July 2, 2004 – On June 11, women cyclists and their supporters gathered at
the Third Yoplait Women’s Cycling Summit Conference held during the Great
River Energy Bicycle Festival at the Park Inn in Bloomington Minnesota.
The Yoplait Summit, whose mission is to advance women’s cycling at all
levels, attracted more than 50 participants, most of who were in Minnesota
to participate in the Nature Valley Grand Prix.

The first session was an open discussion of strategies to stretch small
budgets. Race selection is often driven by budgetary issues. Sponsor’s
goals and the expense of a given race were the two most consistently cited
factors in race selection. Strategies for stretching budgets included
host housing, using local staff and have team members distributed around
the country.

Giving more value to your sponsors was the subject of a panel discussion
in the second session. Teams need to understand that, while a sponsor may
like the sport, their sponsorship is intended to advance their business
goals. Sponsorships are often intended to help craft the sponsor’s “brand
image”. Brands are more than just identifiers. Modern branding focuses
not just on the qualities of the product but includes a wide variety of
other associations, images and experiences that shape the way that a
consumer perceives the brand. Sponsorship provides an excellent strategy
for crafting brand image since the brand becomes perceived as having a
positive association with a cool sport and an active lifestyle.

The final session was devoted to working with the media. The mainstream
media is not particularly interested in bicycle racing, but they can be
highly motivated by compelling stories. Lance Armstrong made the cover of
Esquire magazine, not because he’s an outstanding athlete, but because
he’s a cancer survivor who made an amazing comeback from a potentially
fatal disease. Every athlete on every team has a compelling story and the
teams need to collect these stories and provide them to the media
relations coordinators of the events that they attend or to the media
directly. Effective media relations was discussed in detail.

The full Proceedings can be found at http://www.WomenCyclists.com

The next Yoplait Women’s Cycling Summit Conference will be held at the
Interbike trade show in October.