New Zealand Fashion Week will have observed two milestones by year's end:
its 10th birthday, as well as the loss of its naming rights sponsor. Erin O'Loughlin examines how organisers overcame the latter to celebrate the former.
When considering which events on New Zealand's calendar they are prepared to lend their hard-earned dollars and brand name to, corporate sponsors would have to consider New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) a serious contender.
If the event's organisers are to be believed, NZFW is worth $23.2 million to the New Zealand economy in terms of total generated output.
In addition, they claim the event has already generated $64 million in media coverage in the year to date, and delegate numbers are up 20 per cent on 2001.
Add to that the buzz surrounding the event's 10th birthday this year and a string of consumer-focused official NZFW events, and it seems a golden sponsorship opportunity for any company keen to tap the fashion-focused consumer market.
Why, then, did Air New Zealand decide 2010 was the year to pull the plug on its NZFW naming rights sponsorship?
“The decision was made as part of a review of the airline’s sponsorship properties and their associated costs,” an Air New Zealand spokesperson says. “We are continuing to remain involved in this highly successful event as an elite sponsor.”
Despite being stripped of the naming rights dollars, NZFW organisers have overcome the change by bringing other brands on board. Though no other company has assumed the naming rights mantle, companies lending their logo, resources or finances to NZFW for the first time in 2010 include Visa, JR Duty Free and IBM.
Other elite sponsors, including Auckland-headquartered Radio Network, are only too happy to continue with their support. Radio Network's director of programming and marketing, David Brice, explains why the company has backed NZFW since 2007.
“We noticed the growth of interest in the Australian Fashion Week,” he says. “The event here was wanting to move up to the next level and we felt we had something that we could offer to help do that.
“Let's face it, not everybody can go and buy high-end fashion, but it infiltrates our culture. Trelise Cooper, everyone knows what her designs look like. Karen Walker, people know the colour palettes she uses.”
It's not so much the event's size or established history that interests Radio Network, he says.
“The fact that it is a fashion-focused even is our interest. We align our female-leaning brands – Easy Mix, Classic Hits – particularly to the event because it's an area of interest to that particular audience.”
Brice goes so far to say that he puts NZFW in the “top tier” of the cultural events and companies the network sponsors, including the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
“It's an important part of what we do because of the ability to tangibly put our brands in front of our listening audience. The signage opportunities, to be able to have our personalities present, that sort of thing, makes our brands more real than just something nebulous that you pick up for free on a radio.”
Kim Skildum-Reid, the owner of the Power Sponsorship consultancy firm, agrees NZFW's capacity to offer brands an effective marketing outlet is strong, if not growing.
“[NZFW organisers] have not just invented an event and then let it ride and not changed it for 10 years and let it stagnate,” she says.
“What they've actually done is continued to reinvent and evolve, like the activities they did around finding new talent this year.
“When a sponsor is sponsoring, they get the privilege – and it is a privilege, they can't abuse it – of connecting with people they care about through something those people have already decided they care about. If that sponsor comes in and makes that event a better experience for them, that is an unparalleled amount of marketing power they have.”
While Skildum-Reid acknowledges the sponsorship market experienced the freeze on expenditure that struck many industries in the wake of the global economic downturn, she says the effect is not so much that there's less sponsorship dollars floating around for NZFW to access, but more that sponsors are more accountable than they ever have been before.
“They're being very much more sophisticated in what they're choosing and what they're doing,” she says. “So it's a lot harder for sponsorship seekers to get their attention and deliver what they're asking for.”
The collection of changes is not necessarily a bad thing for NZFW's future, though, as Bruce Kaider, president of Sponsorship Australasia, explains.
“No doubt this is a really sad day that they've lost a long-term [naming rights sponsor], but you can also look at it as a great opportunity now to maybe realign what they stand for, the type of brand they want to be partnering with, and really go out there aggressively and find someone that might not only become their sponsor but could become a marketing partner and help them make the event a lot bigger than what it ever has been before,” he says.