you will receive a pdf of the issue approximately a week ahead of time.

apRIl 2015 The SpOnSORShIp RepORT 7

[LOOKING BACK]

Why causes are leaving money on the table; mining the depths of your social networks; Brojects is back; halifax proves us wrong; Chevron fuels schools, except in VancouverlaST yeaR TSR pROfIleD a social fundraising and sponsorship pro-gram in Winnipeg involving RBC and the Assiniboine Park Conser-vancy. linking the two was a new tool called Social Ambassador, and this project was its big test. The idea behind Social ambassa-dor is to empower the digital community and to identify and build ambassadors within it. By providing metrics in real time, it allows partners to tweak a program as necessary. The hope is that through Social Ambassador, fundraising goals will be achieved and affinity for the sponsoring brand will grow.

John heppenstall, Senior Strategist at Social ambassador, says the program is working, uniting what he calls “the three Cs” – cause, corporate and community.

One significant, change, however, is Social Ambassador’s ap-proach to the market. At launch, the first of the three Cs, causes, had been identified as the prime prospects. It was a cost-effective tool they could use to attract new partners and to build new social programs with existing ones.

What heppenstall found, however, was that although most causes understood the concept and its potential, they were ill-equipped to build the partnership necessary to execute the program.

“a lot of causes are stuck in their ways and might not understand the opportunity,” says heppenstall. “They don’t move as quickly as the corporate sector does in order to embrace opportunity.” he con-trasts that with companies which, when presented with an opportu-nity that addresses a need, can usually act upon it straight away.

It’s a commonly-encountered problem. Causes typically begin as fundraising organizations and gradually attempt to graft corporate sponsorship to their revenue stream unaware of how culturally and organizationally disruptive sponsorship can be. a shift toward spon-sorship requires an organizational transition, a subject that will be covered this year at Sponsorship Week in Toronto (november 2-6, 2015) in a new one-day workshop called Sponsorship Gut Check: Prepping Your Organization for the Challenges of Marketing-Centric Fundraising and presented by Bill pitcher. Details will be coming soon at www.sponsorship.ca.

heppenstall says Social ambassador has now changed direc-tion, targeting the corporate sector. By focussing on a corporate prospect’s CSR strategy, Social ambassador can identify a cause or causes that align and propose programs that will build social com-munities that elevate the sponsoring brand and support the spon-sored cause.

Social ambassador is also reaching deeper into the social com-munities of the cause and corporate partners it serves. When mounting a social campaign, be sure to mine the full depth of your social relationships, says heppenstall. for a campaign for Jani-King and the Canadian Red Cross, for instance, Social ambassador was able to tap into some less-than-obvious resources – relationships

that Jani-King had with sports teams and athletes in Canada and the United States – vastly extending the social reach of the pro-gram, which is quickly approaching its fundraising target for the Red Cross.

Brojects is back. Cottage Life picked up a second season of the Timber Mart-sponsored cottage reno series with a difference. Broj-ects stars the Buckles Brothers, Kevin and andrew, as they embark on decidedly off-the-wall cottage improvement projects. This sea-son, which debuted on march 26, will feature the construction of a combination boat dock-bowling alley, a swim-up bar, a floating golf course, even a kid’s fort. It’s done mostly for laughs, as the disclaimer on every show reminds us, and it fits well with its sponsor, a small-town home improvement retailer that is featured in the broadcasts and on various digital extensions.

last year, TSR used the adjective “ambitious” to describe the goal set by the Halifax Regional Municipality as it put naming rights to the Metro Centre on the market. It’s an 11,000-seat downtown arena, the city’s largest by far, and civic leaders had valued the nam-ing rights at $500,000 per year. “ambitious” is an editorial version of “you’ve got to be kidding,” which is really what TSR intended to say. after all, hamilton’s Copps Coliseum, a larger venue in a more densely populated metropolitan region (hamilton) had recently sold for $350,000 per year. Who was halifax trying to kid?

nobody, it appears. later in the summer, the halifax Regional municipality announced that a naming partner had been secured, Scotiabank, at a whopping $650,000 per year over ten years. at least $5 million of the rights fee will be directed to capital upgrades: replacing seats, renovating and expanding washrooms, expanding the concession area and replacing the ice slab. Renovations should be finished by fall 2017.

