E84: Who’s There? #2 - Lesa Ukman

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.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.