Corporations Take a Low-Key Approach to Event Sponsorship

The NY Times featured an article recently about major corporations approach to spending to entertain valued clients at golf tournaments and exclusive receptions.

Some of the nation’s biggest banks held parties at the U.S. Open golf tournament on Long Island this summer, but their names and logos were absent.

But where these companies once splashed their names and logos on every polo shirt and tote bag in sight, they are now going to extraordinary lengths not to be noticed.

Take the U.S. Open golf tournament at Bethpage Black, where the nation’s biggest banks held parties this summer at the Heritage Club, an exclusive corporate hospitality center just off the 18th hole of the Long Island club. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley all brought clients to watch the tournament and dine at a buffet and open bar.

But an observer would never have known the banks were there.

Guests of the banks sat at tables, each costing $50,000, with no indication of who was paying for them. Nor were the bank’s names on any of the other displays of corporate sponsors. As a group, the banks paid $750,000 — Goldman had two tables at $100,000; Bank of America and its Merrill subsidiary took eight tables at a cost of $400,000; and Morgan Stanley shelled out $250,000.

“Clearly, they did not want to be identified,” said one volunteer at the Heritage Club, who also declined to be identified because he was not authorized to talk publicly for the club. “I thought maybe I’d just put a generic ‘TARP Recipient’ sign at the center of each table.”

Those who plan corporate events call the new practice “stealth spending.” In some cases, a corporate gathering is so well disguised that the event planners may not even know whose event they are working on. The subdued approach — no greeters at airports with corporate signs, no large banners — stems from worries that anything too lavish will suggest the companies are out of touch with the painful financial circumstances of many Americans. But it does not mean the parties have stopped. Read more here.