The combination of unique and distinctive content and hospitality at events, as well as a social media presence, are gaining ground as reasons for brands to sponsor sports, whilst brand visibility is today considered only a ‘hygiene’ factor. This is one of the main findings of the 2017 Sports Sponsorship Barometer, authored by Carlos Cantó, a lecturer at ESADE Business School, CEO of SPSG Consulting and a board member of the Spanish Marketing Association. The study, conducted by SPSG Consulting and presented today at ESADE’s Madrid campus, is divided into four sections: Companies, Properties, Fans and Trends. According to Cantó, ‘Sponsorship is increasingly sophisticated and professional.’ Commenting on the Companies/Brands section of the report, he noted that the findings ‘show that investment in sponsorship continues to grow’. ‘One major trend’, he added, ‘is value creation through access to unique and exclusive content, which makes it possible to push deeper into the differentiation process’. ‘Sports sponsorship is a very efficient tool for companies that approach it as a strategic investment’, he said, referring to the Fans section of the report. ‘That is why minimising seasonal fluctuations in activation (the implementation of supplementary actions by the sponsor), naming rights (associating the brand name with a property) and vertical sponsorship packages are also key to success.’ With regard to Trends, Cantó predicted that there will be a lot of talk about ‘big data, eSports, virtual and augmented reality and geolocation’ over the next few years in the field of sports marketing.

Companies: increased sophistication and investment

Brand visibility (79%), industry exclusivity (67%), hospitality (63%), social media (50%) and access to unique content (46%) are the five most important factors in sponsorship activation and help to boost the value delivered by the acquired property rights. Of the surveyed brands, 43% said they plan to increase their investment in sponsorship activation in 2018, whilst only 13% said they would scale it back (to a maximum of 5%). With regard to innovations in the next five years, the 2017 Sports Sponsorship Barometer pointed to big data (79%), eSports (75%), virtual reality (50%), geolocation (50%) and augmented reality (38%) as the most important. Finally, on a scale of 1 to 7, the surveyed brands gave a score of 2.46 to the importance placed on potential tax incentives when deciding whether to invest in sponsorship rights.

Properties: gaining insight into what companies/brands need

There are obvious differences between what companies/brands want when activating the sponsorship and what properties (clubs, federations, competitions, leagues, events) think they want. The largest differences are found in two key factors: brand visibility (100% for the properties; 63% for the companies/brands) and access to unique content (22% for the properties; 46% for the companies/brands). This disparity suggests that there is room for improvement in the communication between the parties. Separately, 91% of the surveyed properties said they expect sponsorship revenues to increase in 2018, with 57% saying they expect them to grow between 5% and 19%. They further acknowledge that they should both improve the reporting (proof-of-performance reports, lists of activities) they offer companies/brands on their sponsorship investment and work to enhance their assets, including, amongst others, the sponsorship architecture or the components of their sponsorship packages.

Fans: new names and long-term investment

The Fans section of the 2017 Sports Sponsorship Barometer is divided into three indices: the Sponsorship Awareness Index (SAI), the Property Sponsorship Association Index (PSAI), and the Athlete Marketable Potentiality Index (AMPI). According to the respondents, in 2017, Santander registered the greatest brand awareness as a sponsor of Spanish sport (with a score of 77.30, up from 52.10 in 2016). It was followed by Coca-Cola (66.03, down from 84.40 in 2016, when it was ranked first), Movistar/Telefónica (65.22 in 2017 vs 29.40 in 2016), Emirates (62.00 vs 67.33 in 2016) and Red Bull (59.59 in 2017 vs 60.69 in 2016). As for the AMPI, Leo Messi was the foreign sportsman with the best image, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo and Roger Federer (a ranking that has held steady for several years).

In a country like Spain, where football is king, sponsorship of major clubs yields a higher degree of brand association. Thus, the ranking of companies/brands associated with football is topped by Emirates, followed by Qatar Airways (recall effect since July 2017), Bwin, Rakuten (the main sponsor of FC Barcelona since July 2017), Santander (naming rights to La Liga, Liberators Cup sponsor, and, starting in the 2018-2019 season, sponsor of the UEFA Champions League), UNICEF, BBVA (sponsor recall effect), Coca Cola and CaixaBank. As for other sports, Endesa is the company/brand most strongly associated with basketball, Movistar with cycling, and Santander and Repsol with motor sports.

The SPSG Consulting study also found that naming rights are key to boosting brand awareness in relation to the sponsorship. This can be seen in the association scores obtained by Santander, BBVA, Endesa, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Turkish Airlines with their respective sponsorship assets: La Liga Santander [the Santander League] (formerly, La Liga BBVA [the BBVA League] and La Liga Endesa [the Endesa League]); the Premier League (formerly, the Barclays Premier League); the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas; and the Turkish Airlines Euroleague. In this regard, the impact of long-term investment is confirmed through the recall effect, provided sponsorship spending and activation is approached strategically and distinctively, taking advantage of the unique content through processes of verticalisation of sponsorship packages. An example of this is the strong association of Heineken and Mastercard with the UEFA Champions League.

Trends: From teams to clubs to sports companies

Finally, with regard to the Trends section of the 2017 Sports Sponsorship Barometer, the SPSG Consulting CEO confirmed the definitive transition from ‘sports teams’ to ‘sports clubs’ and, more recently, to ‘sports companies’ with a more strategic approach. The sector is also currently undergoing an evolution in content and audiovisual media rights, due not only to the rise of over-the-top (OTT) media services (smart TVs), but also to the fact that large social media companies, such as Twitter or Facebook, are becoming powerful media outlets, as they begin to play an active role in the purchase of audiovisual rights in relation sporting events.

Management of this increasingly professional sponsorship tends to be more sophisticated, not only in terms of monitoring the results obtained – ROO, based on a set of established objectives – but also, especially, in two main areas. First, the strategic component of sponsorship boosts the corporate identity of the company/brand, linking it closely to the company’s various policies. Second, it strengthens the relationship and communication between the company and brand through handbooks, tools and approaches applied to the sponsorship.