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Getting Sponsors
How would you like to create a sound system for your car with products donated by the best manufacturers in the field? Believe it or not, you can construct such a system by recruiting sponsors. The premise is that companies will donate product if you use the car to promote the company.
Creating a system in this manner is time consuming and takes a lot of research on your part. Moreover, you will have to develop a sophisticated proposal which can be sent to companies to try to entice them to donate goods. And that will mean some out of pocket expenses. But the reward is a state-of-the-art system.
Isaac Goren, owner of Sounds Good Stereo, Woodland Hills, CA., has some ideas on how you can go about to create a system with the help of sponsors. Goren has created a multitude of systems himself with the help of manufacturers he enticed to sponsor his projects. So he has valuable experience on how to go about drafting proposals and how to work with manufacturers after they have committed to a project.
In addition, there are many car audio manufacturers who have teams that compete at car shows and sound off events and appear at special events at the manufacturers’ dealers as well as trade shows. One such company is Sony. The team that was created consists of people who Sony was aware of because of their participation in sound off events. In other words, the team members were known to the company. An explanation and description of the team may help in showing what is expected of you and the system you hope to build.
Examples of a Sponsored Program
Rick Kojan, national project marketing manager for Sony Xplod, San Diego, California, is the brainchild behind Sony’s Team Xplod, currently a group of three ultra-enthusiasts of car audio and car audio-video who compete their Sony Xplod audio systems in USAC and IASCA sound off events and demonstrate their Sony Xplod audio-video systems at car shows, trade shows and special events. 2004 marks the second year of existence of the team.
The program is targeting the 16 to 30 year olds who are potential car audio aftermarket customers. It is this group of the population who frequently attend the sound off events. And, to get the attention of this group, members of Team Xplod participate in 10 to 12 regional and local shows.
The members of Team Xplod are not employees of Sony nor are they on the corporate payroll. However, Sony does provide them with products and in-house technical support as well as expense money for their sojourns to sound off events and trade shows. For this sponsorship, the members of the team are obligated to attend events Sony assigns to them.
The members of the team must also be prepared to travel some distance from their homes to attend events. This could be as much as a four to six hour drive from home into other states but still within a particular region of the country. These assignments can also include national trade shows like SEMA and the Consumer Electronics Shows held in Las Vegas, Nevada every year.
The one thing that all three members of the current Team Xplod have in common is their enthusiasm for car audio. All of them have participated in sound off events prior to joining the Xplod team and all have some knowledge in the installation of car audio and car audio-video products.
The three members of the 2004 Team Xplod are: Rodney Findley, Shawn Bennett, and Jason Syner.
Findley was a USACi sound off and a SLAP (Sounds Looks and Performance) competitor prior to joining the team and continues competing in these events.
Twenty eight years old, Findley works as a designer for a construction company and he lives in Jasper, Alabama.
He has been interested in car audio since he was a kid and had a friend who owned a car audio retail shop where he spent a lot of time learning and spending money. He has done low end audio installations for friends and has been very seriously involved in this aspect for seven years. Another friend introduced him to the USACi competition circuit and he wanted to compete.
He purchased a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT to serve solely as a platform for a competition audio system and has been competing for three years prior to joining Team Xplod. He does USAC, MECA, and some IASCA competitions and claims to have won up to 15 first place trophies.
Sony first approached him to become a part of Team Xplod at the USACi World Finals in Kansas City, Missouri in 2002.
He has participated in events for Sony Xplod in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. He currently competes in the advanced pro 1201+ power class at USACi events.
Jason Syner has been interested in car audio since he was in high school. He always wanted the best quality sound possible whether the audio system was in his parents’ home or in his car.
He went to school to learn car audio installation and has been through a number of certification programs. He said, however, that he is 90 percent self-taught.
Twenty seven years old, he now owns his own fabrication shop called Executive Finishes in Orlando, Florida. He has owned the shop for three years.
He said that he has been attending sound off contests regularly for about 10 years. At first, he never thought about entering a contest until he met a guy who told him he could. He has actually been competing for seven or eight years, he said.
He designs and constructs his own systems. He built his first system for competition in his current Team Xplod Honda Civic. “It took me about six months to construct it and I debuted it at the 1998 Spring Break Nationals at Daytona Beach, Florida,” he said. He placed fourth in his first novice contest and ever since then he has been hooked.
According to Syner, he has won 25 to 30 sound off contests and competes mostly in IASCA events.
Rob Liss, mobile electronics trainer for Sony, first approached him about doing an all Sony car in 2000.
Syner and Liss were working out the construction of an all Sony sound system for Syner’s Honda and, at the same time, Sony was creating the Sony Xplod team. So Syner’s and Liss’ plans just merged right into the Team Sony Xplod concept.
