Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Zadai, Taylor

English

VCU Scholars Compass

Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVCU Scholars CompassGreat VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts Great VCU Bike Race Book2015Event Planning and Promotion, Blog 6Taylor ZadaiVirginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_studentPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA4.0) License.This Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Great VCU Bike Race Book at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted forinclusion in Great VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, pleasecontact libcompass@vcu.edu.Downloaded fromhttps://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_student/67https://rampages.us/manika/author/zadaitl/ Taylor Zadai  Self-Assessment   October 7, 2015  |    zadaitl  |    Leave a comment  Richmond 2015 has a new logo for the September 2015 world championship bicycling event. Courtesy of Richmond 2015. Logo designed by The Martin Agency This class taught me about group work and how much work and planning goes into corporate sponsorship. I learned what kind of criteria to look for in a cause/event that makes it attractive to sponsors. Through my conversation with the representatives of Genworth and Applied Minds at their booth at Fan Fest, I learned about their efforts to educate people about aging through the use of their high-tech suit. They got some great responses from fans and I can’t wait to see what else they do with this idea! I think taking this class was a great idea, I got to visit the most exciting areas of the race and learn more about the sponsors. A lot of students didn’t get a chance to even visit the race because they went out of town for the week. Since I stayed in town, I got to experience the race and all the cultures from around the world that were represented. I told all my friends about all the cool things I got to see as part of this class and I’m really glad I picked this one! If I had to assess myself, I would say I did a good job. I learned a lot and I contributed to my group’s work. I wish there were more of these special topics classes available every semester! Lee Kallman/How this presentation changed the way I saw the event   September 26, 2015  |    zadaitl  |    Leave a comment   I wrote a post about Lee Kallman’s presentation before the bike race began, but I waited until now to post it. I’m glad I did! After experiencing the race firsthand, I can say that when he touched on the national pride aspect of the race, he was spot on. There are many of my friends who only watched the race so they could show their support for the team USA riders. I think it’s awesome that the marketers focused so heavily on promoting the national pride part of the championships. It gives a personal connection to the event that most locals might not feel. He made the comparison between this event and the women’s world cup, and I think that was really spot on too. When I went to Fan Fest to speak to the sponsors, my mind flashed back to this presentation and when Lee explained why some companies that you would not normally associate with a sporting event chose to be sponsors of Richmond 2015. One of the sponsors that stuck out to me was Genworth. While they are a huge presence here in Richmond, why would they want to have a presence at a cycling championship? It wasn’t until I spoke with them that I realized the answer, but that’s a story for another post.  I thought one of the most important parts of the presentation was the fact that 300 million people are going to watch this event on TV! Of course, most of them are located in Europe: Spain, Italy, Belgium, etc. But this event is going to be watched by twice as many people as the Super Bowl! That’s crazy! That alone would be a reason for any company to want to have their name on this event. When I first watched this presentation, I envisioned Richmond 2015 as a huge cycling event with half a million people flooding into the city. And I was really excited! However, as the race is wrapping up tomorrow, I can see now that these numbers were hugely inflated. Initially, it looked like the race was going to hurt Richmond more than it would help us. Business that had overstocked in anticipation of the influx of customers are now hemorrhaging money because there are simply no customers. I am interested to see what the final number of tourists that were here was. Either way, this presentation helped me see the event and the sponsors with a different perspective and I felt like I was closer to understanding the true story behind all the sponsors and the marketing techniques.   