Evaluation of Sponsorship - Vital to success

With the World Cup Cricket a fading memory for most of us, South Africans are now gearing up for the Rugby World Cup kick-off later this year. While the sports mad have had no shortage of spectacular sport to watch, sponsors of these two great events have no doubt negotiated long and hard to secure prime positions as sponsors.... But what is the true value of a sponsorship and how can it be accurately measured?

The measurement and evaluation of a sponsorship is vital to ensure its effectiveness. It allows sponsors to build on the success of valuable sponsorships and eliminate failures to ensure the greatest return on investment possible.

The number of events requiring sponsorship is on the increase with organisers facing stiff competition in pitching their events against one another. For this reason, accurate data which tracks the exposure of events is a vital tool for event organisers who need to keep existing sponsors on board, increase sponsorship funding or attract new sponsorship.

Said Lynne Dabbs, managing director of Newsclip Media Monitoring, a provider of sponsorship measurement and evaluation: "Broadly speaking, sponsorship analysis and evaluation should determine the value of a sponsorship. This would include looking at short term exposure, being the exposure the brand achieved during the event through media packages, as well as long term exposure achieved in other media. This is important in determining whether sponsorship coverage reached the target market."

Sponsorship analysis should include a report on the return on investment, determined using the advertising value equivalent of the exposure. Guidelines on the quality of the exposure achieved should also form part of the report. This can give the sponsor ideas of ways to increase brand exposure. Lastly, clients can develop comparative reports which include their previous sponsorships of the same event.

Newsclip Media Monitoring is uniquely placed to monitor event sponsorship. Media covering print and broadcast, national and regional is tracked. Newsclip can provide sponsors and events organisers with a detailed report of the exposure an event added to a sponsor's brand. Said Dabbs: "Newsclip values the core package of the event and values the peripheral coverage achieved. We assess what worked and what didn't, we determine the reach of the sponsorship and thereby provide clients with a true value of their sponsorship."

In line with internationally accepted practice, a sponsor should plan to spend between 2% and 5% of their total sponsorship costs on measurement and evaluation.