Syner designs his Sony Xplod system in conjunction with others at Sony. “I give Sony an outline of what I want to do and I work with Sony’s tech installers at their mobile electronics technical center. It’s a team effort that comes up with the best product mix for the application,” he said.
Syner explained that he took one and one half years designing the first Xplod system and as long as 15 months doing the installation.
He competes in the IASCA Ultimate Expert Class in the 600 and up power category. This is the highest level class IASCA has, said Syner.
Shawn Bennett is Team Xplods’ representative at car shows, trade shows, and other special events. His 2002 standard cab Chevrolet Silverado is already a repeated Best of Show legend on the car show circuit.
Thirty four years old, Bennett owns Image Audio Design and Image Auto Detailing in Orange, California. He has been caught up in the car audio phenomenon since high school and built his first show car in his parents’ garage when he was 17 years old. According to Bennett, he learned how to do installations on his own, reading articles in magazines and by asking friends who were involved in the trade. He also credits Gary Bell from Sony’s vendor partner American Products Company with being instrumental in his installation education. His skills grew as he did more and more installations and each installation got more advanced. “I wasn’t afraid to tackle anything,” he said. “Every time I built something I learned something.” As he became more serious about this hobby he learned about such concepts as ohms law, subwoofer enclosure design, and more and now he is doing the most highly sophisticated technical installations.
He used to compete in IASCA and USACi sound off contests in both sound quality and SPL. However, he found that his real interest was to construct “crazy” looking vehicles and exhibit and compete in car shows. His designs have been crazy enough to give him the nickname of “Hollywood” on the car show circuit because his vehicles are so “flashy.” He competes his Team Xplod Silverado in all the “Best of....” categories at car shows and consistently wins two “Best of...” contests per show. In just a six month period he won three Best of Shows with his Team Xplod Silverado. And that title means best of all vehicles that have exhibited in that show.
He first met Rob Liss and Rick Kojan of Sony when he was exhibiting his 1998 Toyota 4Runner at the SEMA Show in 2002. He said that he showed the Sony representatives how he built displays and how he used monitors running off of a laptop computer. “That car had a lot of extras most people didn’t have,” he said.
When he decided to construct another show vehicle Sony gave him product, support and financial backing and the result is the Silverado, which is now worth as much as $160,000, said Bennett.
In addition, Blaupunkt recently announced an agreement with CarSponsorships.com, one of the industry’s top car sponsorship management agencies. CarSponsorships.com works with show car owners to help them develop their vehicles, obtain equipment, work with sponsors, and to prospect show opportunities and events. “For Blaupunkt, the role of CarSponsorships.com will be to cultivate and manage new and existing show cars,” explained George Velez, Brand Marketing Manager for Blaupunkt. “They will screen for quality, creativity, and capability, essentially presenting Blaupunkt to those car customizers who are most qualified. The company offers sponsorship support for every level, from novices to experienced professionals, because you never know where the next great car will come from.”
Other companies CarSponsorships.com works with include Dunlop Tires, Vertical Doors, B&G Suspension, Tsunami, Gila Films, Evolution Autodesign, Stoner Car Care, and Performance Auto & Sound Magazine. (You can contact CarSponsorships.com at (239) 274-5552 or http://www.carsponsorships.com)
Finding Help
If you are a relative unknown who participates in sound offs or if you have not competed but want to get involved through a sponsored program you need to get known.
Perhaps the first step in your project is to find a reputable car audio retail shop that can help you in designing the system you want to create. It is best to choose a shop that is well recognized in the field. One way to find such a shop is to read the car audio specialty magazines and your local newspaper to find retailers who have been covered by the press for designing and installing systems. Moreover, you can contact the top manufacturers in the field and ask them to recommend shops in your area.
Visit the shops. Check out their walls for plaques from manufacturers and rewards from organizations in the field for the work they have done. Notice what products they carry and whether they are from the manufacturers you would like to participate in your project. Talk to the manager or owner of the shops and try to ascertain their knowledge of the field of car audio. Finally, choose the shop you feel most comfortable working with.
Once you have the shop that will help you design a system, sit down with the actual designer and discuss with him what you want. What goals you have for the system. The sound system can consist of products all from one company or the products can come from an assortment of companies. The important thing is, you need to know what the manufacturers offer. If for example, you want one company to sponsor the entire system you obviously need to choose a company that offers all the products that make up a sound system -- head unit, equalizer, crossover, amplifiers, and speakers. Alpine, Kenwood, and Pioneer are examples of companies that offer a full line. On the other hand, if you want to create a system with products from an assortment of manufacturers, you need to know which manufacturers are prominent in a particular category. The car audio specialist who will design the system will know who are the best in each category and design the system accordingly.
You should be warned that you will probably have to pay the shop for providing you with a design. Later, you can submit a proposal to the shop to see if you can get them to do the actual installation.
