Tips from Tina Brown on Sponsorship, Meetings and Publications
March 22nd, 2012 •
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Last August, Tina Brown appeared as a keynote speaker at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) 2011 Annual Meeting in St, Louis. She shared with us briefly the story of Newsweek and The Daily Beast’s Women in the World Summit. I was ready to pay attention when the 2012 Summit began to emerge in the pages of the print edition of the magazine.
The March 12, 2012 issue of Newsweek featured “150 Fearless Women in the World.” This publication essentially was a regular issue with a special segment of editorial and advertising (mostly by Summit sponsors) reflecting the issues that would be addressed at the March 8-10 Summit held in New York.
Another reason this issue jumped out at me is because I had just co-hosted with Brent Mundt a webinar for Association TRENDS on the challenges and opportunities associations are facing when it comes to advertising and sponsorship (and where the two meet.)
We discussed the critical issue of planning your publication content and marketing it well in advance to advertisers and sponsors. We also discussed bringing forward your mission work in new ways that happen to help identify matches to companies that may not have initially been on your sponsor prospect list or in your industry inner circle. For many ass
ociations, the issue of women or broader issues of diversity in the industry may be logical. For others, it could be about technology or environmental sustainability.
Newsweek and The Daily Beast show how to take this even farther with conference content and a social media strategy that engages the face-to-face and online audience year-round. Topping it all off is great design, use of photography and easy navigation.
From this vantage point I see success as evidenced by those who attended contributing robust content for the Women in the World website/blog and the very visible and seemingly pleased corporate sponsors (happy Tweets from Intel and others.) Additionally, there was live video for us virtual attendees and the Twitter feed was blowing up with useful comments and information during the three day Summit.
A face-to-face conference, a year-round online community, planned and well executed publication editorial content and sponsors…it may not be an association, but it sure has a lot to offer us.
Graphic Credit: Newsweek/The Daily Beast website