About the Money: How Toronto’s Top Music Sponsors Spend
There’s a lot of talk about making Toronto a “music city.” In these conversations, some issues are continually raised — space, bylaws, permitting and money. While many of these requires long term efforts, the mayor’s office recently addressed how you can get money today. Not from the city or grant funding bodies though, but from brands.
John Tory hosted a panel with some of the biggest sponsorship players in Canada’s music scene, including Budweiser, Google, Red Bull, TD Bank and Virgin Mobile, who discussed what they look for when considering sponsorships.
If you didn’t crack the guestlist for this invite-only event, or missed the livestream, we’ve broken down each expert’s opinions on what you need to know when trying to get money from a brand:
Mark Harrison — The T1 Agency
Harrison leads The T1 Agency, a marketing firm that has worked with massive brands like Nike, Coca Cola and Metro. He explained that music is currently underrepresented in the Canadian sponsorship landscape. Each year, $2.5 billion is paid out in sponsorship in Canada and music gets 2.2% of that pie. In the United States, about 6% of sponsorship is put into music.
So what can we be doing better? Harrison stressed that sponsorship (like music) is a people business. How are you going to help this company’s sponsorship manager do their job better? Just like when you sell your product — whether it’s a piece of music, event or organization — you need a competitive advantage for being sponsored.
He also encouraged the audience to broaden their search. The same big name companies are constantly approached for sponsorships. Harrison often hears from CEOs of Profit 500 companies who are looking to spend money but are never asked. Like most things, work your way up with sponsorships. Start with lesser-known companies who have money and want to connect with your audience.
Andrew Oosterhuis — Budweiser
Budweiser’s goal is to put its beer within arms reach of great music. But Oosterhuis isn’t content with being a logo in the background. Offering passive assets is not a competitive advantage. Most brands today want to be a part of creating an experience for the consumer, whether simply by name or actually having the product involved.
Oosterhuis also encourage event organizers to think about why the event exists. If there are brands with similar purposes to you, there’s probably a good chance for a partnership.
Examples of purpose-fueled sponsorships came from TD’s Hamida Sachadina and Red Bull’s Brian Smiley. Sachadina explained TD is focused right now on connecting kids with music, so it sponsors about 100 music education programs. The bank also ran the kid’s section at Toronto’s Field Trip festival.
Smiley spoke about Red Bull’s desire to be a facilitator in presenting live music in authentic ways, which has led to partnerships with Wavelength Music and Manifesto. Red Bull gets these organizations to curate artists and it handles the financial back end.
Kevin Campbell — Virgin Mobile
A company like Virgin has seen and done it all. At least, most of it. Campbell is looking to partner with someone who’s “willing to get on a whiteboard and come up with something new.” He’s seen too many arrogant sponsorship pitches that want $X for predetermined perks. Depending on the size of your organization, the brand may has the power to blast your message to 100x your audience with a push of a button. You need to understand the value exchange.
Andrew Lindsay — Google Play Music
Google Play’s mission is to find the right song for your particular moment. So take that and scale it for sponsorship. How can you give Google a facilitation role in your event or organization? Or how could your audience test out Google Play? Again, Google is focused on interacting with people, not putting a sign up.
Jeffrey Remedios — Universal Music Canada
At the end of the evening, Universal president Remedios joined Tory for what was a bit of a reality check for the audience. When Universal is looking for artists, they look at what the artist has accomplished on their own. Universal wants to work with artists who have proved they don’t need the company. In many ways, sponsorship is the same. You need to figure out how to pull together something of value, then convince the brand that with their help, it could be much better, for both you and them.
You can watch the full stream of the Mayor’s Music Sponsorship Roundtable here.
