Partnerize works with some of the most successful and influential publisher partners in the industry. Our Partner Perspective series sets out to learn from the best of the best and pick up a few secrets to their success along the way.
In this installment, we sat down with OpenSponsorship’s CEO and Co-Founder, Ishveen Jolly, and here’s what she had to say.
Partnerize: Share a little about your company.
Ishveen Jolly (IJ): Opensponsorship.com is the market leader in the brand to athlete marketing space today. With over 18000 athletes and brand clients such as Walmart, Finishline and Travelodge, we are the best way that brands today are finding, securing and activating athlete partnerships. Our forte is social media deals as well as longer term ambassador projects. We are backed by Serena Williams and other notable investors, our HQ is in New York.
Partnerize: Please describe a typical day in your office.
IJ: Since Covid, the team is mostly remote with a small hub in New York. We have two sides to our company: product/tech and sales/marketing/account management. The latter is the departments that I lead and days involve a healthy mix of internal meetings to stay connected, interacting with clients and then sharing learnings so we can keep growing and improving.
Partnerize: What types of programs is your team looking to partner with?
IJ: We are looking for the Partnerize account management team to partner with us when clients have influencer budgets and we can support the discovery of the right influencers through our expertise and data, then support the execution to ensure a strong ROI and a project with a happy ending! (Not always the case in the influencer world).
Partnerize: Can you share a success highlight from your partnership with Partnerize that really stands out to you?
IJ: Our first ever partnership was with Chewy (many years ago). I loved this because often partners come to us when there is a supplement or sports product (which we love), and we also do really well with so many other categories. Athletes love to promote products that are authentic to them and their family / personal lives such as pet products, clothing, travel, home good etc.
Partnerize: What Partnerize technology innovation has had the greatest impact on your team?
IJ: We know that ROI tracking is really important to brands so being able to use us to find and manage the influencer then having the tech from Partnerize to track sales and impact is really great.
Partnerize: What sets your company apart from others or makes it unique?
IJ: We have a network of thousands of athletes (micro, macro, college, retired, Olympians, coaches etc), and we have our amazing account management team who provides the service of an agency or an in house team. This is really important to our clients and partners. Who to work with is only half the battle, having the right strategy and executing well is super important.
Partnerize: What do you attribute your company’s success to with Partnerize?
IJ: We really help with the pre-process to win the client project, we are true partners in the pitch process, giving ideas, figuring out budgets, suggesting athlete names etc. Then we are proven to deliver and as mentioned above our account management team carry the heavy burden. I’m sure it’s important to Partnerize to work with partners they know will deliver and that we do!
Partnerize: What is one thing people should know about your company?
IJ: We are the trusted partner to so many different brand leaders in various categories, because we work hard to find the right influencer (usually an athlete and we have also done music, scientist, models etc) and we then ensure the right strategy, deliverables and tracking is in place to deliver a great campaign.
Partnerize: What’s on the roadmap for your company?
IJ: We are actively adding in different types of influencers such as content creators and even chefs. We are also continually working on our ROI capabilities.
Partnerize: Three words that best describe your company…go!
IJ: Transparent, effective, innovative
To learn more about OpenSponsorship, register to attend our upcoming Partner Perspective webinar on December 7th at 2pm EST right here.
