Event sponsorship is a well-established approach to subsidise the cost of staging events.
We’ve even suggested it could help organisers work towards a cost-neutral basis.
If a sponsorship approach is well-established, why then is event collaboration seen as complex by comparison?
And what are the pitfalls of event partnership collaborations?
First, let’s explore the differences between event sponsorship and event partner collaborations.
Simplistically then, what does event sponsorship look like?
Sponsor exchanges money and earns the right to be associated with the event, company or brand.
That’s a bit nuanced but with more detail shared in this post.
So how does event partner collaboration look different?
A partner collaboration is a joint agreement and commitment to combine resources and create an offer of which both entities share a return.
It’s perhaps not that event partner collaborations are more complex.
More a collaboration requires both parties clearly agree on the shared objectives but that it’s not always so clear as to how to achieve them.
And with this, come challenges.
An imbalance of contribution leads to one brand/organisation feeling they’re committing more resources or effort resulting in some resentment and conflict.
Poor communication leads to misunderstandings, ineffective project management and a lack of trust that’ll derail even the best of intentions.
Diverging brand alignment negatively affects shared objectives, values and messaging resulting in a disjointed event experience leaving event attendees utterly bewildered.
But overcoming challenges and mitigating risks can yield amazing results.
And as we do regularly, we’ve looked beyond the typical event landscape for inspiration.
The Recharge in Nature with National Parks Partnerships & BMW UK project is a three-year alliance that is focused on funding nature restoration projects and increasing the number of electric vehicle (EV) charging points in National Parks across the UK.
Drop In with Samsung, a tight collaboration with Skateboard GB earned the respect of the British skateboarding community and recruited the audience required to meet Samsung’s commercial objectives. The power of the collaboration lay in establishing the common ground between a demanding sport and Samsung’s content creation capabilities.
Leading software platform Xero & FIFA Women’s World Cup is a partnership leveraging the power and success of the Lionesses football team on the global stage, to drive brand and commercial growth. To engage small & medium businesses and fans, the campaign told the stories of businesswomen behind the game and presented Xero as the brand which frees people to embrace bigger possibilities.
There are in fact very few examples of B2B live event partnerships.
Perhaps we can conclude then that managing partner collaborations is at least ‘perceived’ to be too complicated.
But the outcome potential is attractive.
And so, in much the same way it’s difficult to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions, agencies must take responsibility and act as the ‘user manual’ to strengthen event partner collaborations.
If event growth, new audience acquisition, saving money, improving engagement even realising your own environmental, social and governance initiatives is a priority, then we’d love to talk to you about how partner collaborations could help you win in 2025.
