Time constraints limit fiscal success of Elite Model Look contest
By Timothy Sifert
Cryptone Polska, organizer of this year's Elite Model Look contest, plans to double the revenues it reaps from advertising and sponsorships at next year's Elite modeling contest.
Though estimated by the company to be a success, the financial performance of this year's event, which is the local part of the renowned international Elite modeling contest that dates back to the 1980s, was stricken by a case of too much to do in too little time.
"This year the major problem was that we had very little time to do it all," said Joanna Nurowska, events organizer at Cryptone Event, a part of the Cryptone Polska ad agency.
The advertising agency, owned by Cryptone France, which has locations in Paris and Nice, bought a license from Paris-based modeling agency Elite that allows it to run the Polish version of the Elite Model Look contest for three consecutive years.
Typical in the more-than-50 countries in which Elite holds the modeling contest, local organizers such as Cryptone sign on sponsors and advertisers to fuel the events. But for Elite Model Look 2003 in Poland, Cryptone had been strapped by time constraints. Cryptone president Daniel Teboul signed the three-year deal at the end of last year, leaving little time for the organizer to drum up advertising support for the contest, whose finals were held on June 16 in the Skarpa club, a former Warsaw cinema.
Few contest attendees could recognize that there had been any difficulty in obtaining advertisers, as the club was strewn with ads touting such brands as underwear company Atlantic, Procter and Gamble's Pantene Pro-V shampoo, Sephora cosmetics and - out of TV-camera eyeshot - Gauloises Blondes cigarettes.
Yet Nurowska pointed out that even considering how many companies have reined in budget spending, finding sponsors and partners was difficult.
"The fact is that it will be much easier to do it next time we have the contest," Nurowska said. "We bought the license at the end of last year. It was a little bit too late."
She added that a mass of potential advertisers already had their ad budgets locked in for the year, leaving Cryptone little room to bargain.
"We started in February and most of the companies had their budgets already closed. They just didn't have money," she said. "We'll have much more of a chance (next year). Probably we would like to double the money."
She declined to report the revenues made on this year's event.
The finals of Poland's Elite Model Look contest were aired on Polsat last Sunday. Nurowska explained that soon after the airing the company would assess the good and bad points of its efforts and go back to the drawing board.
After this vetting process, she said, the company would begin to implement an improved strategy for promoting and attracting more sponsors by the middle of July.
