Sponsorship can prove worth

16 Feb 2005 - Is Sponsorship Really Worth It? By Alasdair Reid - Marketing Society

Despite broad scepticism, many see it as the tool for the future.

Advertisers, it is almost universally agreed, are going to rely more and more on techniques such as sponsorship in the years to come.

We're becoming a nation of ad-avoiders - and every time a household subscribes to Sky Plus, the power of old-fashioned spot advertising diminishes by another small yet inexorable fraction.

The winners in this evolutionary process will be the advertisers who can implant their brand messages into those curious bits of content that come between ad breaks - and what better way to do that than to sponsor a programme or an event? Where events are concerned, the most obvious model comes from the world of sport, where there are now myriad ways to implant your logo, from perimeter billboards to whole tournaments and stadia.

It's the future. Or at least it was until SponsorClick published its report last week into the effectiveness of sports sponsorship. The disturbing news, according to the report, is that it isn't working - at least not in the way many advertisers expect it to. There's already far too much clutter, it suggests - and if there are six or more brands on show at an event, TV viewers do not recall having seen any brand names whatsoever.

It goes on to reveal that three-quarters of advertisers doubt whether sponsorship deals improve the visibility of their brands in the media.

The sceptics' view would seem to be borne out by revenue figures in the sports sponsorship world in particular. Last year, the market fell by around £50 million, to £509 million, according to World Sponsorship Monitor.

Are advertisers right to be disillusioned about the effectiveness of sports sponsorship? And where should their scepticism end? Next, we'll have to look at other types of events - the arts and music, for instance - and the whole question of broadcast sponsorship.

Andrew Constable, the head of media services at Coors Brewers, can reveal that his company doesn't number itself among the sceptics. Its Carling brand is a major event sponsor, both in music and in football The Carling Cup final, for instance, will be contested at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium later this month by Liverpool and Chelsea.

Constable says: 'We spend a lot of time and effort monitoring the effectiveness of our sponsorships and they will continue to be an important part of our communications mix. It's true we're not a big broadcast sponsor, but that's mainly because we have found it difficult to find the right properties to sponsor, rather than not having confidence in broadcast sponsorship per se.'

Ben Wells, an account director at the sports sponsorship agency Redmandarin, isn't surprised to hear this. The report, he argues, is perhaps misleading.

'Sponsorship, in all its forms, continues to perform well,' he explains.

'There is a greater level of understanding of the effectiveness of sponsorship than ever before - and these days it is commonly the responsibility of procurement people and chief financial officers. It's undertaken for a whole range of reasons and its success is judged against those objectives.'

Wells concedes that sponsorship in sport may be declining slightly, largely because of clutter - but the money is shifting into other areas such as music.

Ivan Pollard, a communications planner at The Ingram Partnership, says many of the SponsorClick findings - for instance, that 97% of viewers focus their attention on the action - are statements of the obvious.

He comments: 'That is the best bit about sponsorship - it works even when you are not paying attention. It often works subliminally and the markers that get built up in the brain - for instance, associating passion for football with Coca-Cola or the glory of the Olympics with Visa - keep on working. I love Coke and I pay for it with my Visa. Don't ask me why, I just prefer both of them. Maybe this is not just because of the sponsorship, but I am sure it helped.'

Laurence Munday, a founding partner at Drum, agrees. He says: 'These things are notoriously difficult to measure but just from experience in the market, the high-profile opportunities such as football and rugby are still attracting massive interest.

'If you're trying to sell canoeing, you might be struggling, but advertisers are still keen to connect with people's interests and passions. It would be naive to suggest that these advertisers - many of whom have bespoke departments dealing with this - are doing it just for broadcast exposure.'

YES - Andrew Constable, head of media services, Coors Brewers

'Whether you are talking about event or broadcast sponsorship, there's a lot more clutter than there was five years ago. But it's about finding the right property. If you do, it's as effective as it has always been.'

YES - Ben Wells, account director, Redmandarin

'Sponsorship will continue to grow faster than advertising. It is not advertising and should not be judged by the same measures. The value is in developing a relationship in customers' minds with the property you've sponsored.'

YES - Ivan Pollard, communications planner, The Ingram Partnership

'Advertisers do not enter sponsorship with visibility as their only measure. It is the more subtle dynamics of endearment or proximity to things we love that make sponsorship such an interesting tool.'

YES - Laurence Munday, founding partner, Drum

'The market for broadcast sponsorship is incredibly buoyant. Advertisers are jumping at any big properties that come along. And we're talking about sophisticated advertisers here - they're using it to drive whole communications strategies.'