Sportstar International
You are the recently appointed Marketing Director of Sportstar International plc. The company is multinational marketer of sports equipment, selling a range of well-known brands in virtually every part of the world.
As a company, and somewhat unusually compared to competitors, the company has never used commercial sponsorship as a promotional tool for the company or any of its brands. In fact, several of the company’s branded products are used by leading sports persons in a number of sports. For example, Mia Rees (currently the world’s number 1 female tennis player) uses the company’s ‘Spinner’ brand of tennis racket. Similarly, most of the Australian cricket team use the company’s ‘Century’ brand of bat. Their basketball brand ‘Bouncy’ is the official ball of the American Basketball Association. None of these brands or usages are connected in any way with any form of sponsorship.
The company has considered sponsorship on several occasions, particularly as it has seen its major competitors use this form of promotion to good effect. The main reason why the company has not used sponsorship before is that the chairperson, the original co-founder of the company, feels that any form of sponsorship is demeaning to the company and its products. The view held by the chairperson is that a good product will sell itself, in some ways a viewpoint substantiated by the selection of many of the company’s brands by leading sports persons and sports organizations without any sponsorship. In addition, there was a feeling in some parts of the company that sponsorship through product endorsement by a leading sports person was not particularly effective in as much as everyone knew that this person would be in receipt of large sums of money for endorsing the product. In other words, there was a source credibility problem. Finally, there was always a concern about what would happen to the company’s brand image if there was some sort of scandal with the sponsored party.
You are a firm believer in sponsorship. Your previous company used it to good effect. Sportstar spends large amounts of money on advertising and sales promotion. You have decided to make your case to the rest of the Board for introducing sponsorship as a major part of the promotional mix. You need to prepare your case for the next Board Meeting.
Instructions: Prepare and deliver your case for the company investing in sponsorships. For this project you will be making a report to the board of directors. You may do this in Memo format.
PLEASE NOTE: Don't get hung up on the memo format. Nothing else changes here except the formatting. Everything else in the syllabus still applies. You should not limit yourself to a single page and you still need references at the end for a grade in the A-range.
WHAT IS A BUSINESS MEMO?
A business memo is a short document used to transmit information within an organization. Memos are characterized by being brief, direct, and easy to navigate. They are less formal than letters but should maintain a professional, succinct style. Often, the purpose of a business memo is twofold: to identify a problem and propose a solution. Other times, memos may provide or request factual information.
Business memos are designed to accommodate busy readers who want to find the information they need from the memo quickly and easily. In writing a business memo, you should structure your memo to accommodate three kinds of readers:
- Those who read only the executive summary
- Those who skim the entire memo for its key points and a few details they're interested in
- Those who read the entire document for the details that support its major claims or recommendations
Bear in mind that these readers may have different purposes in reading the memo. Often, readers need to make policy and action decisions based on the recommendations. Others may want to obtain specific information (evidence) needed to understand and justify policy and action decisions. Readers may also want to get a sense of your professional ability and judgment.
In determining the purpose and audience of your memo, ask yourself: Who is the intended recipient of this memo? What do I want the recipient to do after reading the memo? What information will the recipient be looking for in the memo? These kinds of questions will help guide your content, structure, and style choices.
