Post 7 Sponsorship and Event Management, Research and Evaluation

I think the two key points to remember from this week's readings are the benefits of sponsorship and the importance of research in PR.

There are many community events which require corporate sponsorship to function. Usually the organisers of such events do not have the funds to hold big scale events like races. For example, every year, there is a marathon organised by the Singapore Sports Council. The Singapore Sports Council have sponsors like Standard Chartered and Adidas. The agenda of the Singapore Sports Council is to promote a healthy lifestyle. Standard Charted funds the event while Adidas provides the sports gear and clothing. The marathon is known as the Standard Chartered Marathon. The agenda of Standard Charted and Adidas is to promote their brand's image. Corporate sponsorship is a very effective strategy for PR. It is able to enhance the image of an organisation without being too blatant.

Research and evaluation are very important. It is pivotal to know the demands, needs, opinions and misgivings of the target audience as they are the ones to generate profit. Then the research has to be evaluated so that a proper plan can be made and ideal tactics be used. There are a few kinds of research that can be done. Research on target audience, so that a plan can be formulated will be the first step. Then as the plan is put into action, research can be done so the plan can be improved. Last but not least, the aftermath research can be done to find out how effective the campaign was as reference for future endeavours.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Enough said.