Valuing a Sponsorship was Never Supposed to be Easy

Conducting research for a variety of sports properties and brands that activate around them affords me the opportunity to look at sponsorships with a fresh and unique approach, every time a client or agency calls us in. Yet it confounds me that for such a large and potentially high profile endeavor as investing in a sponsorship or sports marketing program, few still go beyond a fairly standardized approach of assessing potential exposure levels, translating these into GRP or CPM equivalents and, voila�out comes an empirical valuation. I get and subscribe to the K.I.S.S. principle, but time-out, there�s so much more to consider if you want to do this thoughtfully and accurately.

I’ve often belabored the point that not all “eyeballs” are created equal. We’ve done some really interesting proprietary work in the past year that certainly supports that statement. Evaluating potential sponsorship value from either the brand or property’s perspective is a lot more than trying to count eyeballs, attaching demographics and fitting the equation into a nice black box, despite the fact that traditional media planning currency suggests that this is legitimate and sufficient. I recently wrote a piece for Media Post that articulates how absent a clear understanding of the objectives behind a specific sports marketing activation, it is impossible to evaluate that effort’s performance, you can read it here. Beyond that, truly assessing the ability to provide return on those objectives is hard work, and I’d maintain that the evaluative criteria to measure it, should be as unique as possible to the specifics of a brand’s marketing challenge and/or a property’s offer. So as not to be hypocritical with my opening assertion, I’m not about to provide a one size fits all formula. Despite what some competitors may tell you, such a formula does not exist, and when you are investing significant dollars in sports (or selling that), good enough just isn’t very good. What I can outline are some common elements that any good measurement program should factor in, beyond simply the size and demographics of the target audience that you are reaching:

Specific Brand Recall and Competitive Set Confusion: First and foremost, what did the target remember about a sponsor and did it impact not just the activating brand, but the competitive set, as well? In highly competitive categories, how impactfully does the activation differentiate your brand?
Potential Behavioral and Perceptual Change Within the Competitive Set: Beyond recall, awareness and message resonance, what impact might the sponsorship have on category shopping behavior? If you really want to know this, you need to dive deeper than simple direct inquiries about purchase intent.
