How effective are event sponsorships? (Part 1)

The holidays bring a lot of fun events to the Valley. As part of a student organization I’m involved with, we attended Zoolights tonight. Each year the Phoenix Zoo lights up thewalkways with Christmas lights and gigantic animals made from lights. If you’ve never been before, it’s a fun thing to do and not very expensive (but I’ll warn you, it’s too dark to see animals).

Zoolights is sponsored by SRP, so I was able to use my two-for-one coupon that I received with a previous month’s electric bill. As I was wandering around the zoo and thinking about how APS (SRP’s rival) sponsors the Christmas lights on Mill Avenue this year, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people notice who sponsors which event? My guess is… not many.

As the ASU football season ends this weekend, there’s been a lot of talk of college bowl games. All of those involve huge name sponsorships… but how much do sales increase as a result of these sponsorships? Especially with annual events, I think people probably stop noticing the name attached to it because they expect it to be there.

I bet few people pay extra attention to Tostitos just because of the Fiesta Bowl, but just think how angry people would be if they pulled the sponsorship and the name changed. At this point, ever having the sponsorship would probably do more damage than good.