New report shows sponsorship can be measured

The impact of sponsorship can be measured according to a new report.

Strategy & Research, part two the report of Driving Business Through Sport, published by International Marketing Reports, shows that the sponsorship research industry has developed significantly in recent years and that return on investment (ROI) research is possible.

“The sponsorship industry has long suffered from the perception that there is no accurate way to measure results,” says report author Simon Rines.

“The new report shows that sponsors' media exposure can be analysed with great accuracy, that tracking studies can be designed to take account of all drivers and that there are efficient ROI evaluation models.

“Perhaps the biggest problem sponsorship has had is that it is not a consistent discipline. Sponsors' objectives vary, the sports vary and the activation strategies vary. It is therefore inevitable that a consistent evaluation model couldn't be created. Instead, research companies have had to develop flexible tools that take into account the variations in sponsorship programmes.”

The report considers all the key areas of a sponsorship programme from identifying the right property, valuing the rights to a full assessment of the impact.

The report shows that television evaluation now considers position, size and on screen clutter surrounding a sponsor's brand. Previously value was placed solely on the duration of exposure and led to very misleading reporting.

“In the past a small logo tucked away in the corner of a cluttered screen was given the same value as a large image, centrally placed with no other branding in view,” says Rines. “This was based purely on the time any logo was on-screen. Common sense dictates that the two would have a very different impact and now this is reflected by more sophisticated analysis.”

Similarly, leading research companies can now provide an accurate measurement of return on investment which feeds in data from media evaluation, tracking studies, coupon redemption and any other results from activation programmes.

“These tools are now very sophisticated and can break down sponsorship programmes into their component parts to give each a value. Sponsoring companies really can see how well different parts have performed and what the overall ROI figure is.”

Rines also explains that the sports marketing community is beginning to understand the value of socio-economic data.

“The data available from such sources as the Target Group Index is valuable to sponsors. It provides a very detailed profile of their target audience and shows what sports they are interested in, how they consume those sports and what attitudes they have to sponsorship. This allows sponsors to create 'what if' scenarios before buying any rights. They can see which properties would be a good fit for their brands and also how the activation programmes might work. Although this was possible in the past, it required new research for every scenario. The great thing about the data banks is that they are already there waiting to be interrogated.”

“The findings show the step change in the research process,” says Rines. “With sponsors spending tens of millions of Euros on rights acquisition and similar amounts on activating the programmes, it is imperative that accurate research is used to guide them through the entire process. If research is used properly, it is almost impossible to fail with sponsorship – the worst outcome is that it would tell you not to do it in the first place.”

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.