Your house is probably due to undergo its third deep-clean in two weeks, your garden has received more love and care than any previous start to spring, and you’ve almost certainly rummaged through a box of old stuff that has gone untouched for years.
During our current lockdown period we’ve never had more time to focus on the bricks and mortar* we now call our place of habitation and place of work (*other building materials are available). Suddenly those home chores and maintenance tasks that were always put to one side have given us something to get stuck into over the weekend. Just like our home lives, there are probably work tasks that we’ve also put to one side over the past few months with the aim of coming back to them during a quieter period. Well, now might just be that time, and it’s all something we should embrace!
When it comes to the sponsorship industry, we’re not for any moment suggesting that because there is no live sport or entertainment that the sector has come to a halt. In fact, now is the time for brands, rightsholders and agencies to become even more creative with their communications, but there are inevitably elements which are out of our hands. Event activations and hospitality management have hit the pause button, whilst brands are understandably nervous about spending any sum of money on sponsorship right now. As individuals, even if we are still managing to work at 90% capacity, that still leaves a 10% window that wasn’t there before.
Does it seem logical to fill that 10% window with the things we’ve put to one side for the past six months? Absolutely! This moment in time is an amazing opportunity for us all to become better sponsorship professionals. We have the chance to increase our education and learning to make sure that we in the industry come out of this period more informed, more enthusiastic, and more prepared than ever before. The time we all put in now to improve our industry will ensure that when we return to normal proceedings, we are more educated individuals than we were at the start of the year.
There has never been a greater quantity and a more accessible number of webinars, blogs, articles, and social conversations about sponsorship than there are here and now. Whether you want to learn about a specific facet of the sponsorship industry, help to educate someone else, or build up your pool of contacts, now is a great time to be doing that! Let’s start fresh conversations, begin productive debates, and share our knowledge and thoughts so that we drive the ecosystem forward.
During last week’s European Sponsorship Association (ESA) webinar around the State of the Industry there were nearly 400 people signed up! This is an incredible number compared to the amount who perhaps would have turned up at the same physical seminar. Being able to switch on from your home office has surprisingly made some things far more accessible. Quite rightly, ESA has seized the moment and is continuing to inspire, unite and grow the sponsorship community during this difficult period.
At times like this it is only natural to feel unsure and nervous about what the future holds, but rather than stepping back into our shells, now is the time to come together, unite as an industry, and make our sector an even stronger and better one than before.
Now, back to that to-do list….
