Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

James Walter,
I actually put together a similar effort many years back for one of my PR clients. The client was a financial institution and they sponsored an art contest for high school students.

There were several prizes:
1. First place individual received a $1,000.00 savings account and the art piece was featured in the bank's yearly calendar.

2. Second price received a scholarship to attend an art school for one year.

3. Third place received $500 cash price.

Additionally, the 10 best pieces "went on tour" and were exhibited within the bank's various branches for a period of three months after the contest ended.

To amortize costs, the bank partnered with a local retailer's association that was concentrated in a specific geographic area (e.g.: downtown). The participating students chose particular landmarks within the area and painted "al fresco" where passersby would stop and see them "creating." The event lasted for one week. This strategy increased traffic to the retailers and created a lot of "good will" for the bank as there were signs indicating the name of the sponsors and their support of the "arts."

The agency I was working for at the time reached out to fairly well-known painters within the arts community to judge the competition.

Pre-event, the bank sent a letter to all schools with art programs and advertised the event to all their customers and the press and the local retailers/merchants had signs at their stores inviting "artists" to participate.

You need to start "small" and grow from there - even to deciding what type of art you want to feature in the first "go-around" (Visual Arts, Plastic Arts, Graphic Design, etc.); as well, perhaps you want to involve a couple of universities/colleges rather than a whole bunch of them.

If you make the exhibit into a public event, make sure you are covered by insurance.

This is truly a macro view of this effort - there are hundreds of myriad details to bring together and it is a lot of work but, it is a wonderfully satisfying experience both for the sponsors and the people putting together the event.

Good luck!
Mayrah Rocafort-Mercado

For your first go-around, you would benefit enormously from having the help of a professional event planner. So, why not ask one to be a sponsor?

Pitch to every event planning company in your area the idea that this will be a showcase for their company, and they would be able to plaster their name and get lots of credit for their contribution of time and expertise.

Then, watch them like a hawk and ask tons of questions while working with them. Next year, you will be much better positioned to do a lot of the work yourself, or at least to hire an event firm on your own terms.