Sponsorship 101, Part 2: Media Partners

I just returned from a meeting with the NY Daily News, the official English-language newspaper of the NY Int'l Latino Film Festival. Yowsers, is it a rainy mess outside. Regardless, here's the cool thing about having a good relationship with your media partners: you can work together to approach sponsors as a combined event + media opportunity. Basically, the media partner approaches its advertisers on your behalf and brings you in for the pitch and negotiation. So, in effect, the media partner serves as your sales agent to clients with whom you don't have contacts (or, strong enough contacts). It's a big corporate world out there and, hopefully, your database grows every day. But, quite frankly, it's nearly impossible to know everyone at every company. So, if your media partner wants to pick up some of that slack for a potentially mutually beneficial opportunity, rock on! The general concept is the following: in exchange for paying a sum of money, the sponsor receives a customized event sponsorship package + advertising inventory from the media partner, which the sponsor then uses to promote its sponsorship of the event. So, the event property (in this case, the NY Int'l Latino Film Festival) receives not only the cash but also the additional media exposure. The media partner (in this case, the NY Daily News) takes a percentage of that sponsor payment to justify the media contribution, so it's a happy camper, too. And, of course, assuming it's a strong event opportunity, which in this case - come on, don't make me say it...the sponsor is thrilled because its brand is now associated with a high profile event that includes dedicated media and all sorts of sales drivers and promotional activation against a key target demo. So, you see, it's a win-win-win for all involved. We've identified three specific auto companies and two financial services companies we will collectively approach. Let's see if we can make some magic. In the meantime, I'm off to customize these proposals. Are you seeing a trend, here... ;)
~ Liz
(P.L.H.H.)