Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Why is it that when any alcohol or soft drinks company sponsors an event they always run with the standard ‘My product is the only product of its kind that will be sold at this event’ approach?

I’ve posted about it before, but it’s something that happens over and over again. Sure enough, if you spend a huge amount of money sponsoring an event you want to see a financial return on your investment, but short term success can lead to long term losses.

Oxegen is another good example of this. The only non-alcoholic minerals that you could buy at the event were water and Coke. Now this doesn’t sound as bad as a sponsorship where an alcohol company sponsors an event and their terrible beer is the only thing you can buy, thus reinforcing a negative perception about their product. However when you take into account that the festival goers were being over charged for the water and Coke, then things taker a twist. The fact that the weather was scorching at the festival didn’t help things either.

One of the main things I heard from people at the event was ‘It was so hot, I ended up spending loads buying Coke because it was so expensive. It was a bloody rip-off.’ All of a sudden people are walking away from an event where your brand got great exposure with a negative image in their mind.

At the end of the day if you’re insistent on having an exclusive deal for your product at an event, then don’t rip people off. In my opinion I think companies are better off with a load of branding at an event rather than forcing people to buy your product, but obviously very few companies seem to agree.