Measuring Sponsorship ROI in the Automotive Industry

Capturing Passion Outcomes from Your Sponsorship!

Measuring Sponsorship ROI for the Automotive Industry

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Industry Challenge?

How can I justify the investment to the sponsor?Does our sponsorship create more car sales?

Logo measurement & equivalent media value

Scorecard systemsAn independent agency rates

a sponsorship on several criteria based on judgement

Clearly the sponsors have many questions that properties will struggle to know the answer

Does it improve our brand loyalty with existing owners?

Are car buyers more likely to visit one the car dealerships based on the sponsorship?

What’s the financial ROI?

Property View Sponsor View

THESE ARE MARKETING QUESTIONS FOR THE SPONSOR TO ANSWER

THEMSELVES

Does it improve our brand image?

Does it help with our dealer satisfaction?

Does it assist with larger corporate sales?

Ok. Just send them something with sponsorship ROI on it....


Sponsor driven or Property Driven?

Sponsorship objectives not provided by sponsor Sponsorship objectives taken from the sponsors marketing objectives and serve as the basis of ROI

Property asked to provide ROI without involvement of the sponsor

Property takes an off-the shelf solution that does not require a sponsors involvement

Logo measurement & equivalent media value

Scorecard systemsAn independent agency rates

a sponsorship on several criteria based on judgement

ROI not based on sponsor’s business objectives or marketing objectives

with a target market.

Measurements more difficult to use. Eg., How does logo exposure tell me if I will sell more cars?

Sponsor involved in ROI approach

ROI approach based on market based the sponsors market metrics

ROI based on several measures not just one but they are all based on the target market. Feedback is obtained based on

market information and surveys.

Sponsorship ROI is easier to justify because it has been linked to a sponsor’s original

market driven objectives.

Sponsorship critics use the lack of market driven measurements to question

investment.

Property Driven Sponsor Driven

Measurements can be linked to brand and sales performance.


Sponsors need to ensure the ROI they need is sponsor driven.


Media Exposure Methods

• Largely discredited today in the context of ROI

• This old school method was simply based on media exposure or logo counting and placing a value on each exposure

• ROI was not based on sponsor results

• No regard to the objectives of the sponsorship

• Disconnected from the actual objectives of a sponsorship such as improving brand equity or generating sales.


Current Sponsorship ROI Principles

• Driven by the sponsorship objectives

• Based on what a sponsorship actually delivers.

• Driven by the sponsors not the properties

• Sponsorship ROI is ‘fan centric’, meaning it is based on actual target customer attitudes and behaviour


Measuring Sponsorship Effectiveness - The Basics

To measure sponsorship ROI we need to measure Attention (audience reach), Understanding (sponsor recall), Engagement (Passion Index) and Sponsor Appreciation (Gratitude Index). Each of these impact on how well a sponsor’s objectives can be achieved and also identify areas where the sponsorship itself can be improved.

Brand shift is based on what the sponsorship itself has shifted in terms of target audience perceptions, attitudes and buyer behavior. Achievement of a sponsor’s objectives is what we measure with SponsorMap, whether it is to generate additional sales and leads, improve brand positioning or the reputation of the sponsor with a target audience.

The Measurement Sequence

Inter-relationships

PropertyProperty CustomerCustomer

SponsorSponsor


SponsorSponsor


SponsorSponsor


SponsorSponsor

Inter-relationships between a sponsor, property and customer/target audience are what are measured using the SponsorMap methodology.

To measure the effectiveness of a sponsorship, we need to measure outputs not inputs with the target audience.

These may include some of the following:

- High sponsor recall- Increased sponsor brand loyalty- Improved sales leads- Improved brand image ratings- Improvements in goodwill towards the sponsor

This is obtained by surveying the target audience of a sponsorship or the fans.

Other information that can be used in a SponsorMap evaluation are media coverage (TV & print), social media (blogs, Facebook etc.) and sales information that can be sourced separately.

The Research Methodology

The selection of the survey sample is dependent on the target audience for a sponsorship. Match the survey sample to the intended target audience.

NationalWe require a sample that we can project nationally so we can claim for example, 35% of mobile phone subscribers can recall sponsor X.

RegionalSample is taken from a regional level and projected to a regional level.

EventSample is taken from the event audience. With this sample we can claim for example that 48% of the 20,000 people that attended the event were delighted with the sponsors involvement and 65% (13,000) were considering buying their next motor vehicle from the sponsor.

Various methods can be used for data collection ranging from on-line panels, telephone surveys or face-to-face interviews. Each have there own advantages and disadvantages but the trend is towards on-line surveys.

