“Being nominated for the marketing award together with so promi-nent representatives of German sports is a big success for KIT SC and shows that our club has developed successfully on and outside of the playing fields since its establishment in 2010,” says Professor Alexander Woll, first chairman of the KIT SC and sports scientist of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
The concept “One passion, one club, KIT SC: Nachhaltiges Spon-soring im Hochschulumfeld” (sustainable sponsoring at a university) focuses on cooperation with regional companies. “We offer reliable planning irrespective of success, rankings, promotion or relegation in sports. Both emotional and sports aspects are taken into ac-count,” says the sports director of KIT SC, Dr. Dietmar Blicker, who was one of the main drivers of the establishment of KIT’s sports club in 2010.
Contrary to classical sponsoring that frequently aims at promoting sales, KIT SC wishes to support networking of companies with each other and with the students. “The companies look for qualified young staff. In the sports club of KIT, they will find motivated, team-minded young people,” explains Marc Ringswald, marketing director of KIT SC. He developed the concept together with the partner “2bdifferent”, a supplier of sustainable communication services. Among the basic services offered by KIT SC to its sponsors is the participation in special network events. “Moreover, KIT SC stands for environmentally compatible sports. Together with our sponsors, we sensitize our members and fans,” Ringswalds adds. The club works on reducing CO2 emissions during league operation and on compensating the remaining emissions by joint environmental projects with partners. For example, the club plans to generate a mobility app, by means of which the fans are asked whether they come to KIT SC matches by bike, public passenger transport or by car. With its concept, the club has already attracted several partners, including a bank, an automobile manufacturer, and a climate protection agency for which the sustainable orientation of the club was of decisive importance.
In the first two rounds of the competition, the three finalists won over campaigns of Coca-Cola Zero, the Smartphone manufacturer HTC, PUMA, and Sky Deutschland. The concepts were assessed in the categories of innovation and trend, marketing success, and sustainability. The marketing award of sports is granted for the 11th time this year. In total, 19 companies and clubs participated in the competition. The awards ceremony took place on February 03, 2014 at the Sports Business Summit, the biggest European congress of the sports sector. The event was organized by ESB (Europäische Sponsoring Börse), a network of partners in the areas of sponsoring and events.
About the KIT Sports Club 2010
KIT SC is the sports club of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Operations of the club are based on the three pillars of competitive sports, recreational sports, and health promotion. As regards com-petitive sports, the club is presently active in the leagues of Ameri-can football, basketball, soccer, handball, judo, volleyball, tennis, and track-and -field as well as lacrosse. Other new and attractive types of sports are planned to extend the scope of activities in the future.
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.