JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Is steelband sponsorship good for the title sponsors?

by

20150212

At the BP Rene­gades pa­n­yard Tues­day night, it oc­curred to me that spon­sor­ship of steel­bands is an ef­fec­tive way for T&T com­pa­nies or mul­ti-na­tion­al com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in this coun­try to demon­strate the ef­fec­tive­ness of their brands and their com­mit­ment to the com­mu­ni­ties in which they op­er­ate.

On its web site, bpTT states that it "has proud­ly spon­sored Rene­gades for over 40 years. Dur­ing that time Rene­gades has dis­tin­guished them­selves as one of the top steel­bands. They have won Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tle nine times, in­clud­ing three back-to-back wins."

Rene­gades, of course, was pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Amo­co Rene­gades but changed its spon­sor's name in the ear­ly years of this cen­tu­ry fol­low­ing the "merg­er" be­tween Amo­co and British Pe­tro­le­um in De­cem­ber 1998, form­ing BP Amo­co, which quick­ly be­came just BP.

BP is one of three com­pa­nies that have had long as­so­ci­a­tions with some of T&T's bet­ter steel­bands. The oth­ers are Wit­co, with Des­per­a­does, and Massy, with Trinidad All Stars.

As far as I can de­ter­mine, Wit­co be­gan its as­so­ci­a­tion with Des­pers in 1964, while the Neal & Massy group (now Massy af­ter last year's ex­pen­sive, but ef­fec­tive, re­brand­ing ex­er­cise) took over the spon­sor­ship of what had been known as the Catel­li Trinidad All Stars, in 1988.

What does the as­so­ci­a­tion with of some of this coun­try's pre­mier steel­bands bring to the com­pa­nies that serve as their ti­tle spon­sors?

Ti­tle spon­sor­ship of a pre­mier steel­band al­lows com­pa­nies to as­so­ciate with this coun­try's na­tion­al in­stru­ment. The pan, as has been drummed in­to the heads of Trinida­di­ans for decades, was the on­ly in­stru­ment in­vent­ed in the 20th cen­tu­ry. Pan is a source of pride for many Trinida­di­ans, but it is in­ter­est­ing that the semi­fi­nals of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion gets many more pa­trons than the fi­nals.

Spon­sor­ing a steel­band al­lows a com­pa­ny to get a great deal of mileage for a sig­nif­i­cant part of the year. And this is not on­ly at Car­ni­val time, as most steel­bands have con­certs through­out the year and dur­ing the steel­band fes­ti­vals, which is miss­ing from this coun­try's cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

Spon­sor­ship al­so ex­tends the brand of the com­pa­ny in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, when steel­bands un­der­take in­ter­na­tion­al tours or when steel­bands play lo­cal­ly at in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences.

An as­so­ci­a­tion with a pre­mier steel­band may serve to en­hance the good­will, sta­tus and ap­peal of the spon­sor­ing com­pa­ny.

The fact that the steel­band from Laven­tille is spon­sored by the cig­a­rette-pro­duc­ing com­pa­ny may make it more dif­fi­cult for the an­ti-cig­a­rette lob­by to speak out against Wit­co, as they may be ac­cused of at­tempt­ing to harm one of the coun­try's old­est steel­bands that has tak­en on icon­ic sta­tus in an em­bat­tled, ur­ban com­mu­ni­ty.

In his re­marks in the 2009 Wit­co an­nu­al re­port, the com­pa­ny's chair­man An­tho­ny Phillip made the point in ar­gu­ing that the cig­a­rette pro­duc­er should be al­lowed to con­tin­ue its spon­sor­ship of Des­per­a­does, even as it was pro­posed then that it should be banned from oth­er forms of ad­ver­tis­ing: "Re­stric­tions to cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship have al­so been ad­vo­cat­ed. It is our view, how­ev­er, that re­stric­tions on cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship fail to ap­pre­ci­ate our long-stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to so­cial, cul­tur­al and phil­an­thropic pro­grammes, in­clud­ing our 45-year spon­sor­ship of the Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra. This part­ner­ship has en­abled Des­per­a­does to evolve in­to one of the most promi­nent steel­bands in Trinidad and To­ba­go, lead­ing the way in in­no­va­tion and ex­cel­lence. It is our view that there should be a waiv­er for ex­ist­ing spon­sor­ships, with re­stric­tions."

