IEG’s Sponsorship Tips

The use of music tour and venue sponsorships continues to rise amid heavy competition to market products to consumers.

According to Bill Chipps, senior editor of the IEG Sponsorship Report, corporate spending on music tours, concert series and venues is expected to reach $754 million in 2005, up from $695 million in 2004.

To that end, Chipps has put together a Web seminar, “Who Sponsors Music Properties And How To Sell Them,” that offers pointers on how to determine the best market for a product and what industries to approach.

“Sponsorship obviously brings a lot to the marketing people for companies but one of those things is it lets them reach really niche audiences,” Chipps told Pollstar. “That’s something more and more companies are looking for these days.”

Telecommunications, gaming, online music services, satellite radio, automotive, and beer and spirit companies are listed as top categories, with companies like Nokia involved in both tour and venue sponsorships.

Emerging categories include dot-coms, such as MySpace or eBay, restaurants, personal care products, online gambling companies and sub-prime mortgage lenders (example: Ameriquest’s sponsorship of The Rolling Stones tour).

“If you’re a concert promoter or if you’re involved in sponsored sales for a concert venue or a music festival, these are the types of categories and/or industries you should be targeting,” Chipps said. “There’s so much change going on and that change is creating a lot of opportunities for music-related properties.”

Chipps also said sponsorships offer an alternative to getting an artist or group’s name out there, especially to the youth and young adult markets.

“A lot of these categories or industries that I’ve talked about bring a lot to the table for the artist and their managers who are looking for exposure through kind of non-traditional marketing channels,” he said. “Nowadays, breaking a band on radio or MTV, it’s not like it was 10 or 20 years ago.”

Chipps gave his first “webinar” in September; about 200 people logged on for his live PowerPoint presentation.

— Tina Amendola