BA sponsorship pitch
 

Hello all,

Having gained a lot of knowledge and advice through this forum that has taken me to Gold membership, and too may holidays that are comfortable for my bank balance, I want to gauge your opinions.

To be transparent, I work for a well known (non-profit) classical music organisation in London, and have the opportunity to pitch to BA for sponsorship/official airline partner status in a couple of months.

One element of my pitch will be focused on what benefits could a classical music organisation offer BA to enhance Executive Club membership? What would you like? Just a little informal market research to the flyertalk crowd

Some basic ideas i'm pondering include -

• earning Avios on performance ticket purchases / redeeming for performances
• our performances available on Inflight entertainment
• excusive hospitality for Premiere/GGL/Gold (and even Silver/Bronze) at our performances
• bringing our musicians into lounges for intimate recitals

This is all part of a much bigger proposal of course, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts - if you are willing.

thanks!

Not to be overly negative, I think the above sounds like a good idea, but your biggest challenge will be to get BA to part with cash (assuming you are looking for money and not just a few flights for a raffle..).

For example, the very popular drink/beer/gin festivals that we have seen in lounges... Let’s just say that BA did not purchase those drinks and displays at cost... or purchase at all...

it's not acutal cash i'm pitching for, its a preferred/charity rate to help us expand our touring and staff travel without having a huge impact upon our budget. Fully aware that its a longshot, but they've agreed to listen, which is great.

Good point about the various activities in Lounges being 'paid for' access!

Well cattle have classical music pumped into the holding pens as it has been scientifically proven to relax them. Pitch it to play in the lounges and pax would be more getting on the plane. Self loading freight not too different from cattle I would’ve thought?

The best way of not getting something is never to ask, so good luck.

I'm sure you know this, but the best route to success is to align yourself with a corporate responsibility objective, far more than offering to play in a lounge or a few freebies which have minimal effect. The maximum benefit to BA is if they can get good feelgood PR, so you need to scour what they do with other groups in similar contexts and see what they like to support and what use they make of the sponsorships in PR material.

good advice, and already part of the plan. The 'added value' benefit to Exec Club members is only one small element of the entire pitch. They actually have a good CSR section to the corporate website, which sparked a lot of ideas.

Well, if I could get this in quickly: You need one soprano, one mezzo, and a small orchestra armed with a Delibes score. ;)

Of the ideas that you have suggested, hospitality at concerts (including free tickets) may be something that would appeal. What I'm thinking of is the kind of event to which BA might invite high value customers, in the same way that other events are already routinely organised for them. But instead of yet another outing to F&M, you might be able to offer something different. I suspect that a general free-for-all hospitality area for ordinary Golds may be less appealing. (Unless, of course, you could get me an evening with Joyce DiDonato. Last time, I had to gatecrash another sponsor's event to talk to her.)

way ahead of you on that one - i've got a rather large orchestra and hundreds of top name singers at my disposal :D

that's the kind of thing I was thinking about, just wanted to see if it would appeal to those that have been to the F&M events

i'll put your name on the guest list :D

I'm not sure about the executive club benefits you could offer, maybe they'll appeal but next to the credit card deals and high street offers I'm not convinced it will turn BA's head...however one positive angle is brand value. I think classical music is a good fit for BA's brand. They might be more interested in a bit of prominence at your events and access for promotional filming.

Ha, No promises... :D

I would suggest making sure you have checked the technical aspects that would be required behind the scenes to manage this before proposing it.

Should be relatively easy to do.

This may be of interest to them, but BA seems to prefer events where there is more of an opportunity for their managers to interact with premium status holders. Not that I would know. >18 years at Gold, including >2 years at GGL/CCR and I never received an invite to any such events.

Personally, I would be careful with this one. While some lounge users may enjoy this, others would not. Lounges are meant to be peaceful, relaxing places. While classical music is a significant part of your world, it is not to everyone's taste. The current lounge promotions are clearly of financial value to BA, your proposal would be technically a cost to BA (even if you don't charge them, it will cost them quite a lot to make the arrangements for such events). Also, the lounges can get very busy and anything that takes seating space away in the lounges (including the current promotional stands in T5 lounges) is a bad idea in my opinion.

Maybe impromptu performances in the main terminal area in T5 when you are flying on BA would be more appropriate and require less planning on BA's part (T3 is probably a no-go due to the lack of space). If people don't want to listen, they can move on and find plenty of space elsewhere.

Hopefully you have a variety of classical music to suggest to them. I've had as much as I need of the Flower Duet.

I can't seem to send you a PM. I worked for a music non-profit in London myself for a number of years and got a different type of deal with another airline. Send me a message and I'd be very happy to discuss.

Dont worry, our repertoire is rather extensive - we're a large, well known organisation. I promise you'll only hear the Flower Duet on rare occasions :D