This webinar that will provide specific case studies from Europe for measuring sponsorship ROI in a European context.

- Music event sponsorship case study from Russia

- Broadcast sponsorship example from the UK

- Football sponsorships from the EU

- Arts sponsorships

Examination of some case studies from both sponsors and properties from European markets. The webinar is free.

For Thursday September 2nd 2010 the scheduled times are: Europe 10.00am to 11.00am London Time.

To register for the webinar simply register on our webinar page. http://www.sponsormap.com/webinars/ 

If you cannot attend this webinar but would like to view it in the future you can simply join our mailing list and check back to see the schedule of webinars dealing with the specific issues of measuring sponsorship ROI.

Information obtained from brand tracking studies generally covers a broad range of topics from the marketing mix as a whole.

These include:

- Brand awareness

- Brand trial, purchase and loyalty

- Advertising awareness

- Purchasing behaviour

- Brand imagery

- Demographics/Psychographics

There are many other types of information that can be collected in a brand tracking study but it does provide a strong basis for a consumer based marketing information system. It highlights important issues for brands that can be addressed in a marketing strategy either tactically or strategically.

When we look at sponsorship, it is important to remember that sponsorship ROI can also be measured through an existing brand tracking study by simply including several sponsorship specific metrics. The key is adding the right metrics to a brand tracker in the first place.

To be specific, the most important metrics are sponsor recall, the PassionIndex and Gratitude Index. They are the most important metrics to capture the essence of sponsorships.

These can be included as an add-on to existing brand tracking studies as they provide useful diagnostics that better able us to determine sponsorship effectiveness because they are based on a combination of recall, passion and appreciation. Simply with more metrics we are better able to measure sponsorship effectiveness than the traditional approach that is simply based on one measure alone (sponsorship recall) to explain everything.

For many sponsors simply improving sponsorship measurement in an existing brand tracker is a simple solution that can dramatically improve insights and demonstrate sponsorship ROI to sponsors. 

SponsorMap has been designed to integrate with existing brand tracking studies and can be easily function as a useful add-on for the brand tracker.

Importantly, SponsorMap is applied for to provide meaningful measurements of deliverables from a sponsorship.

Event Registration for -

Still an emerging concept, experiential marketing involves a target audience member in an event experience related to a brand or product. The goal is to make a “quality brand experience” that creates real engagement where customers are not only exposed to the brand name but also given an opportunity to interact with the brand, absorb the messaging and understand how the brand attributes are relevant to their lives and needs.

“Advertising is rapidly losing its effectiveness as consumers have learned to tune out the bombardment of ads in everyday life, so more and more firms are turning to experiential marketing tactics that are novel enough to catch the attention of the sophisticated consumer’, commented Nicholas Cameron, Director of SponsorMap.

“The tool is building on our existing knowledge of event sponsorship that we have developed from our SponsorMap methodology but it also encompasses key word-of-mouth measurements that are especially of value in experiential marketing where WOM impact is considerable.”

The SponsorMap range of tools measure consumers’ passion and gratitude to try and identify the role that sponsorship is having on brands. SponsorMap has been used in more than 20 countries across the globe and is currently partnered with TNS.
There are various modules of SponsorMap ranging from sponsorship pre-testing, tracking, hospitality and event research and also including the PassionIndex, a syndicated report that examines sporting and entertainment passions.

You can download information on SponsorMap Experiential here.

“Research is becoming an increasingly important tool to prove the value of sponsorship in an economic environment where investment is coming under greater scrutiny, according to sponsorship professionals.

Tanya Veingard, head of sponsorship at Aviva UK, which sponsors UK Athletics, says investment in necessary to evaluate the success of a sponsorship even in a recessionary environment, adding cutting research budgets is a “dangerous thing to do”. (Source: Marketing Week)

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Unfortunately, many arts organizations do not highlight many of these key elements when seeking sponsorship. Many of the sponsorship proposals from arts organizations are well thought out and have a good sense of style about them but there is often something missing in terms of the value proposition. The value of the arts sponsorship is not ‘consumer-centric’, instead it is focused on a sales package incentives as if they were selling to sponsors the same messages as what you would use to sell to the audience. Too much about selling a sales package and not enough about a potential sponsors marketing and corporate objectives.

The value of arts sponsorship is that it can achieve results for sponsors in ways that cannot be achieved from other forms of marketing. The best advertising, digital media or public relations campaign is often unable to achieve the same type of results. The unique aspects of arts sponsorship simply cannot be replicated with other types of marketing or sponsorship types. This is evident from a measurement perspective, especially in understanding the sponsorship ROI itself.

