Sponsorship Trends 2023
8/2/23
News
We’re already 6 weeks in, but we still feel the positive energy of the new year ahead of us. It might be a non-Olympic year, but at Blauw Sponsorship Impact we have a lot to look forward to. The new F1 season will feature no less than 23 races of which 3 will be held in the United States, we expect the women’s World Cup to be the definitive breakthrough of women’s football as a global elite-sport, while the finals of the UEFA Nations League are held only a stone throw away from our headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Two weeks ago Philip Rouwenhorst, Sr Research Consultant at Blauw Sponsorship Impact, kicked off 2023 at the Trends Event of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA) in London and spoke about what developments we expect to see in terms of measuring sponsorship impact.
With more sports competitions spreading their action over the course of almost an entire year, more of the work we do for both sponsors and rightsholders needs to be ‘always-on’ too. “Collecting data before and after a competition only does not provide real insights anymore, as it doesn’t show which happenings and activations during the season were of influence on the impact sponsorships made”, Philip said.
With changing calendars, the objectives of sponsorships and therefore what needs to be measured are changing too. Building brand image through the values and image of rights holders and their domains become more important.
“Focus in sponsorship research, however, is still too much on media value and exposure alone”, Philip continued. “If that were the only metric, many great sponsorships would be seen as having little to no impact. Brands sponsoring in women’s football, for instance, would only find that they generate less exposure compared to men’s football.”
In other words, measuring the impact of sponsorships would then only give you half of the actual story. Only through deep consumer research can you find how sponsorships actually change the attitude and behaviour of consumers, thereby completing the full picture of sponsorship impact.
Want to know more about continuous data collection and measuring sponsorship impact?
About Sponsorship Impact
We have been helping international brands optimise their sponsorship strategies for over 20 years. We not only prove the brand growth that sponsoring provides, but also identify opportunities to improve sponsorship strategies.
