Where to place your brand at mega events

Mega events such as Indian Premier League cricket team sponsorships, the GladragsMegamodel Manhunt, and the Femina Miss India contest are increasingly finding favour among advertisers and marketers as places to get maximum eyeballs in the most cost effective manner. But the logistics can be daunting.

For successful revenue generation from events it becomes imperative that advertisers and event organisers come together to benefit mutually.

Whereisyourbrand.com, said to be the first B2B (business-to-business) branding and sponsorship online hub, tries to do precisely this.

The site that recently went live is positioned on the B2B platform for advertising, branding and sponsorship activities and provides a collection of opportunities in 25 different categories covering above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) promotions space.

The online sponsorship hub is the first venture of Dinesh Chandra, an MBA from IMT Ghaziabad and a graduate of St Stephens College, Delhi. After a marketing career spanning more than 20 years heading brands like Sundrop, Samsung, Kohler and Ogilvy among others, Chandra hit upon the idea behind of an online marketing resource for marketeers.

His logic was simple; if marketing professionals like himself could have benefited from an online marketplace, so could others - especially in a market teeming with brands in search for opportunities to gain visibility. And, whereisyourbrand.com was born. Its salience lay in understanding the challenges faced by marketers in finding the most appropriate opportunities to increase visibility of their brands and committing to offer a solution for it.

Chandra says that although innumerable branding opportunities and options exist for sponsors and advertisers, in actual fact these options aren't really visible to a large number of them. For property owners the challenge is even bigger as they struggle to get the eyes and ears of the brand marketers at the right time.

 ''Marketers cannot afford to operate in a well of limited visible opportunities,'' he says. They need to expand their opportunities and for this currently they hire teams to scout for attractive events or properties that will get viewers and enhance visibility of their brands.

''Media or event property owners (event organising companies) also want their events to get sponsorship quickly and in the most cost effective manner.''

This he says is where his marketplace fits in and attempts to bridge the gap and help both the brand marketers and property owners. In a nutshell, ''Whereisyourbrand.com brings together the advertisers and property owners in a unique online dating service for the advertising, branding & sponsorship industry.''

Chandra says, ''The WIYBID leads to efficient market price discovery of any event / property through bidding in a transparent and easy to use manner.'' Currently the lack of accurate price discovery of any property is a key issue faced by sponsors and property owners. In most cases, advertisers and property owners feel short-changed over the price that is eventually arrived at.

While property owners can upload their properties on the website within minutes, for free and offer their opportunities for bidding on their terms can service, advertisers and sponsors have to register on the website, which is currently free.

Sponsors can:

• Buy branding opportunities and sponsorships through bidding on the WIYBID module through 'market discovery pricing' mechanism.
• Submit media briefs and get executable media plans from the experts using the XPRESSBRIEFING service.
• Use DiscoverWizard tool to search opportunities on the website by categories, market, target audience, time period & sponsor brand objectives.
• Use BranDiscovery tool to search what opportunities other brands are associated with.
• Upload stories on the website blog.
• Post unique requirements and get response from the relevant property owners.

Revenue projections

Chandra feels that as long as whereisyourbrand.com fulfils a strong need gap and provides value added offerings, revenue streams would emerge from both the advertisers and sponsors and the property owners.

''Currently our focus is to spur usage and establish the value added offerings through free trial to the sponsors. Property owners can also list their properties for free on the site.''

He says he expects to achieve revenues of around $1 million from the second year of operations.

Currently there are over 1200 opportunities listed on the site. Some of the premium listings include IPL team sponsorships, GladragsMegamodel Manhunt, Kingdom of Dreams, McDonald's, Shoppers Stop, Gold's Gym, airport branding options in 15 cities, Indigo Airlines, airport lounges, India Golf festival, Himalayan Dash, Mahi racing, bilboards in Gurgaon, DLF Cybercity corporate spaces, metro stations, Salgaocar Club, top malls in multiple cities, etc.