It is in­ter­est­ing to note that Wit­co has been able to con­tin­ue spon­sor­ing Des­per­a­does, where­as in­ter­na­tion­al­ly most cig­a­rette com­pa­nies have been forced to drop their spon­sor­ship of events.

It is al­so in­ter­est­ing that three years ago, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety ac­cused Wit­co of flout­ing the To­bac­co Con­trol Act of 2009 by al­low­ing its name and lo­go to be quot­ed and pic­tured when Wit­co spon­sored events.

Dr George Laquis, head of the so­ci­ety, said the use of im­ages as­so­ci­at­ed with Car­ni­val on the pack­ets of cig­a­rettes sold by Wit­co breached of Part III Sec­tion 19 (3) of the Act as it de­pict­ed and as­so­ci­at­ed it­self with a lifestyle that may be deemed de­sir­able.

Wit­co ar­gued that the use of Car­ni­val im­ages on its pack­ag­ing does not in­fringe the Act: "The use of im­agery on our cig­a­rette packs is not an ad­ver­tise­ment, and re­tail­ers main­tain and sell cig­a­rette packs di­rect­ly from dis­pensers owned by the man­u­fac­tur­er, and so are not wide­ly avail­able for full view of the pub­lic.

"The ac­tiv­i­ties that were un­der­tak­en by the Wit­co Des­per­a­does do not breach the Act, and we are of the opin­ion that pro­hi­bi­tion against to­bac­co spon­sor­ship, ad­ver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion is not breached by the use of the name Wit­co Des­per­a­does as this does not have the ef­fect or like­ly ef­fect of pro­mot­ing a to­bac­co prod­uct or to­bac­co use.

"In fact, this name is the long-es­tab­lished iden­ti­ty of the steel­band. The leg­is­la­tion is not in­tend­ed to pre­vent the com­pa­ny from be­ing a good cor­po­rate cit­i­zen. Spon­sor­ship by the com­pa­ny re­mains a le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty, ex­cept in spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances de­fined by the Act, and we have not breached these re­quire­ments."

This idea about the good­will that comes from a com­pa­ny like Wit­co spon­sor­ing a steel­band like Des­pers would on­ly be proven if the com­pa­ny were to stop spon­sor­ing the steel­band.

But, in my view, the good­will and vis­i­bil­i­ty of sev­er­al com­pa­nies and prod­ucts less­ened af­ter they stopped spon­sor­ing a pre­mier steel­band. In the re­cent past, The St John's Road St Au­gus­tine steel­band, Ex­o­dus, stopped be­ing Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus and be­came Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus. While there is noth­ing wrong with the in­sur­ance prod­ucts that Sagi­cor sells, some may ar­gue that the com­pa­ny has lost some of its lus­tre in the last few years.

Go­ing back fur­ther, the sta­tus of Guin­ness in T&T took a beat­ing when it stopped spon­sor­ing the Cav­a­liers. The brand name Catel­li, which at one time was syn­ony­mous with ketchup, has al­most dis­ap­peared from T&T af­ter it dropped its spon­sor­ship of All Stars.

While spon­sor­ship of steel­bands is good for the com­pa­nies, ob­vi­ous­ly it is al­so good for the steel­bands them­selves.

Many of this coun­try's most fa­mous steel­bands have be­come de­funct, fol­low­ing the loss of spon­sor­ship. Pan Am North Stars and Is­cott Casablan­ca are ex­am­ples of fa­mous steel­bands that are no more. There are many oth­ers.

It is al­so in­ter­est­ing that some of T&T's biggest and best known com­pa­nies have stayed away from be­com­ing ti­tle spon­sors of steel­bands. This list in­cludes British Gas, BHP Bil­li­ton, SM Jaleel, Bermudez and ANSA McAL (al­though Carib has lent its name to some steel­bands).

Fi­nal­ly, while spon­sor­ship is close­ly linked with the steel­band move­ment, one of T&T's most fa­mous steel­bands has re­sist­ed the lure of ti­tle spon­sor­ship for years: Phase II, led by Boogsie Sharpe.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored