The 2009 IEG Sponsorship Conference in Chicago has come and gone. I had an AMAZING time meeting new people, hearing new ideas and learning. I still have a ton of following up to do and I ran out of business cards while I was there, so I apologize if I ran into anyone on Wednesday when I didn't have any cards left.
People such as life coach Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis (XPrize Foundation) and Rick Jones (Fishbait Marketing) and Sam Hill (FTI Helios Consulting) gave thought-provoking and motivating speeches. It was also great to have to have the opportunity to hear from people from brands such as Lee Jeans, McDonald's, Carlsberg Breweries, the NBA Nets, the NHL, Kodak and meet some of the people who work with IEG. I also had a nice chat with Evander Holyfield on Monday night at the House of Blues.
You can find some detailed conference notes on IEG's blog, but here are a few thoughts I wanted to share.
The Economy and Sponsorship Industry
Obviously, the economy was a hot topic at the conference. There was a good amount of discussion about what people think will happen over the next year. While this is tough to predict, the dominant view seemed to be that we aren't anywhere near where we were in the 1930s, but it will take at least a few years for us to recover.
There was also a lot of discussion about the image of the sponsorship industry as a whole. Most everyone was upset by the recent attacks by congressmen and media on the sponsorship industry. While it's not fair that sponsorship was thrown under the bus, perception matters, and it's up to us to educate the public on the benefits of sponsorship--and how it actually is used to build business. More than ever, it's important that people measure their efforts and link them to business objectives.
Social Media
Another hot topic was right up my alley - social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc) and new forms of marketing that can be used by properties and brands to save money, connect with their audiences, and add value to their sponsorships. Liz Cahill from Lee Jeans gave a great presentation about how they use social media to promote their cause marketing efforts around Lee National Denim Day, which helps raise money to fight breast cancer. Tom Green spoke about how he uses social media to promote his music festival, D Fest, and how he integrates his sponsors into these efforts.
In one of the more interesting examples of new media/marketing campaigns, Johan Jervoe from McDonald's talked about their unbranded Alternate Reality Game, "The Lost Ring," which was launched around the 2008 Olympics to target the advertising-adverse Gen Y audience. The game generated 430 million measured media impressions over six months, and five million people participated. Johan said brand favorability and future visit intent increased 45% and 67%, respectively, among people who played the game. It's still hard for me to understand alternate-reality gaming, and even Johan admitted that McDonald's still doesn't understand exactly how/why it worked so well. But this stuff is definitely something to keep an eye on for the future.
Other Thoughts
I was able to use Twitter to find a few other folks who were at the conference and meet them. The ability to find others who share your interests is one very valuable benefit of using Twitter. I'm JasonPeck on there if you want to follow me.
During the presentations, I was one of the only people there taking notes on my laptop. I wish I could have gotten the wireless internet to work in the big conference rooms. The ability to be online and use Twitter during some of the speeches would have brought an added level of interaction to the conference. You may think that this would cause people to feel disconnected from the speakers, but I disagree. Twitter allows for real-time dialogue and discussion to take place during an event. When you know you're going to share something with your network, you actually are more likely to focus on what is being said, so you share the right information. Twitter also allows for new information to be brought into the conversation. It certainly doesn't replace the experience of actually being there, but it can help introduce other people to the content. And maybe they'll see that there are valuable ideas being discussed and will decide to come to the conference next time. That's a win for the speaker and conference organizers.
I hope some of these notes/ideas from the conference were beneficial. I had a great time in Chicago and look forward to building on some of the relationships that were started there.