Ochieng remembers an incidence that took place a while back that taught him once and for all that Kanairo was truly a‘ shamba la mawe’ and to survive it required either grit or guile but specifically, it taught him never to judge a book by the cover.
I was in October during those days that Kenya had two holidays of Moi day followed by Kenyatta Day. The powers that be thought is necessary to gift Moi with a day that preceded Kenyatta day by ten days to remind Kenyans who the current boss was.
One of the two days fell on a Monday, creating a long weekend and Ochieng decided to indulge in his favorite pastime of camping and since his then girlfriend and current wife Achieng had adopted the hobby they planned to camp and explore the Kyulu hills.
Ochieng had a colleague, Jared who was also adventurous and Ochieng mentioned his plan and thought it would be a great getaway. He said he would bring along Yvonne, his then girlfriend and this surprised Ochieng.
Yvonne had met Achieng and they got along well but Achieng had mentioned that she found Yvonne too guarded and they were unable to establish the usual girlie camaraderie that usually develops between girls dating friends.
Achieng had remarked that any effort by her to have a girl out date was always thwarted and although Achieng had invited Yvonne to her apartment on several occasions the courtesy was never returned.
Achieng had remarked that Yvonne’ s apartment was in a rather pricy part of town but since she had not been there, she could not comment and it appeared that Yvonne would go to Jared’ s place but not the other way round. She was a nice but rather private person.
Unsurprisingly, Yvonne was not able to join them as she said she had a prior engagement, something to do with her going to see her parents and since Jared felt he would intrude on our privacy he opted out and actually decided to go see his parents in Kitale.
Ochieng remembers feeling deflated and decided not to go to Kyulu but decided to take Achieng on a Sunday drive to Naivasha. On entering the hotel, they chose to have lunch, Achieng noticed Yvonne in the company of a man and in an animated conversation.
She pulled Ochieng back and since Yvonne had her back to the door, she hadn’ t seen
131 MAL74 / 26 ISSUE them and Achieng insisted they find another hotel which they did but Achieng’ s curiosity had been pricked and she needed answers.
When Achieng later asked Yvonne what she had done over the long weekend she averred that she had not left Nairobi and had stayed at home. Yvonne had a sponsor and the relationship with Jared was a convenient front for respectability and camouflage.
Suddenly everything made sense, everything about Yvonne was a façade and Ochieng realized that what we now call the side chick or the slay queen has been a reality of the city life from time immemorial and has contributed to the many single mothers in the city.
Ochieng, as a marketer, soon realized that the word sponsor is not a misnomer for a sugar daddy but a correct identification on the nature of the relationship and how this illusive social game is played in broad daylight.
To the casual observer, it appears that both parties are getting the best of both worlds but history is replete with examples of how this apparently neat arrangement can go awry and actually end up making life worse off for both parties.
The sponsor in a relationship is on an ego trip and is rewarding themselves for their success in the world and the sponsored usually supplies glamour and as a trophy proof that the sponsor has a right to the finest things in life as they can afford it.
The correlation between the marketing and relational sponsorship is so striking that Ochieng would like to discuss the sponsorship scene to demonstrate that in the final analysis it can all boil down to a relationship that is suboptimal.
In a nutshell sponsorship marketing is a strategic partnership where a brand provides financial support, products or services to an event, individual cause of organization in exchange for specific promotional exposure and rights.
In the relationship arena, the sponsor provides mainly financial support and in return he gets unfettered escort benefits at their convenience. As the saying goes, whoever pays the bill calls the tune is literal here.
Unlike in traditional advertising where a company pushes a product message through paid media, sponsorship marketing focuses on goodwill, audience and existing credibility of the partner entity to reach the target audience in an authentic context.
In the relational arena this is where things begin to go south in that the relationship in most contexts is likely to be hyper-secret as it is frowned on by society as there is usually an inordinate age difference between the sponsor and the sponsored.
In the interest of remaining professional Ochieng would like to identify the usual types of business sponsorship as a prerequisite to identifying where things tend to go astray in the partnership that is supposedly ideal.
The most common type of sponsorship is financial, where the sponsor provides direct monetary support in exchange for prominent placement, naming rights or high-level brand exposure during the event.
The in-kind sponsorship is also popular where the sponsor supplies actual goods, services instead of cash or provides technology platforms where the event is flighted as a way to demonstrate the versatility of the technology.
Another popular sponsorship avenue is media sponsorship where the outlet guarantees the event coverage or offers promotional advertising space in exchange for usually exclusive access or generous on-site branding.
Then there is the cause or community sponsorship which supports non-profits, local initiatives or social causes that can help build brand reputation and demonstrate shared values within the community.
Ochieng has realized from experience that it is usually the financial sponsorship that has the greatest opportunity to create friction and this usually happens because the sponsor is quite often looking for a quick fix that ignores some fundamental strategy issues.
Sometimes the sponsor jumps at an opportunity without confirming that there is an audience alignment. Does the sponsored partner’ s audience at the very basics at least overlap with the sponsor’ s ideal customer profile.
Does the sponsor actually understand the activation process of their brand and are able to bring the sponsorship to life through interactive touchpoints and not just placing a passive logo and hoping the audience will make the connection.
Does the sponsor negotiate clear deliverables like what digital exposure is required, and other mundane issues like how to manage VIP access and other logo rights details like permission to claim that they are the official sponsor in related advertising.