A few blogs ago, I wrote jokingly about Life Sponsors in a way that was clearly tongue in cheek. Today, I read in the Sunday New York Times about sponsored weddings. Maybe I was having a Nostradamic moment. Having a daughter who will no doubt one day want a wedding that I will have to pay for, and knowing that they cost as much a BMW convertible, I think this idea is killer perfect.
Apparently it’s hardly a new thing on the wedding circuit and is happening all over the country. According to some wedding expert, the national cost of a wedding is $28,000. No wonder AirTran got nearly 230 requests for “wedding sponsorships” last year. They cut checks on four of them. Another couple recently got a $100,000 wedding sponsored in a baseball park by the Cyclones (a Minor League team), 1800flowers.com, the Broadway Mall, The Staten Island Hotel and Entenmann’s. What did the sponsors get for their trouble? Logos everywhere and mentions in news stories and blogs like this one. Sounds like my Life Sponsor.
There were 7,500 tickets sold to this affair. Some wedding planning honchos claim this is crass commercialization of an intimate time in someone’s life. Really? And who is getting that 28 grand mentioned up there? Wedding planning honchos?
I say we expand this thing to include other events in people’s lives. Births? Here you go: Gerber and Pampers fork over enough to send the newborn to Harvard in 18 years. For that they get a fresh logo on the baby’s butt and the mom screams their taglines during contractions. Video at 11. Surely that would make it on the “Today” show, or “Regis,” at least.
Divorces are perfect for sponsorships. Graduations and birthdays are naturals. Vacations? Perfect. Having a colonoscopy or a triple bypass? Let’s do a podcast and line up some sponsors. This is what you do with all that multicasting bandwidth I’ve been hearing about in media circles. Been arrested? Get a sponsor.
Imagine my funeral held at halftime of the Super Bowl and sponsored by Nike and Coke. At the end of the remarks by the presidents of the sponsoring companies, they light up a Viking pyre and cremate me right there on the 50. They had the Stones this year. What would you rather see: Sixty-five year-old men in spandex swinging their arm flaps or a dead man on fire? That’s what I thought. I’m calling Nike right now.