Many Sponsors, One Brand: Keeping Your Look and Message Consistent

Once you land your second, third and fifth sponsor, a new problem shows up. Your car, your pit, your feed and your merch table now carry a handful of logos that were never designed to sit next to each other, from companies that may not know each other exist. Done badly, it looks like a yard sale. Done well, it looks like a team, and the sponsors start working for each other as well as for you. Here's how the racers and brands at my Sponsorship Summits keep a crowded program looking like one brand.

Only sign brands that fit you

Consistency starts before the decals go on. Dystany Spurlock, a motorcycle drag racer who has competed in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle, has carried a long list of partners, including Northern Tool, and has been a BMW ambassador for years. When I asked her at the Motorcycle Racing Sponsorship Summit how she keeps the branding consistent across all of them, she started with who she says yes to.

"I have to represent that brand in a way that meshes with me," she said. She won't take a deal where the money is good but the company doesn't "align with my brand and who I am as a person. I would never do that."

The payoff is a group of sponsors that fits together. "All of my sponsors, they're all like this. They all know one another. I sometimes do cross promos for them. So, I mean, it all works for me. It works together," Spurlock said, adding honestly: "It didn't always used to be this way." ▶ Watch Dystany Spurlock explain this

Your sponsors vet each other

Brands notice who else is on your car, and some of them use it as a shortcut. Wing Lam, founder of Wahoo's Fish Taco and a sponsor in action sports and motocross for decades, said the first thing he wants to know is the company you already keep. "First of all, I better know who all your other sponsors are, right? So we like to hang out with people that we like," he said. "If we know your sponsors, they already done a good job vetting the character."

Lam goes a step further with new athletes: he'll introduce them to Wahoo's other partners "just to kind of see, are we all on the same page." ▶ Watch Wing Lam on this

That means every sponsor you add is a statement about the next one. A roster of brands that respect each other makes you easier to sign. A roster that clashes makes every new marketing manager wonder what you'll put next to their logo.

Introduce your sponsors to each other

The racers who get the most out of a full roster don't just let their sponsors sit side by side. They connect them. Joe Parsons of Monster Energy, known to everyone in off-road as "Monster Joe," pointed to Casey Currie as a model. "Casey's good at putting sponsors together," Parsons said. "He's really good at co-promoting his sponsors and making sure that they get B2B from each other, and they work together to co-promote." ▶ Watch Joe Parsons on Casey Currie

When your sponsors do business with each other because of you, you stop being a line item and become the reason a deal happened. That's a hard partner to cut at budget time.

Design your own logo to play well with others

Spurlock has also thought about the one logo that appears in every sponsor's pictures: her own. "I've changed my logos about four different times, but I think I finally have the one," she told the summit. "And I also wanted my logo to be clean. So if one of my sponsors wanted to partner together to do a shirt that we can give out to people, it looks very tasteful and not like crazy."

That carries through to the track. "All of the liveries and all the images and logos and all that on all of my pit stuff, I do that," she said, and she asks sponsors for small giveaway items to put on her merchandise table next to her own shirts. ▶ Watch Dystany Spurlock on her logo

A busy personal logo fights every sponsor mark it sits beside. A clean one can go on a co-branded shirt, a hero card or a pit banner without making the sponsor's design team cringe.

Respect each sponsor's own standards

Big brands guard their look closely, and your program has to fit inside those rules. Andre Jackson, a marketing consultant for Toyota, described how tightly the company controls its branding on race vehicles. Every livery goes through one person on Toyota's side. "She is our brand sheriff," Jackson said. "So if you see a vehicle on any racetrack of any league or division, that branding on there has gone through her to approve." And if she hasn't approved it, he said, "it won't even go through our chain of command." ▶ Watch Andre Jackson explain this

Not every sponsor has a brand sheriff. Act as if they all do. Ask for current logo files, color specs and placement preferences before you print anything, and send a proof before the wrap goes on.

Give every sponsor a role in the same story

A consistent brand isn't only about how things look. It's also about telling one story that every partner can be part of. Vaughn Gittin Jr. told a summit audience that racers waste content by posting it only on their own channels. "As you're creating content, create a launch strategy that they're all involved in. They all want the content," he said. Instead of it just going on your channel, "work with your partners, work with media to get that out in different places, which in turn will get the faces on you, grow your audience and also achieve the goals of your partners." ▶ Watch Vaughn Gittin Jr. on this

One shoot, one storyline, and every sponsor gets a version that fits its own channels. That's consistency that also saves you time.

Build the roster from your brand outward

All of this comes easier if your own brand is clear first. John Viscardo, who sells sponsorships for Hoonigan, builds his prospect lists by matching audiences, and he told racers to do the same: "Figure out what your brand is, and then go find partners, brand partners, that align with that." ▶ Watch John Viscardo on this

If you're a young, edgy drift program, your partner list will look different from a family-friendly short-track team, and it should. The trouble starts when a program has no center and signs whoever says yes.

The takeaway

• Screen every new sponsor for fit, not just money. Ask whether it belongs next to the logos you already carry.
• Introduce your sponsors to each other and look for cross promotions and B2B deals you can broker.
• Simplify your own logo so it works on co-branded shirts, banners and hero cards without fighting anyone else's mark.
• Collect every sponsor's brand guidelines and send proofs of wraps, uniforms and merch before you print.
• Plan content as one campaign with a version for each partner, so everyone is part of the same story.