Financial institutions, Pharmaceutical companies and Energy concerns have spent millions and millions of dollars entertaining valued clients at sporting events and other entertainment venues. In private tents, sky boxes and other elite environments, clients are wined and dined.
The companies plastered their names and logos on everything they could--large posters, town cars, polo shirts, name tags and tote bags. But now, as The New York Times reports, the logos are gone, but the events remain.
One of the basics of corporate sponsorship is to get your name out there, in any way you can. But now, in the days of TARP bailouts, health care reform, lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, corporations are being a little more stealth in the way they promote their brands.
From The New York Times:
Those who plan corporate events call the new practice “stealth spending.” In some cases, a corporate gathering is so well disguised that the event planners may not even know whose event they are working on. The subdued approach — no greeters at airports with corporate signs, no large banners — stems from worries that anything too lavish will suggest the companies are out of touch with the painful financial circumstances of many Americans. But it does not mean the parties have stopped.
The biggest trend “is having an event, but no one knowing whose it is,” said David Beahm, a Manhattan event planner.
The NYT goes on to report that "Even entire conferences now lack the name of the company sponsoring them — especially if they are being run by a financial services company, now in the cross hairs, or a pharmaceutical company, in the spotlight because of health care reform. Typical is a large banner at a conference saying “Reaching Forward 2009,” with the company’s name in fine print, if at all."
“Symbolism matters,” Joseph L. Goode, a spokesman for Bank of America
is quoted as saying, adding that the bank’s decision not to promote its
brand at the (U.S. Open) tournament was deliberate. “We are
right-sizing our hospitality for the current environment and tone and
mood of the country, with fewer bells and whistles.”