Nichola Kent-Lemon
With yet another summer of high profile sports coming to a close, all manner of brands have been fighting to secure their place in the increasingly complex and high stakes world of sponsorship, and there is plenty to choose from.
Between the official suppliers of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, the official partners of the, arguably undervalued, Commonwealth Games, and the wealth of affiliates falling within the FIFA World Cup’s three tiered sponsorship structure, it is hard to imagine how much money has changed hands over sports this summer.
But who has gained the most and how? When the competitions are over and the fans have gone home, what can be counted as a successful investment, and why?
These are the sorts of questions that we, as market researchers, are often faced with. However, as those of us who have sought answers will have discovered, deciphering the relative successes and failures of sport sponsorship is anything but straightforward.
More so than almost any other area of research, the impact of brand sponsorship relies largely on unconscious or implicit absorption of information, that may or may not have a knock-on effect on behaviour. Given that consumers are rarely able to accurately identify the source of their opinions or decisions, attributing consumer sentiment or behaviour to sponsorship is extremely difficult.
Even the most carefully designed research can yield confusing and contradictory results, therefore it is important that we do not simply take consumer responses at face value; to avoid misinterpretation we must examine the complex relationship between the event, the sponsor and the consumer to give context and meaning to research results.
Taking as a case study Northstar’s 2013 and 2014 research, measuring sponsorship of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, we have highlighted some key areas for consideration when interpreting data:
Exclusivity
Category exclusivity is a big advantage, common sense tells us the more brands there are from a certain category sponsoring an event, the less meaningful that sponsorship becomes, and the more diluted the impact.
If we look at spontaneous awareness of official suppliers for the Wimbledon Championships, Slazenger, the only official ball supplier since 1902, registers an impressive 21% spontaneous recall in 2014.
However, Wimbledon takes a very strict view on sponsor advertising, allowing minimal on-site signage from any brand. The only on-court evidence of Slazenger’s sponsorship are the logos on the umpire’s chair and the tennis balls themselves. This means that player sponsorship is comparatively conspicuous and could account for the fact that 4% also believe Wilson to be an official supplier, which it is not. Wilson does however sponsor the seven time champion, Roger Federer.
A further 12-13% spontaneously and incorrectly cite Nike and Adidas as official suppliers. Again, this is likely due to their sponsoring Federer (Nike) and Andy Murray (Adidas), who attract significant attention during the tournament.
Understanding the extent to which a brand is seen, correctly or otherwise, as an exclusive sponsor within its category gives important insight into its perceived differentiation versus competitors. Fortunately for Slazenger, the brand does retain a significant lead in awareness over both its direct competitor Wilson, and more distant competitors Nike and Adidas.
Alignment
There is some debate as to the relative merits of congruent versus incongruent sponsorship, that is, the extent to which it is beneficial for a sponsor to be relevant to and aligned with the event it is sponsoring.
The general consensus is that if spectators are passionate about a sport, then the goodwill they feel towards it will be most easily transferred to a sponsor from a relevant category, sharing the same values and objectives.
However, there is also evidence to suggest that incongruous sponsors are the most memorable (Trendel and Warlop, 2007). The theory being that we spend less time processing and encoding information that we are expecting, and more time processing information that we are not expecting. We expect to encounter congruent sponsors and therefore spend little time processing them, making them less memorable.
These theories are supported by the findings of our Wimbledon sponsorship research. Both Robinsons and Slazenger are long term sponsors of the Championships, and while both receive a prompted sponsorship awareness score of 95% in 2014, spontaneously Robinsons is recalled by 50%, more than double the recall of the more relevant and congruous Slazenger (21%). However, it is Slazenger that is seen to gain most in terms of appeal, with 79% seeing the affiliation as beneficial, versus 72% for Robinsons, suggesting that that the less memorable congruency of Slazenger does pay off in terms of boosted appeal.
Placement
In order to make their affiliation known, sponsors need to be where the action is and where the eye of the public is focused. Indeed, high sponsorship awareness may have as much to do with where brands are displayed as it has to do with the longevity of their relationships, their perceived relevance to the event or even spend on promoting their sponsorship.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at the Wimbledon Championships, where only six of the fifteen official suppliers are visible on court. Robinsons, Slazenger and Evian displayed on and around umpire’s chair, Rolex, displayed on the score boards, and IBM, displayed on the speed of service boards, all achieve higher sponsorship awareness, both spontaneous and prompted, than official suppliers not seen on court.
Indeed Nike and Adidas, frequently worn by the players, are mistaken for sponsors more often than many of the legitimate off court suppliers are correctly identified. Polo Ralph Lauren is the only brand to register lower awareness than off court sponsors and this can perhaps be explained by the fact that the brand is worn by linesmen and ball boys, whose job it is to be as discreet as possible.
Activation
Finally, the effort put into engaging promotional activity surrounding sponsorship is, of course, of huge importance in maximising sponsorship impact. It helps to give greater depth and credibility to the association between brand and event by building stories that help marry the two together in the minds of consumers. It also reinforces the commitment of the brand to the event, by increasing exposure to the brand’s sponsorship and acting as a primer for spectators, so that they are more likely to identify the brand as a sponsor when watching the event.
Both Evian and Stella Artois illustrate the power of activation through their sponsorship of Wimbledon. Both are relatively new sponsors, with Stella Artois sponsoring the event for the first time this year, and Evian since 2008. However, at 57% prompted awareness, more are aware of Evian’s sponsorship than that of Rolex (54%), an official supplier since 1978, or IBM (36%), an official supplier since 1990. Stella Artois’s new sponsorship is recognised by 32%, more than both Hertz (19%) and Lanson (14%), both of which have been official suppliers for over a decade.
The comparatively high sponsorship awareness for these brands can be explained by the diverse and engaging promotional activity that both brands have invested in. This year Stella Artois rolled out a global TV campaign, ‘World’s Greatest Events’, recognising the high profile events the brand is sponsoring. This was accompanied by social media promotions and 12 short films celebrating the perfectionism of the men and women working behind the scenes at these events. Similarly, over the last few years, Evian have aired a host of publicity surrounding Wimbledon through TV, outdoor and social media platforms including the ‘baby and me’ campaign, the ‘Wimbledon wiggle’ and various other advertising featuring their brand ambassador, tennis star, Maria Sharapova.
It is clear that the high sponsorship awareness scores for these two brands are the result of a huge amount of hard work and creativity, rather than the strength of the sponsorship alone.
Nichola Kent-Lemon is Associate Director at Northstar Research Partners