Scotiabank, with its roots in the province and its extensive invest-ments in hockey, was likely the only brand in the country positioned to see that much value in that property. With the bulk of the money going to facility upgrades, Scotiabank was also able to position the naming rights purchase as a community support initiative, which made the hefty price tag a bit easier to swallow.

The new sign was up in time for the September 19, 2014 halifax mooseheads season home opener.

last fall, Chevron Canada expanded its Fuel Your School pro-gram in British Columbia to the Burnaby, Coquitlam, north Vancou-ver and West Vancouver school districts. They joined a list of local school districts that include Surrey, White Rock, Burnaby, Coquitlam, port Coquitlam, port moody, anmore, Belcarra, Bowen Island, north Vancouver, West Vancouver and lions Bay, but not Vancouver.

last april, TSR reported on Vancouver’s rejection of the program. Reasons for the rejection were never made clear to TSR. The board cited its lack of capacity to manage the program, but the program actually places no demands on boards. The board’s published policy on sponsorship and advertising was equally unhelpful. nothing in it seemed to stand in the way of the program.

Quite possibly the issue was the program’s commercial element. Consumers at the Chevron pump are clearly told that one dollar from every purchase of 30 litres or more will be donated to fuel your School, an arm’s length program that supports in-class projects put forward by the schools themselves. That’s a strong incentive to pump 30 litres of gas into a tank, and for school boards with strong anti-commercial policies, that may be too big a problem to overcome. n

TOROnTO’S hOSTInG Of The 2016 nBa all Star Game will open up activation opportunities for some Canadian brands that would otherwise not be allowed near the event. It will mark the first time the game has been hosted outside the US, and nBa Canada has been authorized to sell activation rights in categories where the official NBA partner has no commercial in-terests in Canada. The first beneficiary will be BMO, which last month announced a multi-year partnership with nBa Canada.

BmO is banking heavily on basketball. Its US sub-sidiary, BmO harris Bank, is strong in the US midwest, where it sponsors both the Chicago Bulls and the mil-waukee Bucks. In Canada, BmO is a partner of the Toronto Raptors.

BBVa Compass, the official bank of the NBA, does no business in Can-ada, opening the door for BMO to serve as the official bank of nBa Canada and to build a distinctive pres-ence at the all Star Game. The telecommunications category is in a similar position. The official NBA partner is Sprint, while Bell is a partner of nBa Canada and should expect to be af-forded rights at the all Star Game if it wants them.

BmO will also be an as-sociate partner of the nBa Canada Series. The nBa Canada Series is a slate of preseason games played across Canada that includes interactive fan events and community outreach programs. The nBa Can-ada Series games held in montreal were the most at-

tended nBa exhibition games in the world the past three years, and the 2014 nBa Canada Series games in Vancouver and montreal were both sellouts. The partnership will allow BmO to run consumer promo-tions in those markets as well as to host clients.

Those are the shiny baubles, but BmO’s biggest bang will come from its sponsorship of the Junior nBa program, something that has been heavily pilot-tested this season in 50 cities and that will roll out nationwide for the 2015-16 nBa season, with the

big reveal coming in the fall. BmO’s spokesperson for the program is Joanna Rotenberg. Chief market-ing Officer and Head of Strategy. Rotenberg was unavailable for an inter-view in time for this article, and macKenzie was reluc-tant to spill many details in advance of what should be a big announcement next season. But we do know this: The nBa runs youth development programs in several countries. Junior NBA will be its first of that kind in Canada. It will be an introductory basketball program that will provide thousands of boys and girls in 125 communities across Canada with health, fitness, and basketball in-struction. It is a grassroots initiative that will be de-livered through local bas-ketball clubs identified by

provincial basketball associations and supported by a rigorous, professionally-developed curriculum writ-ten specifically for Canadian youth. It is expected to launch in October of this year. n

Banking on basketball not all nBa sponsors have a commercial interest in Canada, and that has left the door open for some Canadian brands at the 2016 nBa all Star Game in Toronto.

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Credit: David fan

The nBa runs youth development programs in several countries. Junior nBa will be its first of that kind in Canada.

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