In the world of sports sponsorship, it isn’t always about the large deals or companies when it comes to measuring success.. There are lots of deals that are done with smaller, local companies to help their brand and business growth, and in this case, it was looked at through the lens of Gus’s Fried Chicken. Dive into the client's perspective of sports sponsorships as we discuss how Gus's Fried Chicken finds success. 

Gus’s Fried Chicken is a local restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee with 39 total stores nationwide. They are in the process of opening up two more stores in Tennessee, but as those numbers show, they are a smaller-sized business.

It is always important to view any situation from different perspectives, and Phillip Sampietro, who is the owner of Gus’s Fried Chicken, sees how important their partnership with the University of Tennessee is. With UT having a powerful athletic presence, it has benefited Gus’s Fried Chicken and has helped its business grow tremendously.

Brandon Parks said that they want to make sure Phillip is “Plugged in and has a menu option for partners to take advantage of."

In this particular case, and in many other sponsorship deals, dedication towards a certain result is a major key. Brandon wants to make sure that UT helps Phillip’s business grow as much as possible by originally building the brand, frequency, and visibility of Gus’s Fried Chicken, which ultimately helped the traffic and sales on a monthly and yearly basis. UT helped put Gus’s Fried Chicken in their gameday programs, a monthly campaign on their website, and air time on their flagship radio station. At the start of their partnership, these were some of the ways that they built up Gus’s brand to become more of a household name within their community.

Brandon also stated, “The dollars spent have to have ROI attached to it."

Since Gus’s Fried Chicken has a limited budget and is a smaller business, this means that they have to allocate that budget wisely and think of creative ways, such as catering to their athletic teams and tailgates, to profit as much as they can.

There can always be growth in a business regardless of the size and it mainly depends on the relationship between the partners to achieve a common goal.

Brandon also alluded to how “No single sports sponsorship is perfect,” which is exactly why he was determined to build trust with Phillip through communication and showing Phillip that he cares about the growth of his business.

Overall, trust, communication, and creativity are some of the biggest foundations in a sport sponsorship. It doesn’t necessarily matter the size of a business or how large or small their budget is because if they have these foundations and a common end goal in sight, then they have a chance at achieving exactly what they set out to do and more.

To dive deeper into our client's perspective, listen to the episode of Knox Talk, here.

Learn more about our clients and the success they've found in sports sponsorships, here.