When defining the sponsorship strategy, companies sometimes struggle to decide whether to sign a global sports sponsorship or a regional one, that's why we will be talking about this topic: "Sponsorship: Global vs Regional".
Although there are sports that are truly global phenomena, a company might want to focus only on some of the countries touched by that specific sport. They also do that with the idea of investing less money in the sponsorship but this cost-saving operation is not always worthwhile.
For example, let's look at a Formula 1 sponsorship: the sport goes to 23 countries and 5 continents every year but a company can be only interested to promote its brand and products in North America. What should they do?
Global Sponsorship: Signing a global deal would mean that they can leverage the association with the sport for the whole championship, running digital campaigns and online competitions connected to the Formula 1 calendar. Also, they could activate the rest of their assets (hospitality, events, drivers' appearances) in every local market. A crucial benefit is an opportunity to shoot content with the team at different times during the year, tailoring that content around the company's marketing strategy every single time.
Regional Sponsorship: The option to sign a deal only for North American races can be also a good one, however, the rights to talk about the sponsorship might be time and content limited. What does it mean? It means that the company can leverage the sponsorship, for example, just a week before and a week after the race in North America and the content they can utilise has to be shot in that specific market and distributed only on the company's North American digital channels.
Hybrid Sponsorship: This can be a sponsorship very similar to the regional one but with the opportunity to leverage the association with the sport for the whole duration of the championship. This means the opportunity to utilise the content produced by the team in other races of the season and deliver year-round digital campaigns. Obliviously, most of the assets (branding, hospitality, drivers' appearances) will be utilised only in the target markets, but in this way, the company can build a meaningful narrative around the sponsorship while still saving some money compared to the global option.
Conclusively, sponsorship: global vs regional, what is the best option? It really depends on the company's objectives and budget, but also on the team they select to sponsor. Some of them are more flexible than others in accommodating particular requests from sponsors.
That's why it is always highly advisable to have the support of specialised advisors like Drive when navigating the motorsport ecosystem.
This is original editorial content from Drive Sports Marketing, an agency specialising in Formula 1 sponsorship, Formula E sponsorship, MotoGP sponsorship, and WEC sponsorship.
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