When looking at value arts sponsorship from a ROI perspective, the attraction of arts sponsorships is related to several key factors.

The Target Audience

Firstly, passion for arts properties is very specific to a target audience. It is highly targeted and more often than not, this particular segment of the market is a hard to reach by conventional marketing methods. The key aspect is the passion. Now with SponsorMap, we use a benchmark called the PassionIndex to measure the level of emotional engagement to properties. The stronger the passion, the higher the level of engagement.

In the example below are results taken from a national sample of adults 16+ that was representative of the the general population. What is shown is the specific analysis of the high income, female segment of the national market. This segment obviously is very appealing for many businesses that wish to build relationships with existing or prospective customers. Whether it is financial products, fashion or prestige cars, this target audience is a key market segment for many companies.

Passion Index Ratings Arts Property in a Segmented Market

Looking at the PassionIndex slide it is clear with this consumer segment arts properties strongly engage with them. Hence, if there is a high level of emotional engagement then that by itself is attractive as corporations can build relationships through sponsorship with these types of arts properties. It is important to remember that the market needs to be segmented to identify opportunities for consumer engagement and this process does often highlight good opportunities in the arts area for sponsorship that can be missed. Not every type of consumer is open to arts sponsorship, but the key consideration is that there are segments of the overall general public that are receptive.

Sponsor Fit/Brand Alignment
Is the partnership between the sponsor and the arts property a good brand alignment? Does it enhance a sponsor’s brand image? This is often mentioned as a key deliverable of all types of sponsorship. It is actually something that can be fairly easily measured as it is just a matter of asking the right questions. A good quantitative survey can be used to do this. Typical results from arts sponsorships are shown in the slide below.

Brand Enhancement of Sponsorship

It shows the image attributes of the sponsor and how the sponsorship is enhancing them. In this case, it is about the arts sponsor property influencing the image ratings of the brand. Ideally, we would demonstrate this with a control sample or a pre and post measurement, but this will often suffice for most sponsorship evaluations for the arts.

Sponsor Appreciation
This is a very strong feature of arts sponsorship. Sponsors of arts properties tend to rate very highly on this measure, meaning there is a strong level of overall appreciation to sponsors for their involvement. They are seen to have done the ‘good thing’ and helped something that is of importance to people. This influence is what as known as Balance Theory, it is the change in attitudes to a sponsor/brand that occurs due to the direct involvement with the property. People will adjust their attitudes to a corporation because they are perceived to have done the right thing. (Not everybody feels appreciation, some feel in more than others and some do not feel it at all.) In the example below, brand advocacy is strongly influence by the appreciation felt towards the sponsor based on gratitude, as measured by the Gratitude Index.

Sponsor Appreciation Enhances the Value of Sponsorship Itself

With arts sponsorships, this influence can deliver major dividends for sponsors and is an influence not generated from other forms of traditional marketing communications such as advertising. Hence, when measuring the value of an arts sponsorship it is essential to demonstrate the gratitude to a sponsor for their involvement as arts sponsorship perform very well on this measure. This is a unique feature that should be emphasized as the impact can be quite dramatic.

Survey methods are highly recommended to measure the contribution of an arts sponsorship. There are several reasons, namely sponsorship is about attitude and behavior change for a sponsor, without this there is no ROI. Sponsorship’s impact is only felt if it achieves a modest amount of attitude and behavioural change. Other measures are also useful, but should be viewed provides additional metrics of overall contribution. If you have them then that is terrific as they build the overall case for the value of the sponsorship overall.

It should be remembered that demonstrating the appeal of the arts sponsorship to prospective sponsors and subsequently linking it to the sponsor’s own objectives in a measurable way provides a strong case for sponsorship. Likewise, for corporations considering sponsorship of the arts, there are ways in which a well planned sponsorship can drive marketing and business results much more effectively than traditional marketing communication methods.

Overall it is the consumer-centric approaches to sponsorship that is the best way to measure value. What is important how audiences emotionally engage with a brand/property partnership in the arts. That is the foundation of the business case for arts sponsorships and the reason why it can be a power relationship building tool for any Marketing Director or CEO looking at the arts.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember here is that sponsorship objectives themselves need to be articulated. ROI for sponsorship is driven first by understanding what the sponsorship or marketing objectives are in the first place.

In the near future we will provide some more presentations especially for sponsorship properties. If there are any suggestions please feel free to make them.