Research
Research! You will have to do a lot of research. You will need to know what the project is exactly. It could be that your system will go into an existing vehicle or you are creating a concept vehicle to house the audio system. Or you may just want to re-shape the original vehicle with some body kits, suspension work, etc. Determine what the vehicle is to be. You can get sponsors to donate parts for this part of your project too. Since this is an article about car audio, I am concentrating on getting sponsors for a car audio system.
Then you will have to draw out the project. It would be best to get an artist to help you with this. If the vehicle already exists, you need to take accurate and detailed photographs in all angles. If the vehicle does not exist you need to get the artist to draw in color the concept of exactly what it will look like. If the vehicle exists, but it will be modified, you need to take photos showing what the vehicle looks like now and include artist drawings of what it will look like when done. Have a drawing done of the exterior of the vehicle showing the placement of the logos of the companies that you want to provide product. The more product you want a company to fork out, the bigger their logo.
Next, you need to determine where the project will be in say two to three years. What press coverage might it get? What shows may it exhibit at? List the magazines you think may be interested in doing an article on the vehicle and the shows where this vehicle might appear. Don’t limit the type of shows you may want the car to go to. Include trade shows, consumer car shows, even some shows that may not seem to fit like Bridal exhibits. Include possible appearances at stereo shops, car dealer showrooms, any type of show or exhibit that exposes the vehicle to the public.
If you intend to show the car at major events like say the Long Beach Grand Prix, find out how many people usually attend the event. Get information about the event or show.
Have a layout for your audio system drawn up by an artist. Determine what manufacturer you have tabbed to supply the radio and find out the model number of that radio, what manufacturer you want to supply the EQ and get the model number of that EQ, etc. Goren suggested that you do a layer set up of the system. Have a basic layout of the car then on one transparent sheet have the artist draw in where the speakers will go; on another plastic sheet have the artist draw out where the radio, EQ, crossover, amplifiers will go. On another transparent sheet, have the artist draw out the routing of the power cables. And on another transparent sheet, have him draw out the routing of the signal cables.
Write out your own background as the owner of the vehicle. Include how old you are, where you live, what do you do, what other projects have you done, what magazines have covered those projects (and make copies of those articles), has any of your projects been on a front cover of a magazine (if so, make copy of the cover), tell what shows the project has been to and what events where it has won trophies. If you have never done anything like this before, write out why you are doing it now.
Do research on the manufacturers you have chosen to approach for products. Find out the address of the main headquarters of the companies, the e-mail address. Find out who is the person in charge of marketing for the company. You will be sending him your proposal.
The Proposal
Gather up all your work and include it in a proposal. Besides including all of the above information, explain in detail what you want from the company you are approaching. Do you want them to donate products? Do you want them to pay for the installation of their products? Do you want them to pay for the entire installation? Include in the proposal who designed the system and what shop you intend to approach to do the installation. Include background about the shop including any magazine or newspaper articles published about it.
Draft a short cover letter addressed to the marketing director of the company you wish to send the proposal to. In the letter, give a brief description of your background and what is motivating you to do this project, briefly discuss the project including where it is at the time you are writing the letter and when you propose to have it finished. Also include what exposure the potential sponsor may get. Finally, detail what you want exactly from the company. Include a deadline for a response. Goren suggested that you can ask for an answer within 15 days. Write on your calendar what date that would be so that you can follow up with a phone call. If the company is not interested, refine the proposal and approach another company.
Submit the proposal to one company in a given category at a time, cautioned Goren. For example, if you are looking for a company to donate amplifiers, don’t send the proposal to more than one company that offers amplifiers. If the company turns you down, refine the proposal and send it to the next company. Oh, and send the proposal overnight priority.
Send thank you notes to companies that accept the project as well as those that do not.
Follow Up
Once you have lined up all of your sponsors as well as a shop to install the products, take photographs of the project as it progresses and send frequent heads up notices to the sponsors. If you have proposed that the project will take six months, send a heads up every month. If you proposed that the project would take two months, send a heads up every three weeks or so. Goren’s rule of thumb is: send a heads up when the project is 25 percent complete, 50 percent complete, 75 percent complete, and then complete. If you fall behind schedule, let the companies know it. Keep nothing from the sponsors. A company just may call you to find out what needs to be done to put the project back on schedule.
Obviously, seeking sponsors will take a lot of work and some out of pocket expenses. In fact, Goren suggested that not only should you pay for the design of the sound system, but you should also pay for the installation to show your commitment to the project. Seems like a lot of hassle, doesn’t it. But when the project is done you have yourself a top notch, state-of-the-art sound system and a feeling of accomplishment. And you are on the threshold of getting a lot of publicity for yourself. Don’t forget, it’s your car! So any articles written about it, etc. will include you. That’s some way to get yourself known.
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