Good News/Bad News for Sponsorship
Posted: 7/14/2009 10:06:01 AM by
Lesa Ukman | with 1 comments
Some good news for sponsorship: Compared to other forms of marketing, brand sponsorship experienced the greatest increase in levels of trust in the two years since the last Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of more than 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries. A full 64 percent of consumers surveyed in April said they trust brand sponsorship, up from 49 percent in April 2007.
Latin American consumers are most trusting of brand sponsorships, with 81 percent of both Colombians and Venezuelans, and 79 percent of Brazilians, trusting brand sponsorships. U.S. consumers came in 12th, with 72 percent trusting brand sponsorships. Sponsorships held the least sway among Swedes (33 percent), Latvians (36 percent) and Finns (38 percent).
Latin Americans appear to bring their positive feelings about sponsorship with them to the U.S. IEG research reveals that Latino consumers are among the most responsive audiences to sponsorship.
Some not so good news: Because it stands out, sponsorship is an easy target for attack. Combine its high profile with the lack of a lobbying organization, and the attacks on the medium by politicians handing out TARP dollars was nothing if not predictable. On average, TARP recipients spend 95 cents out of every marketing dollar on “measured” media, only five cents on sponsorship, according to IEG research. But measured media—including outdoor, Internet, cable and radio—which all have lobbyists, were immune from attack.
Now, bloggers are pointing to dropped sponsorships as evidence that sponsorship spending cannot be defended in a down economy, further perpetuating a myth. It is ironic that one of sponsorship’s most compelling deliverables, its ability to break through the noise, makes the medium so much more vulnerable to attack.
To set the record straight:
- There is no correlation between sponsorship and business flame outs. Yes, AIG and GM had high profile sponsorships. However, neither indexed higher than the others in their categories as a percent of total marketing spending on sponsorship. And, both spent far more on other media
- The stronger automotive and financial services companies actually spend more, not less, as a percent of total budget on sponsorship
- TARP recipients dropped sponsorships not because they were under performing but because they were not being measured
- The single biggest category signing new deals since the economic down turn is financial services
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Filed under: evaluation, financial services, research, sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, automotive