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The state of Sponsorship

Business | Sponsorship | Sport

By Chris Ritchie

Depending on who you listen to the sponsorship market is either recovering well from one of the worst economic downturns of the last 60 years or it is in steady decline and being superseded in the marketing mix by the rise of digital and social media.

Well let’s start with some contrasting findings. IEG suggests that although sponsorship spending in North America fell in 2009 for the first time in 25 years by $0.1b to $16.5b, the global market in fact rose by an estimated $1b to $44.4b. This modest growth represents slightly less than 2.5% growth and compares well with a 4.3% decline in advertising spend reported by Zenith WARC during the same period. IEG even goes as far as suggesting that sponsorship now accounts for, on average, 25.4% of overall marketing, advertising and promotion spending. And despite the apparent popularity of newer sponsorship forms such as broadcast, IFM Sports Marketing Surveys indicates that sports sponsorship has increased its share of sponsorship spending to 89%.

So how does this reconcile with the figures delivered at a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) event that I recently went to which suggested that sponsorship spending was declining by 6-9%. Although this still fared significantly better than advertising, marketing teams surveyed claimed that all things web, mobile and social media related were attracting all available resource and attention. Judging by the endless stream of offers and opinions from social media experts, suggesting that we all need to embrace this trend or become irrelevant, I can see where they are coming from.

Perhaps an explanation for this latter view lies in the all too common perception of sponsorship as a tactical rather than a strategic marketing tool. Here at Sine Qua Non we believe and have always practised sponsorship as a strategic foundation that integrates many other marketing disciplines. It is not a tactical afterthought that is bolted on to provide a bit of hospitality or branding on the back of a small budget surplus. Instead it should be about using the sponsorship as the lynchpin to bring together all appropriate marketing tools from PR to experiential showcases to social media, to engage audiences and to develop relevant and valued relationships.

Potential sponsors should explore the broad range of benefits that the discipline can offer while existing sponsors need to make sure they exercise and activate the sponsorship in every way possible to drive the maximum return. Finally properties need to recognise that sponsorship is no longer simply about branding, hospitality and viewer numbers.

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