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CultureBusiness is an
international forum that brings together people from the cultural and the
corporate world. It first took place last year and gathered 200 professionals
from 10 different countries. Last year, the crisis was already in the back of
everyone’s minds at the forum during which we were trying to draw the outlines
of the future of cultural sponsorship.
A few days before the recent committee meeting for this year’s CultureBusiness conference, I read the results of a survey conducted by Admical entitled “What is the impact of the Crisis on Sponsorship?” The survey discusses the French corporate response to the crisis and I have been fascinated to discover a lot of similarities between what was said during our committee meeting and what was said in the survey. It questioned 300 businesses of all sizes, whether they engage in sponsorship activity or not. Three points especially struck me as being central ones.
The first is that culture is being hit hard by the crisis, but now is an excellent opportunity to reshape its image. According to the figures published by the survey, 73% of sponsorship budgets remain the same. In 91% of cases where there is a reduction in sponsorship budget, the reason is the current financial context as opposed to a larger long-term sponsorship reorientation. But in theses cases, culture will definitely be the sector that will be the most affected by cuts, with a decrease of 22% in budget, compared to 4% for relief-related projects and 11% for environment. We can assume that this is partly due to the image of culture, linked, whether right or wrong, to prestige and luxury. But culture is definitely more than a simple added value; it is actually one of the main pillars of human development. Cultural sponsorship needs to be perceived as about more than just exclusive VIP events.
The second important point is that “transfer of skills” sponsorship will definitely grow much more important during and in the aftermath of the crisis. Transfer of skills mainly refers to partnerships based on the sharing of human resources and know-how rather than a simple financial arrangement. Last year at CultureBusiness, it was said that this mutation in sponsorship would be accelerated by the crisis. Those impressions were definitely proven correct by the figure provided by ADMICAL, stating that while only 37% of sponsorship activities can currently be considered as “transfer of skills”, this will increase by 37% in 2009, compared to just an 11% increase for classic logo and money-based sponsorship.
And last but not least, sponsorship represents a unique opportunity for corporate businesses during the crisis. It is perhaps a fact which is widely known but too often ignored that right now in France, 87% of businesses that have some sponsorship activities consider it to be an internal factor of cohesion and 83% believe that it creates meaning and added value for their corporate communication strategies. Those facts and figures, we believe, should dissuade the corporate world from cancelling partnerships with the cultural sphere, as businesses are at the heart of social development and this doesn’t stop in tough times but should be an ongoing process. Here in France, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we believe, is going to be as relevant and meaningful as ever in the months to come.
Picture: pbo31 (some rights reserved)
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