1.Define the sponsorship objectives to be measured.

2.Survey the target audience.

3.Report the findings.


Return on Objectives

Often we can find a direct relationship between a sponsorship specific metric such as the Gratitude Index and brand advocacy. This is what we would expect to see if the sponsorship was working as intended.

Most often there is a direct relationship between the passion for the property and sponsorship performance with the target segment.

It is important to measure performance against what were the objectives for individual sponsors. SponsorMap takes this into consideration and has the flexibility to demonstrate effectiveness for all different types of sponsors.

Pre and post sponsorship measurement is the ideal way to demonstrate sponsorship’s contribution. In this case there were significant increases on brand health metrics for this particular sponsor of NASCAR.

The sponsors objectives were to increase purchase intent, brand advocacy and brand image with the adult spirt drinkers that follow NASCAR. Clearly, the sponsorship in our example can be determined to have achieved those objectives.

1.Define the sponsorship objectives to be measured.

2.Survey the target audience.

3.Report the findings against the sponsorship objectives


Passion - Sponsorshipʼs Powerhouse

The Measurement SequencePassion Index - Emotional Engagement

SponsorMap measures the level of passion towards properties by the target audience and segments a property by the strength of its fan base. A strong property will have a high proportion of ‘Passionates’ (Fanatics + Great Fans). The most valuable properties are those that have the largest number of Passionates, In the example above, for the mobile phone market the LA Lakers can be considered more valuable than the US Open Golf Championship with that particular target audience. SponsorMap can match the property that best fits the passions of a target segment using the PassionIndex.

Property Sponsor “Passionates”

Extreme sports Fashion 81%

Formula One Team Telco 70%

Property A Sponsor X 69%

Broadcast Telco 59%

Music Festival Telco 54%

Football Utility 54%

Horse Race Beer 53%

Property B Sponsor X 46%

European Football Finance 43%

Art/Entertainment Utility 34%

A SponsorMap study involves a survey of the target audience to obtain key sponsorship performance metrics.

Sponsor Recall

PassionIndex

Sponsorship Fit

Gratitude Index

Demographics

Return on Objectives


Sponsor Recall - A Key Requirement to Measure Sponsorship Effectiveness

Sponsor X

Bank of America

American Express

FedEx

Accenture

Pepsi

Coca Cola/Coke

Citibank

Miscellaneous

Don't Know/None

Sponsor X

Bank of America

Nike

Buick

American Express

FedEx

Sony

Dole

Accenture

Target

Capital One

Citibank

Coca Cola/Coke

Pepsi

Miscellaneous

Don't Know/None

Recall of sponsors from the event showing percentage of visitors that can recall the sponsors at both a spontaneous (unprompted) and prompted (aided) level. This measures how well the sponsor’s involvement is remembered. For a sponsorship to be effective it first needs to be recalled by the target audience, this is not measured by logo counting measurement systems.

Unaided Spontaneous Recall-Total-

Spontaneous Sponsor Recall - First mention-

SPONSOR X 68%

Bank of America 53%

Nike 25%

Buick 19%

American Express 35%

FedEx 21%

Sony 13%

Dole 8%

Accenture 3%

Target 4%

Capital One 1%

Citibank 1%

Coca Cola/Coke 1%

Pepsi 1%

Exxon Mobil 8%

Williams 3%

IBM 1%

Miscellaneous 4%

Don't Know/None 53%

Prompted Sponsorship Recall Source of Sponsor Awareness

From friends 78%

Information on a website 22%

From Internet Forum 14%

From magazines/newspapers 5%

Banners on Internet 5%

Other Posters 3%

TV 3%

Pub 3%

Flyers and postcards 2%

Posters in the street 1%

Internet other 1%

From organisers 1%

On the radio 1%

Online Game 1%

Yahoo! Match 1%

ERA Ticket 1%

SMS 1%

Forget 1%


Sponsor appreciation is mainly impacted by the level of sponsorship activation to enhance the brand experience of the consumer or the choice of the property itself. Those sponsors that work to provide an enjoyable brand experience for consumers do achieve higher levels of sponsor appreciation (Gratitude Index) compared to those that just focus on providing logos. Cause related properties also generally achieve higher appreciation levels. Sponsor appreciation by itself can deliver significant ROI to sponsors and is driven by sponsorship activation.

