Bringing The Right Company To The Table

We have this joke we always use in our slide presentations when we want to emphasize the fact that your sponsors should always be appropriate or, as we say, "relevant." 

We normally show a slide that our graphics guru, Eddie Hernandez, developed and it's this digitally-enhanced outfield baseball fence that has two sponsors that we felt didn't match... it always gets a laugh at presentations. See below:

But, now, thanks to the FHSAA (Florida High School Athletic Association) High School Football Finals at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, we no longer have to use an image we made up.  We have a real one that was displayed before the St. Thomas Aquinas/Plant football finals on Friday night....

Maybe we're just too sensative to the possible parental backlash.  To be honest, nobody at The Citrus Bowl seemed to mind or notice, probably because parents are so used to seeing this type of advertising at sporting events and venues.  I'm pretty sure though that, if anybody contacted Anheiser-Busch and said, "hey, we're running the state high school football finals... can we take the bulbs out of your signage or cover it up?"  Bud would be more than happy to oblige.  They don't want or need the bad press.

It might fly at the Citrus Bowl during high school football games but I would dare not test it at a high school.  Even with the same association presiding over the same coaches and student-athletes, there is a huge difference between watching a high school football game at a privately-owned facility and attending your students high school stadium and seeing the exact same signage.  Our expectations are different and it's good advice to keep that in mind when we're scouting for corporate partners.

Buses: The Inside Scoop and Outside Chance.

There's really a central question surrounding this one and it's simple Risk vs. Reward:  Does the revenue from advertising on your school buses justify the risk. 

Risk is the chance that the advertising on the inside of the bus while suffer the wrath of the public backlash and put the breaks on your program or that somebody reading that ad on the back of the bus isn't paying attention to the brake lights and now you have a much bigger problem.

Anybody that has talked to me about advertising in schools knows I'm not a fan of advertising to children in a "trapped environment."  That includes the insides of classrooms and school buses.  If they don't have a choice to leave the immediate surroundings then I don't think it's a good place to be putting advertisements. 

I don't like the locker wraps either.... too forced.  I don't like murals or mobiles either - blurs the line a bit too much for me. 

There's too much easy inventory out there to mess with the sticky stuff.  There's also two much more important groups your missing:  Parents and employees.   Most of the big companies have their own rules already in place about "advertising to children" and they are very strict.  Concentrate your efforts and focus on the parents and the employees.  There's good money in that and a lot less hassle.