Sponsorship

What we know about sponsorship effectiveness

Article • WARC Best Practice, July 2019

Examines how brands can build awareness and increase loyalty through effective sponsorship.

What we know about marketing at major sporting events

Article • WARC Best Practice, April, 2019

The current thinking and reading on the subject of sports marketing – aligning a brand or product with an event or team – including major sporting events such as The Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup or The Super Bowl.

What’s working in sponsorship

Article • WARC Category Intelligence, January 2019

Global strategies, campaign updates and trends in sponsorship.

How to plan an effective sports sponsorship strategy

Article • Neil Hopkins, WARC Best Practice, March 2018

Provides marketers with key best practices on planning an effective sports sponsorship strategy, which is dependent on a rigorous strategic planning process to ensure effective targeting.

Why Chelsea FC thinks about football outside the world of football

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Digital Transformation Conference, November 2019

Premier League club Chelsea engages with fans from around the world, many of whom have a totally different relationship with the team than its UK fans – it is now enhancing the way it relates to its 100 million supporters.

Sports sponsors need to tap fan goodwill

News • 27 November 2019

Traditional measurement of sports sponsorship packages indicates an uplift of 30% in commercial effects when fans are aware of the linkage, but this more than doubles when fans can see how their own experience improves.

Generating fan goodwill: The key to increased sponsorship effectiveness

Article • Professor Tony Meenaghan, Jamie Macken and Mark Nolan, WARC Exclusive, November 2019

Research study by Core Ireland showing that fan engagement is a key driver of effectiveness in sponsorship.

Carlsberg Danish Quarter x Live Nation UK: Festival Programme

Case Study • Beryl Crofton-Atkins, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Carlsberg, the beer brand, launched Danish Pilsner to music fans in the UK through a number of brand activations at six major summer music festivals.

AXE: Boca vs River, the Match of the Century

Case Study • Patricio Shilton, Ornella Carricarte, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Male personal care brand Axe turned to sponsorship to increase awareness and growth in Argentina.

ŠKODA UK: #ThisIsOurTime

Case Study • Susie Milburn, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Volkswagen-owned auto brand ŠKODA leveraged its cycling heritage and sponsorship of the Tour de France to provoke conversations about gender inequality in the sport.

Wall's: Gold Spirit

Case Study • Apoorva Shetty, Sumeet Parab, Larry Asalim, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Ice-cream brand Wall's created a multimedia campaign around its sponsorship of the national team, to drive visibility and sales during the Asian Games in Indonesia.

Volkswagen: Bye Bye Beetle

Case Study • Eliza Poor, Jordan Heathfield, Delinda Pu, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Volkswagen announced it would be retiring its much-loved VW Beetle, so it launched a farewell event in China to give the Bug one last sales push.

Volkswagen: Jump on the Wagen

Case Study • Annelise Donahue, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

When the USA failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, auto brand Volkswagen switched tactics, implementing a multi-channel campaign to drive awareness, opinion and consideration among football-loving Americans.

Pepsi Max: MAX Your Summer

Case Study • George Shearring, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Soft drinks brand Pepsi Max ran a data partnership campaign with publisher Time Out to drive sales growth over summer in Australia, while increasing relevance and consideration to purchase.

Zhonghua: How Zhonghua Shone Through

Case Study • Lisa Lu, Tony Chan, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Zhonghua toothpaste went from being a heritage brand stuck in China's saturated, commoditised toothpaste category, to a formidable challenger in the cosmetics category.

Rugby World Cup 2019: Who was the real winner?

Opinion • Alex Burmaster, November 2019

As the dust settles on the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Alex Burmaster of sports marketing platform caytoo picks out his favourite sponsor activations which highlight sponsorship best practice.

Unilever: Wall’s Gold Spirit

Case Study • MMA Smarties, Silver, X (Global), 2019

Walls, an ice-cream brand, successfully increased market share by launching a real-time programmatic campaign that leveraged the brand's sponsorship of the Indonesian team during the Asian Games.

McLaren: Driving performance through partnership

Article • Henry Chilcott, Admap, November 2019

Henry Chilcott, Group Marketing Director, McLaren Group gives an exclusive insight into the inner workings of the racing group’s partnership strategy.

Pharmaton: TV sponsorship enhanced interaction with second screen

Case Study • MMA Smarties, Silver, EMEA, 2019

Pharmaton, a multi-vitamin brand, partnered with a TV program about physical endurance in order to successfully increase brand awareness and sales in Turkey.

Budweiser taps sport for more human connections

News • 22 October 2019

Budweiser, the iconic American beer brand, has doubled down on its involvement with sport, in particular women’s soccer, as a response to the perception of the brewer as a soulless industrial scale brew.

Budweiser builds human connections with sports and marketing

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, ANA Masters of Marketing Conference, October 2019

Budweiser, the iconic beer, needed to demonstrate that it was more than a mass-produced, generic beer in response to changing habits and preferences among drinkers.

Visa: How an invisible payment network stole the World Cup conversation

Case Study • Account Planning Group - (UK), Entrant, 2019

Visa, a financial services company, increased its share of voice during the football World Cup, as its official sponsor, by launching a campaign that saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic return to the tournament.

New Balance: The Runaway Pub

Case Study • Jay Chiat Strategic Excellence Awards, Silver, Product/Service Creation, 2019

New Balance, a sportswear brand, created The Runaway pub, a pub specifically for runners where the only way to pay for a pint was with miles run, to connect with London Marathon runners in the UK.

NBA tweet row grows as Chinese brands scrap sponsorship deals

News • 10 October 2019

The fallout from a tweet by the Houston Rockets basketball team’s general manager Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong protesters appears to be growing, with potential implications for other foreign brands in China.

Missguided styles out driving reach efficiently

Opinion • Lucy Aitken, October 2019

The online fashion retailer’s Love Island link-up shows a textbook example of how to plan for reach, writes WARC’s Lucy Aitken.