Madonna v’s Katy Perry: Sponsorship v’s brand partnership

By February 13 2012, 11:48 pm 1 Comment
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Pure money grabbing sponsorship or brand partnership?

Is it a sponsorship or is it a partnership? There is a massive difference between the two, sponsorship is not partnership.

It’s the same relationship as hooker and punter, it’s all about the money. Anyone can sponsor anyone as long as it’s legal and they have the right money.

Madonna has a “brand partnership” with Diageo which has allowed them to have Smirnoff Vodka, (which everyone knows is the low end of vodka which no one who likes vodka would actually buy) product placed in her new video for her latest comeback single and subsequent album.

Smirnoff will undoubtedly market this amazing happening for all it’s worth but will it increase sales? I doubt it. People aren’t daft they can see through a money for placement deal and know that Madonna is not really endorsing the brand, she has more expensive taste than that.

Having said i loved the integration of the best dancer Smirnoff and Madonna ran to find a backing dancer for her tour, although it seemed to have very little to do with the Smirnoff brand values. If you’ve had a few Smirnoffs you either can’t dance or you just think you can…… Red Bull would have been a better brand partner in this context…..

Katy Perry on the other hand has created  a really cool partnership with The Sims. Electronic Arts (EA) announced plans “to develop multiple games within The Sims franchise featuring special Katy Perry themed in-game content and virtual goods.” As Perry very sweetly put it “I always like to think of myself as a cartoon, and now I’m a Sim,”

The first result of this collaboration will be an expansion pack for The Sims 3 Showtime — “Katy Perry Collector’s Edition” — released in March 2012. Perry is no stranger to The Sim-iverse. She recorded her song “Hot and Cold” in Simlish — the language of the Sims, natch — for a Sims 2 expansion pack back in 2006. The video is the most popular of its kind, according to EA.

Cool synergistic partnership between Perry and The Sims

Perry will now be very busy creating “accessories, clothing, hairstyles, furniture and props” for virtual people, as well as starring in ad campaigns for her Sims ventures. She seems more committed and more involved that Madonna is in the much commercially sounding Smirnoff deal.

Although Madonna chose a backing dancer through the competition the difference of integration is immense between her deal and Perry’s with The Sim’s where she is very much involved and a willing partner, although still a commercial one too of course. It’s still all about the money but the brand has to be right for this kind of content deal between Perry and EA>

  • ChrisJReed

    From Mitch – Director Global Membership at WWF in Singapore:  
    Chris, I have to say I love that you have time to write, but disagree with you on a few points, Chris: Madonna (who is from my home town in Michigan) will definitely raise Smirnoff’s sales, and their image. Agree with what you said about the PRODUCT (i’m a vodka man myself, and am old enough to know Smirnoff is what the drunks used to buy in small bottles to get thru the day). But don’t forget: every year, a NEW batch of ‘new’ drinkers turn of age, and they have NO history on the brand (which you are stuck on) no sense of what “good” vodka tastes like, (or ‘doesn’t taste of, as it were), and ARE (unlike you and me) influenced by price (against Absol, which is my brand, or Grey Goose, which is just French and stupid, what do they French know about vodka, or Stoli, which KNOWS that, as the first real ‘branded’ vodka, they priced themselves out of their own market, because (unlike Absol, which WIDENED its product line, and pushed the fashion connection with its bottle-shape – and vodka is a club drink, not an at-home drink like Bailey’s) they then got lost in the shuffle, and tried to play catch-up with Stoli Lemon, etc. Skyy more effectively copied Absol, distinctive bottle, claimed to have a more “pure” processing that “real vodka drinkers” could taste (or again, rather, NOT taste) and DID capture a solid market share.

    So the ‘low’ end of the market is still there, but like all low ends, wantsto NOT be low end. So like Red Bull, they are trying to raise the sexy
    level on its brand. And I think they’re going to do it. Like Carhartt, if you wait long enough, the ‘working class’ brands can get pushed up to
    be cool with kids. And that’s who they’re looking for. Oh, and that’s who Madonna is looking to (re) capture too! So….. good fit.

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