The view from the top: A CEO’s perspective on the business benefits of sponsorship

Marketing Directors are well sold on the benefits brought about by strategic sponsorship. The view from the boardroom, however, can often be more sceptical. To understand more about the impact of sponsorship on the business and the bottom line we spoke with Trevor Harvey, Chief Executive Officer of Stelrad Group plc, proud sponsors of the Newcastle Falcons.

For our plumbing and heating business, we have a lot of customers in the trade. What we found was that many of these customers were avid football fans. Therefore, we started out by using our local club, Newcastle United, to entertain trade customers primarily to take guests to football games. As part of this programme, we were presented with some advertising opportunities. Now this was when Newcastle United was in their, shall we say, previous state. That worked well for us on both the hospitality and advertising sides.