Property Sponsor “Gratefuls”

Arts Utility 74%

Formula One Team Telco 61%

Property X Sponsor X 59%

Music Festival Telco 52%

Extreme sports Fashion 52%

Horse Race Beer 47%

Broadcast Telco 38%

European Football Finance 24%

European Football Utility 12%

Property Sponsor Dislike Like

Extreme sports Fashion 2% 88%

Property X Sponsor X 2% 82%

Formula One Team Telco 7% 66%

Arts Utility 6% 65%

Music Festival Telco 12% 52%

Horse Race Beer 13% 38%

Broadcast/Entertainment Telco 14% 37%

European Football Finance 11% 47%

European Football Utility 9% 34%

Sponsor Appreciation - Do People Appreciate a Sponsors Involvement?

Benchmarks - Other Events and Sponsorships

Benchmarks - Sponsorship Fit

Measuring sponsorship fit helps ensure the correct alignment between sponsor and property.


Now for automotive sponsors with survey based information market based models can be constructed

based on car buyers.


Case Study - Sponsorship ROI for Automotive Sponsor

Market Analysis KPIs (Pre and Post Market Assessment)Market Analysis KPIs (Pre and Post Market Assessment)Market Analysis KPIs (Pre and Post Market Assessment)Market Analysis KPIs (Pre and Post Market Assessment)

Total Market (13,560,000)

Base - Recall Sponsor

Loyalty to Sponsor

Brand Advocacy

High performance car’

Delighted with Sponsor

Pre Post Gain % Weighted Gain Customers

0% 23% +23% +3,118,000

23% 31% +8% +249,000

26% 36% +10% +311,800

25% 39% +14% +436,520

0% 64% +64% +1,996,300

Market Analysis Reach & EngagementMarket Analysis Reach & EngagementMarket Analysis Reach & Engagement

Total Market (Car buyers)

Passion for Property (“Passionates”) PassionIndex

Prompted Recall of Sponsor

Recall Sponsor

Delighted with Sponsor (Gratitude Index)

% Total

13,560,000

28% 3,796,800

23% 3,118,000

64% 1,996,300

A car company applied SponsorMap to assess the ROI for their investment in motor racing. A national research of car buyers was conducted in order to gauge the effectiveness of the sponsorship in key market segments. The key sponsorship objectives were as follows:

- To improve brand advocacy (Recommendation)- To improve car loyalty- To improve positioning as the car for high performance- Generate sales leads for dealers

Stage 2 - Return on Sponsorship KPIs

Stage 3 - Sponsorship Driven ROI - Loyalty Example

Pre and post measurement to demonstrate how the key sponsorship objectives are fulfilled. In this example, there is increased loyalty to the car company from 249,000 car buyers based on the research findings.

By weighting the survey results to project the total market we can conclude that nearly 3.8 million car buyers are passionate about the sponsored motor racing property. Just over three million (3,118,000) can recall the car maker as a motor racing sponsor and close to 2 million car buyers are delighted that the car company is sponsoring the motor racing.

Stage 1 - Sponsorship Engagement

Market Analysis - Improvements on Sponsorship ObjectivesMarket Analysis - Improvements on Sponsorship ObjectivesMarket Analysis - Improvements on Sponsorship Objectives

Base - Increase in Bank Loyalty

Prompted Recall of Sponsor

(“Passionates”) PassionIndex

Delighted with Sponsor (Gratitude Index)

% Total

249,000

87% Recall driven

79% Passion driven

82% Sponsor Appreciation Driven

We are able to use SponsorMap to analyze the increased number of car buyers stating they are more loyal to the car company. There is high correlation to sponsorship based measures of recall, passion and sponsor appreciation. These are all indications that the sponsorship was driving increases in loyalty. In summary we can estimate that at least a quarter of million car buyers are more likely to buy a car in the future and therefore put a financial figure on the return to the sponsor in terms of car sales.

Sponsor Evaluation


"SponsorMap™ is an excellent tool for measuring the effectiveness andvalue of sponsorship. I believe it is a great improvement over traditionalsponsorship awareness measures, giving us deeper insights into how we

enhance the experience for our customers."

Heba Habashy Market Research Manager, Vodafone

SponsorMap Clients, Market Coverage & Testimonials

Global Sponsors

SponsorMap has been used in more than 24 countries and is available in more than 80 today. Australia

New ZealandChinaTaiwanMalaysiaGermanyPhilippines

IndiaIndonesia

Hong KongThailand

United States

United KingdomSwitzerland

RussiaFranceGreeceRomaniaTurkey

SingaporeUnited Arab Emirates

CanadaVietnam


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Further Details

Resources

Contact UsSponsorMap is available in more than 80 countries across the globe.

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Measuring Sponsorship ROI in the Automotive Industry