With some $65bn being spent on sports sponsorship globally each year, brands need to get smarter about how they measure returns and look beyond simple outputs such as media ROI, engagement and sponsorship awareness.
Writing for the February issue of Admap (topic: Creating a sports sponsorship framework), Tom Goodchild, effectiveness director at the Omnicom-owned Fuse consultancy, argues that “sponsorship has fallen through the net and is far behind more traditional forms of marketing when it comes to measurement and ROI”.
Only one quarter of sponsorship practitioners understand the business return of their properties, he points out; most just look at things like media exposure, equivalent media value and fan awareness.
While these have a role to play, Goodchild says that if marketers are to develop a new world of advanced measurement, they have to shift the way sponsorships are approached from the outset.
To this end he outlines three key steps:
- Start with objectives and focused KPIs. “Currently, measurement within the sponsorship industry is not a key part of initial strategy conversations and is often treated as an afterthought.”
- Understand your sponsorship data. “It is often the case that the data is not being collected or processed in a way that supports existing marketing analytics.”
- Break down silos. “By integrating sponsorship measurement into existing measurement approaches and teams it can allow direct comparison to other marketing channels.”
Alongside existing measurement techniques, Goodchild proposes new measurement approaches that are tailored to uncovering the sales and business value impact of sponsorships.
These include assessing the impact of sponsorship on brand values, developing sponsorship attribution and understanding audience impact. (For more details, read Tom Goodchild’s article in full here: Three steps brands must take to measure the business return of sponsorship.)
Sourced from WARC