Fit Construct – Sponsorship   September 13, 2015  |    zadaitl  |    1 Comment One look at the list of sponsors for the UCI Road World Championships, and one can see that the event has a very diverse set of sponsors. The “UCI Partners” are all foreign companies who are probably historic supporters of the UCI. In addition to the foreign partners, there are also domestic sponsors in the areas of tourism, academics, accounting, and many others. Not surprisingly, Dominion and Altria also have their names on this event. One of the most interesting sponsorships for the race is VCU Medical Center, now being branded as VCU Health. But why? VCU Medical Center sponsors a lot of local events. The interesting thing about this sponsorship is that VCU Medical is the exclusive medical sponsor of the event. This is huge for VCU. There are two other large health systems in the area: Bon Secours Health System and HCA. They are both very active in the community, but because VCU is the only medical sponsor for the event, neither of them were able to take advantage of the international exposure. VCU did this because, as the exclusive medical sponsor of the event, their name will be the only one associated with any of the care provided to the competitors or spectators. So, while VCU is a domestic sponsor that really doesn’t have any affiliation with the bike race, they are still gaining a ton of recognition through their sponsorship. According to the Washington Post (1), 300 million people will tune into the UCI Road World Championships on TV this year. That’s in comparison to 115 million for the Super Bowl, and 20 million for the final game of March Madness. This will provide global exposure for the brands associated with this event. So, there really is no question as to why some of these firms that don’t provide a very natural fit  The Road World Championships have historically been held in cities all over the world. Varese, Italy; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Lisbon, Portugal are some of the most recent sites. This is the first time that these races will be held in the United States since 1986, and that’s one of the biggest reasons that there are so many domestic sponsors. An opportunity like this obviously doesn’t come around very often. So, while there are some sponsors that don’t provide a lot of “natural” fit to the event, the global brand exposure that these domestic companies are receiving is a great opportunity to expand the brands into new areas, both geographically, and by association with the race. A question for the class: Which brands have the best fit, and which have the worst? (1) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/super-bowl-is-small-fries-compared-to-this-world-cycling-race-is-coming-to-richmond/2015/01/21/5140e2e4-974c-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html) Organizing an Event   September 12, 2015  |    zadaitl  |    1 Comment Something I would like to organize would be a fundraising event for the Alzheimer’s Association. I am currently involved in a group on campus that raises money for Alzheimer’s research through small fundraising events, but I think I would really like to organize a large scale fundraising event, like the Walk to End Alzheimer’s that is taking place on November 7th. My organization has participated in the walk for the last few years and are looking forward to this year’s event! If I could plan an event to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association, I would want it to be something that people don’t normally associate with Alzheimer’s, like a carnival or a concert.  Since the event will be a fundraiser, the sponsors that will be attracted to the event will be interested in associating their brand with the philanthropic efforts of raising money to fight Alzheimer’s disease. The right event sponsors will also be attracted to the population that is being benefitted by the fundraiser. I would imagine that many healthcare organizations would be attracted to the event. There are many independent hospice care organizations that I’m sure would want to associate their brand with Alzheimer’s fundraising. I would probably make sponsorship levels similar to how the Walk planning committee does theirs. They have tiered sponsorships that go by dollar amounts. For instance, this year, VCU Medical is going to be a silver sponsor, which means they are putting up $5,000 for the event. I think large health systems like VCU, Bon Secours, and HCA would be attracted to the event. There are also large corporations located here in Richmond that do a great deal of philanthropic work, like Altria and Dominion. In addition to the big ones, I also think small local brands would find the event to be a great opportunity to engage with the community. For instance, Sugar Shack and Hardywood are two brands that definitely utilize local sponsorships to establish some name recognition in the community, Events like this have been hugely successful in helping raise money for great causes, and none of it would be possible without generous sponsors. I participated in an event last semester, the RVA Run for FRIENDS benefitting FRIENDS Association for Children. The event sponsors ranged from VCU Athletics, to Jimmy John’s, to McGeorge Toyota, and more. All of these sponsors wanted to associate their brand with this event. FRIENDS is also a local charity, so association with the event probably helped enhance the brand’s community image.  A question for the class would be: what makes you want to donate to a certain charity over another? Is it about having a personal connection? Advertising and promotion? I know I personally try to restrict my charitable donations to charities that I have personally researched and found that as much of the donation as possible will go to the cause, instead of operational costs.  

Event Planning and Promotion, Blog 6

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Event Planning and Promotion, Blog 6

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