Toby Kelly is the recently appointed Marketing Director of Global International plc. The company is multinational marketer of sports equipment, selling a range of well-known brands in virtually every part of the world.

As a company, and somewhat unusually compared to competitors, it has never con -

sidered commercial sponsorship for the company or any of its brands. In fact, several of its branded products are used by leading sportspersons in a number of sports. For example, Mia Rees (currently the world’s number l female tennis player) uses the company’s ‘Spinner’ brand of tennis racket.

Similarly, most of the Australian cricket team use the company’s ‘Century’ brand of bat.

Their basketball brand ‘Bouncy’ is the official ball of the American Basketball Association.

None of these brands or usages are connected in any way with any form of sponsorship.

The company has considered sponsorship on several occasions, particularly as it has seen its major competitors use this form of promotion to good effect. The main reason why the company has not considered spon -

sorship before is that the chairperson, the original co-founder of the company, feels that any form of sponsorship is demeaning to the company and its products. The view held by the chairperson is that a good product will sell itself, a viewpoint in some ways substan tiated by the selection of many of the company’s brands by leading sports persons and sports organizations without any sponsorship. In addition, there was a feeling in some parts of the company that sponsorship through product endorsement by a leading sportsperson was not particularly effective inasmuch as every -

one knew that this person would receive large sums of money for endorsing the product. In other words, there was a source credibility problem. Finally, there was always a concern about what would happen to the company’s brand image if there was some sort of scandal with the sponsored party.

Toby Kelly is a firm believer in sponsorship.

His previous company used it to good effect.

Global spends large amounts of money on advertising and sales promotion. He has decided to make his case to the rest of the Board for introducing sponsorship as a major part of the promotional mix. He needs to prepare his case for the next Board Meeting.

CASE STUDY QUESTION Prepare Toby’s case for the company investing in sponsorship.