Innovation and sustainability dominate Swiss Sponsorship Awards

The ten-member jury of renowned representatives honored UBS for the best sports sponsorship, Migros for the best cultural sponsorship, Helsana for the best corporate sponsorship, and SwissRe Corporate Solutions for the best international sponsorship. Jeep won the "Digital Activation Award" and the partnership between Julius Baer and Formula E was voted the overall best sponsorship of 2016 by the audience of experts present.

The fifth Swiss Sponsorship Awards, presented by Mascha Santschi and jury president Patrick Cotting, showed one thing above all: There is no way around the topics of innovation and sustainability as well as a clear target group definition and digital activation for successful sponsorships. All of the winning projects were characterized by several of these elements. First and foremost Julius Bär with its partnership with Formula-E and SwissRe Corporate Solutions with its commitment to SolarImpulse and a partnership with the History Channel. Both Migros with the M-Budget OpenAirs, UBS with the UBS Kids Cup, Helsana with the Theodora Foundation and Jeep with the Montreux Jazz Festival proved that a clear target group approach combined with a consistent brand experience approach leads to success.

Jury president Cotting emphasized that the quality of the campaigns has never been as high as in 2016, and accordingly the selection of the individual winners was not always easy. The president of the association Sponsoring SwitzerlandIn his acceptance speech, Daniel Gundelfinger traced the historical development of sponsorship over the last 25 years, while the co-initiator of the Swiss Sponsorship Awards, Sebastian Chiappero from Geneva, pointed out, not without a twinkle in his eye, that five years ago he was told he was crazy to launch such awards.

Sponsorship is transforming into a business model thanks to digitization

Before the award ceremony, two panel discussions were held, in which the effects of digital possibilities on sponsorship concepts and contracts were discussed. Using the example of the partnership between Ochsner Sport and Swiss Olympic, it was shown that a sponsorship partnership can certainly develop into a business case, with the help of which the sponsor can generate new revenues. In the future, an event organizer or even an association will increasingly transform itself into a data supplier - be it with emotional stories or statistics - which the sponsor can integrate directly into its sales activities and thus encourage the consumer to take action. With this approach, the sports retailer Ochsner Sport was not only able to increase its number of club members into the seven-digit range within a very short time, but also to multiply its online sales shortly before and during events sponsored by it.

The representatives of Swiss Olympic, Swiss Indoors and Ochsner Sport did not agree on the future significance of e-sports. While Harry Hofstetter from Ochsner Sport said that they will continue to focus on sports that generate real sweat in the future, Christoph Kaufmann from Swiss Olympic dared to predict that e-sports could be Olympic within ten years. Marc Zimmermann from Swiss Indoors pointed out that e-tennis tournaments could reach so many consumers in the near future that linking the real world with the virtual world would seem opportune.

CEOs still decisive in international sponsorships

In the second panel discussion, representatives from ABB, Julius Baer, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions and Swisscom discussed in greater depth the risks associated with international sponsorships and how these can be minimized. It became clear to all four representatives that the CEO plays a key role in ensuring that an international sponsorship is activated across the entire company in such a way that both internal effects in terms of employer engagement and external effects in terms of the brand, the values of the company and marketing can be achieved.

Conor Lennon from ABB pointed out that B2B-oriented companies in particular are indeed only at the beginning of discovering sponsorships for their corporate development. But that ABB's commitment to SolarImpulse and the communication aimed at a broad population had also triggered very strong positive signals on the labor market and among shareholders.

Aida Boll from Swiss Re Corporate Solutions pointed out that the decision to additionally activate their SolarImpulse engagement with a partnership with the History Channel meant that a boring story - namely insurance - could be communicated and explained in an exciting and emotional way to both internal and external audiences. This - together with all other activation measures in the customer area - had also led to competitive advantages at the business level.

Finally, Marco Parroni of Julius Baer explained how the commitment to Formula E came about, and what role a weighing of risks and opportunities played in the evaluation. Especially with new platforms, the risks are naturally higher, but so are the opportunities. As a pioneer and the first main sponsor of Formula E, Julius Baer has been able to secure visibility and maximum rights in the city races for all teams. The positive effects of Julius Baer's commitment led the Head Global Sponsorship to say that a Formula E race in Zurich is quite realistic.

The winners at a glance

The jury with representatives from business, culture, science, sports and society has honored the following companies for the 5th Swiss Sponsorship Awards:

• Best Sports Sponsorship of the Year: UBS with the UBS Kids Cup
• Best Cultural Sponsorship of the Year: Migros with Migros Budget OpenAirs
• Best Society Sponsorship of the Year: Helsana with Theodora Foundation (Link)
• Best International Sponsorship of the Year: Swiss Re Corporate Solutions with SolarImpulse and History Channel
• Best Digital Activation Concept of the Year: Jeep with Montreux Jazz Festival
• Best Sponsorship of the Year across all categories (Public Award): Julius Baer with Formula E.