Chicagoland?

Hi Blog World! Sorry I have been MIA for a week. It was a lot with moving and a wedding, but I'm back in action.

 I headed off to Chicago with my roommate . Since we are price chasers, wish I could be loyal, but the salary won't allow it, we took the cheapest flight on whatever airline we could find thus our adventures or misadventures with Spirit Airlines. This would be the first sponsorship of the trip, or at least the first one I can remember, it was earlier so cut me some slack. Spirit Airlines has partnership with Cartoon Network. The extent of the partnership is unknown, but it didn't seem to really benefit either side. Well I'm guessing Spirit gets money for the placement, but what does Cartoon Network get out of it. The awareness? It didn't seem to me that my fellow travelers on Spirit skewed towards families, and their are not any TVs (that would be WAY too much to ask for, especially when you had to pay for water, and to bring a bag with you on the plane) to display the programming. Interesting...well anyways here is a photo that I took at 6:30 AM as we boarded:

The rest of Thursday was somewhat a blur because we had been up since 4:30 AM, but we walked around the city and took in the sites. Our biggest struggle of the day was to figure out which stops to get off at on the, I believe they call it, "L". Our first guess was a fail, but we managed to find our way to downtown. We ate at Gino's East, which I highly recommend, and the Pizza was delicious, very much authentic deep dish. The next day we headed to the Navy Pier and lake front area. We were very much pleasantly surprised with what we found when we got there. I was mostly excited about the sponsorships that were abundant, ok and the open container allowance. It was great to see them all because I could report back on how sponsoring different areas of the city shows a commitment to the city by those companies that inhabit it. It shows the citizens of the city that the company is giving back and believes in keeping the city alive. They want the city to thrive just likes the citizens of the city do thus you should business with them over their competitors. Below are the sponsors I spied at the Navy Pier:
I spy: Bank of America...

 I spy: Land Shark (and good for them for making the partnership about their product)

 I spy: American Airlines...

 I spy: Pepsi...

We also rode the Ferris Wheel brought to you by none other then McDonald'. There a lot of families on that ride, and where do you think all those kids wanted to go to lunch after? Certainly, NOT Burger King. Our ride was made more awesome because there were fighter jets flying by because they were getting ready for the Air and Sea Show that weekend. The Air and Sea Show brings to light another sponsorship that we spied while wondering around Chicago. I spy Shell...a lot fuel needed to power boats and planes going by, and those attending the event are boat and plane enthusiasts that then need to fuel their own planes and boats.

The last sponsorship or set of sponsorships I want to point out comes from Millennium Park in Chicago. We stumbled upon it while trying to find the Willis Tower (better known as the Sears Tower), and there was a concert going on in a large venue in the middle of the park. People were flocking in from all directions. I said to my travel buddy, someone should be sponsoring this park, and that's when we found this brochure below:

McDoland's , American Airlines, and Target some of the big brands listed in this pamphlet and all brands match up well with the event or portion of the park that they are sponsoring. They are making sure that the sponsorship relates back to their speciality so it is easier to make the connection between the sponsorship and the brand.

So that is a not so brief recap of our trip to Chicago. Have you seen sponsorships in our city? Does your company give back to the city as a way to build their reputation?

Go Forth...