Charlie Spiring didn’t win a gold medal at this year’s World Women’s Curling Championships, but he feels as if he did.

The CEO of Winnipeg-based Wellington West Capital Inc. has joined the rest of his staff in living vicariously through Jennifer Jones, one of the firm’s in-house lawyers, who followed up her Canadian trophy in February with a world title in March.

“It has galvanized our firm,” says Spiring. “It’s something we’re pretty proud of. Wellington West has a very winning culture. We’ve been lucky enough to win a number of business awards — and Jones’ win looks good on us.”

Supporting an athlete — whether someone on staff or not — is an effective marketing strategy and a great way to build morale and retain staff.

The costs of widespread advertising campaigns tend to be prohibitive for all but the largest of companies, says Dan Richards, president of Strategic Imperatives Ltd. , a Toronto-based consulting firm to the financial services industry. Small and medium-sized players, on the other hand, can often get better value and visibility by sponsoring an athlete.

“From a tactical perspective, there’s a lot to be said for using part of your marketing dollars to sponsor athletes in a targeted way,” Richards says, “especially if you can negotiate that they’ll speak at client functions. That’s often where you get the biggest bang for your buck. You have to be smarter and nimbler to get maximum mileage for your advertising dollars.”

Jones’ success represents one of the best investments Spiring has ever made, he says. Wellington West sponsors Jones’ team and allows her flexibility in her schedule so she works when she can during the curling season. That was one of the main reasons Jones left Winnipeg’s largest law firm, Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson, more than two years ago. She is often away from the office from Friday to Monday — and national and world events required more than week-long trips — but she makes up for lost time while on the road.

“I have a laptop and a BlackBerry,” she says. “If I have to draft or revise a contract, I’ll do it at night in my room and e-mail it when the day is over. I know what needs to get done, and I can manage it over that time. If we have two games that day, my team will usually go out for dinner but I’ll just order room service — and that’s fine. That’s the decision that I’ve made. I want to have a career and I want to curl.”

In addition to the sponsorship of Jones’ team, team members also stayed at Spiring’s cottage in Gimli, Man., during the provincial playdowns, while other teams stayed in hotels.

In return, Jones attends client appreciation events and helps in other ways when asked. She will be meeting with Wellington West’s marketing department soon to see how her world title can be used to the firm’s advantage.

DEBT OF GRATITUDE

“I know how much they have backed me,” Jones says, “and the support has been phenomenal. I feel I owe Wellington West a debt of gratitude.”

Jones’ recent victory made her the second world champion in Wellington West’s head office. Long-time advisor Kerry Burtnyk won a men’s world title in 1995. Earlier this year, he was Manitoba’s representative at the Brier, the Canadian men’s championship won by Alberta’s Kevin Martin.

But you don’t have to have an athlete on staff to get involved in sports sponsorship. Max Meier, CEO of Vancouver-based PI Financial Corp. , says his firm decided to sponsor Britt Janyk, a member of Canada’s alpine ski team, to promote PI’s name change from Pacific International Securities this past summer. PI is a full-service investment dealer employing 160 people in its offices in Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary.

“I convinced my partners that if we picked the right athlete,” Meier says, “this could be quite good publicity for us.”

The timing could hardly have been better. Janyk was a five-time national champion in different ski disciplines. And, after never having finished higher than fourth place in 120 World Cup races, Janyk made the podium in her first race after signing on with PI. She won her next race, a Super G in Aspen, Colo., ending a World Cup drought for Canadians that had lasted more than a decade.

@page_break@“That gave us great publicity,” Meier says. “There were pictures in the national papers with our name on her helmet. What started out as ‘Let’s help some athletes’ ended up paying for itself. Taking out ads in the papers would have been quite costly.”

Meier has a background in ski racing himself and is a past chairman of Alpine Canada. PI’s employees have crowded on to the Janyk bandwagon, too. At a recent World Cup event, 70 of them cheered wildly from the stands.

“I’ve been a fan of ski racing for a long time,” Meier says. “But most people in the company weren’t. Through this, we’ve managed to get our clients and employees interested. Every Sunday, they watch TV and want to see the PI logo on her helmet.”

Meier realizes there is no shortage of amateur athletes in need of financial support. But Janyk’s character set her apart and made her the right fit for PI.

“She’s a first-class competitor,” he says. “She is well liked by her fellow competitors and coaches. She gives great interviews and she’s a very nice person.”

Meier is “thrilled” with the three-year financial commitment PI has with Janyk. (The details of the deal have not been released.) In return, she will be in attendance at the company’s upcoming sales conference, a year after speaking at the PI annual meeting.

But sponsoring an athlete does come with risk, Richards warns. The athlete could perform poorly on the big stage, sustain a serious injury or fail a drug test, thus countering the effect you wanted. IE