We ran a post recently on the “official sponsorship” relationship between Disney and American Tourister, suggesting ten strategic thinking questions you could use to develop a sponsorship strategy and identify new and unusual partners for your organization.
Jim from Massachusetts followed up the post with a request to provide some context for how a brand might answer the ten strategic thinking questions. His suggestion was if readers were able to see how we’d answer the strategic thinking questions for Disney, they’d have a better sense of whether their answers for their own brands are on target.
While I mentioned to Jim that amid all the content we share, we try to stay away from ANSWERING strategic thinking questions, which is something we are paid to do for clients.
In this case, though, I said we’d make an exception.
Here are the ten original strategic thinking questions from the blog post for identifying sponsors and partners, along with responses we brainstormed if we were answering for the Disney brand.
We didn’t dive into specific partner brands, simply categories of potential partners. We also didn’t remove duplicates from the list since a category showing up multiple times could suggest something about how attractive or viable a partnership might be.
1. What do users do before they experience our brand?
Buy flights / hotel / car rentals, research what to do at the destination, schedule vacation days, prepare to leave, board their animals, stop the mail, pack and get ready
2. What do users need to know before they interact with our brand, and how do they learn it?
Best ticket packages, park hours, ways to get better deals, ways to get their kids into the things and experiences they want to do. They learn it via the web, books, asking friends.
3. What products or services do users buy or secure before they approach our brand?
All the necessary travel, luggage, new phones (to get photos, video), cabs, long-term parking, airlines, car rentals, hotels, restaurants
4. What products or services do users bring with them as they approach our brand?
Purses, backpacks, phones, sunglasses, sunscreen, vacation / casual clothes, hats, water, luggage, stuffed animals / mementos
5. What other brands help make a user’s interaction with our brand more successful, productive, beneficial, or pleasant?
Raincoats, energy drinks, snacks for the kids, a good night’s sleep, sun glasses, sun screen, small / light weight backpack or purse
6. What other products or services do users use when interacting with our brand, even if there are no current direct connections?
Casual clothes, logoed clothes, mobile phones, buses, public transportation, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, food, soft drinks, water
7. What do users do after they experience our brand?
Shower, soap, shampoo, lotion, beds, restaurants, places to nap, social media, mobile phones
8. How or where will users apply the benefits of the experience with our brand afterward?
Stories they tell their friends, social media networks, Christmas letters, Kids’ rooms (for animals, keepsakes, etc.)
9. What products or services do users use after they experience our brand?
Storage devices / cloud for photos and videos, social networks, all the travel brands they used on the way there, restaurants, retail stores
10. What products or services will help sustain the experience users have with our brand even after it’s “officially” ended?
Photos, video, social media networks, stories, mementos, logoed items of all types, eBooks, television shows and movies
Whenever The Brainzooming Group develops new strategic thinking questions, we go through a comparable exercise to make sure the questions yield the right kinds of answers.
We hope seeing how we'd use these strategic thinking questions with a client (although Disney isn't a client) is helpful for you in thinking about what new sponsors and partners might fit with your brand. – Mike Brown
If you’re facing a challenging organizational situation and are struggling to maintain forward progress because of it, The Brainzooming Group can provide a strategic sounding-board for you. We will apply our strategic thinking and implementation tools on a one-on-one basis to help you create greater organizational success. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you figure out how to work around your organizational challenges.
