If your job is to measure the impact of sponsorship, you owe a debt of gratitude to Lesa Ukman.She did the hard miles, doing more than anyone to pioneer and champion the role of sponsorship as a marketing form.So we get in to it all: the problem of trying to measure brand purpose, the rise of blackwashing, to add to sports washing, gaywashing and greenwashing; the ‘horrible’ experience of working for GroupM (Ukman created IEG in 1982 and sold to WPP’s GroupM in 2016), the sexism she encountered in London, the upside of which was getting to use the popular English term ‘wanker’ on a regular basis; the broken incentives of media agencies; the mafia-like politics of Chicago; tangibles v intangibles; what you buy when you buy an IOC TOP package; and loads, loads more.You won’t want to miss this one.

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