2011 Canadian Sponsorship Survey
Earlier this year, we conducted our second bi-annual Desperado Marketing Canadian Sponsorship Survey.
The 2011 Desperado Marketing Canadian Sponsorship Survey received input from 131 respondents representing sponsors from a wide range of industries. Neither agencies nor properties were involved in the survey, sponsors only.
The survey looked at the relative importance of sponsorship within the respondents’ organizations going into 2011 and on their organizations’ approach to sponsorship measurement. Survey respondents included senior management, marketing/brand managers and sponsorship managers.
Although sports properties (teams/leagues/events) dominate many portfolios, other types of sponsorships continue to gain share of the overall sponsorship spend in Canada year over year.
Planned sponsorship activation spending as a ratio to rights fee spending was down going into 2011 from our last survey, conducted in late 2008 and going into 2009.
It can be a challenge to track your sponsorship portfolio’s activation to rights fee ratio against a Canadian norm as many factors will influence what benchmark is right for your organization. In fact, brand to brand, property to property, target audience to target audience, market to market – the optimal ratio may vary even within your own portfolio. It takes insight and understanding to find the optimal activation to rights fee spend ratio or ratios.
That said, if you’re not spending at least a one to one activation to rights fee ratio, its possible that you have too many properties in your portfolio and you’re not activating them enough. Don’t spend out your budget on rights fees. Sponsor less, activate more.
Perception of sponsorship’s ability to deliver strong return on investment metrics relative to other areas of the marketing mix’s ability to do the same is high with survey respondents and has increased. What this would suggest is that companies are likely to continue to invest in sponsorship, subject to good measurement protocol validating this perception.
Seventy one percent of survey respondents are conducting some form of formal or informal measurement against their sponsorship investments, up considerably from our last study.
That over fifty three percent of respondents are either neutral or dissatisfied with their own organization’s sponsorship measurement protocol indicates that sponsors continue to work towards better measurement methodologies. It also indicates that they need help in developing better methodologies for measuring and assessing return on investment (ROI).
Sponsorship is clearly seen as a vehicle that has the potential to deliver great returns. However, in an era of increasing accountability and reduced risk-taking, this potential may not be fully realized in the absence of improved systems of measurement and without ultimately demonstrating a measurable ROI.
If you’re interested in receiving a copy of the full results report, please email Mitch Thompson -mitch@desperadomarketing.com.
