Wednesday, March 2nd 2011
By Admin
PATRICK THORNLEY
THE SILHOUETTE
In the world of university athletics, money is a key in maintaining and improving not only varsity teams, but all programs and services offered by athletic departments. Add the global recession, and government and corporate funding for universities has been reduced.
The McMaster Athletics and Recreation department is no stranger to the pinch of this trickledown effect. However, spurred by aggressive branding in the form of the Colour Your Passion campaign, Athletics and Recreation is finding success in recruiting new and reaffirming old sponsorship deals.
“A lot of people recognize university sports logos over other things associated with a university,” stated Parrish Offer, Business Development Coordinator with McMaster Athletics and Recreation, who said that university athletics offer a unique market for prospective sponsors.
Citing the importance of the Colour Your Passion campaign, Offer noted, “If we can create something that all students are proud to be a part of, then the sponsors want to get involved with this too … McMaster students and faculty are unique in that they seem to have loyalty, where once they get onto a brand they don’t change.”
With a group of some 5,000 new undergraduate students each year coming into McMaster, poised to become consumers for life, sponsors seem more drawn than ever to partner with McMaster University.
New this year is the sponsorship with McDonald’s, which carries with it all the clout of the famous Golden Arches. With the Big Mac player of the game being awarded to the game’s MVP and the Small Fries Games profiling young athletic talent at halftime of basketball games, McDonald’s presence has been strongly felt on campus.
“McDonald’s has also been great at helping us out with things like feeding groups of kids on day trips to McMaster. These are the types of partnerships we are looking to create,” said Offer, who was quick to point out, “we like to talk about partnerships, not sponsors. A sponsor means they give us money and get nothing in return, we [Athletics and Recreation] like the idea of a partnership because when they partner with us, they help us so we can put on a better student experience for athletes and general students.
“On the flip side, I actively want to see these corporations succeed, and support these partners out of loyalty to the brand,” he added.
The strength of McMaster’s branding campaign can be easily noticed by the expanding group of M Club members. The M club, founded in 2008 by community members committed to raising funds for athletic financial awards, has seen recent additions like McDonald’s and also Allegra Printing Hamilton. Athletics and Recreation has also extended some existing deals like that with Cogeco and Cable 14 (both M Club members) to continue broadcasts of McMaster football, basketball and volleyball games. With new national and local partnerships heading towards McMaster in the near future, Offer makes it clear that long-term sponsors, like Fox 40, Orlick Industries and other long-time supporters who helped create the M Club are not to be discounted.
“We aren’t trying to create a Mac brand that gets watered down with ads, we want to legitimize the Mac brand with advertisements,” said Offer.
Offer believes much of the new interest in partnering with McMaster stems from a basic realization among investors, “there are all kinds of ways to advertise: billboards, internet ads, etc. But one of the differences with advertising with Mac, is when you are driving down the street or on the internet, you aren’t in the best mood, but when you are at a basketball or volleyball game or working out and you see an ad, chances are you are probably smiling or in a good mood and you want an ad in a good place, like McMaster.”
McMaster’s branding campaign has no doubt improved the visibility of athletics and recreation, but Offer doesn’t feel that the peak of the branding has been reached. “We are still getting people aware of what our brand is. University sports are a bit unique in that your clientele changes a lot more than your brand needs to because every year you get 5,000 new students so the branding is new each year for them.”
“Athletics and Recreation would love to see the branding transcend athletics and engage the entire McMaster community. It is this commitment to expanding the McMaster brand that has created the buzz of partnership interest we all may benefit from soon enough,” says Offer.
Mac’s ultimate vision is a “Mac Crazy” environment where Westdale and Main Street are painted in McMaster memorabilia centred around the one thing we all share in common, the colour maroon.
