How would I approach HK or Chinese companies for sponsorship and or goodies?

As a few of you know last year I went on a motorbike ride, 20000 miles later I finished up in Seoul. I thought it would work my travelling desires out of me... I was wrong badly wrong...

I am now in the initial planning stages to take on Africa, yes I am planning on riding through war zones. Inc DR Congo and Somalia, as well as Darfour

How would I approach a Chinese company for $40,000-60,000 HKD to do this trip? Anybody wanna come?

[ Last edited by  Kennichi at 13-9-2010 20:29 ]

I don't think you will be able to get sponsorship unless you were doing it to raise money for a cause or charity. Maybe you can approach the motor bike maker or dealership to sponsor you for advertisment.

Good luck.

You should try to ask all those particular state companies that have heavily invested in Africa, ie the oil, mining, trains, transportation, roads, etc.

Who knows you may be able to ask a road building company to sponsor you as an example of how good Chinese road building techniques are.

Simple bro... you need to get their product out there - make it an advertising opportunity.

Can you approach a motorcycle mag and get an 'in principle' agreement to publish a story on your adventures? Some mags (Asian Geographic is one, I think) pay very well for a couple of pages of wriitng and some pics (so you can actually recoup some of the cost of the trip!). Alternatively, you could try blogging about your journey, or sending regular updates to a local newspaper - anything to get your story out there.

Then you can go to companies and promise to use their names in the article/blog/whatever, or product place their stuff in the pictures that will end up in a magazine.

From an advertising/sponsorship point-of-view, I don't know what your selling proposition here is.

Lister01 has some valid points, one of which, publicity, is something you need if you want to have anybody sponsor you.  Nobody will sponsor you if nobody will know what you are doing.

Alternatively, you could have a worthy cause, which from your post, doesn't seem to be the case.

If your ride is symbolic in some meaningful measure, or you have access to or influence over people who might use a product/service, you might be able to get a sponsorship to defray some of your costs.

However, if you are looking for a company to sponsor you on a joyride across a continent on the promise that you'll wear their jacket/logo etc ... a snowball in hell has a better time of it, at least the snowball won't waste time trying to get sponsorship - it'll just melt without pain.

K - Just wondering if this was inspired by the "Long Way Down" show? You could always try to get Darth Vader on board!!

For those of you who think I have gone crazy... the actor who played Darth, Ewen Mcgregor, has done some doco's where he rides his bike on a long trip. In The Long Way Down he and his mate rode from the top of Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa - a short 15000 mile trip! http://www.bbc.co.uk/longwaydown/

Do you have any pictures from your last trip? If you can get something published about that, anywhere, you could use that as a major piece of your sponsorship bid this time. It doesn't have to be a front cover on National Geographic - you just want to prove that you can put together a trip and see it through to the end.

I haven't ridden a motorbike in 10 years. I would probably fall off riding out of the garage . Otherwise, I'd love to do a trip like that!

LWR and LWD are not real adventures by any measure of the word adventure. Both are made for TV where many of the events are both scripted and exaggerated. A TV viewer will not know of this tretchery though I do because in crossing Siberia I met people who had met them and helped them stage everything.

One of the biggest lies in LWR for example had a fake telephone call, the telephone call about how KTM pulled out, KTM did not pull out and KTM did not say they would fail. In fact Swinarski did an even more extreme unsupported trip on KTMs in 2004 and 2009.

In reality LWR demanded £250K each from KTM, KTM told them to go fuck themselves and they went and sponsored Swinarski instead.

The kickers are:

LWR&LWD both of these treks were FULL supported, this meant they had landrover support, security food, spares and even carried unseen spare bikes. The feckers didn't even eat any local food as it was ALL carried in a landrover behind them. How is it an adventure when you are wrapped in cotton wool? They said we're hard core riders, No they weren't! They were essentially pussies.The biggest no nos were these bits:

In Siberia, they happened to 'find' a truck to take them over rivers. This was Mr Road of bones he can be hired in Yakutsk for a fee.

Mongolia rough tracks? Nope I found the crew who dug the trenches for them to fall over in, Mongolia aside from punctures is each to ride.

LWD 'bandit country' which in reality behind the camera was a massive hilton hotel.

I.e. all of it is faked!


Though yes I did get into newspapers, magazines and also got a book published about my adventures. its on amazon.

[ Last edited by  Kennichi at 14-9-2010 16:22 ]

What kind of a bike did did you ride, and what's the book?