Measuring Results

It was noted in Jim Andrew’s blog recently that Nielsen research revealed that sponsorship marketing, (forgive me for if I offend for adding the term marketing) is the second most trusted form of advertising.

Yet, just the other day I was talking with the Exec VP of a major retail jeweler that didn’t see the need to invest in MEASURING the value they’re obtaining from their sponsorship.

Measuring our results would be a nice to have, but not a need to have.” Sounds just like that old ad agency axiom from the 60’s that “50% of your advertising works, you just don’t know which 50%.”

The main reason companies don’t measure results from their sponsorship is they have no specific metrics in place to evaluate sponsorship value and nothing in place to capture results. These companies continue to make decisions based on established relationships and intuition (It’s true – look up the peer reviewed study in Journal of Advertising Research – v32, i4 by Farrelly and Quester).

That’s like buying TV time based on your favorite TV show and from your favorite ad rep without caring about HH reach or SKU movement during the schedule.

Many companies are learning to activating relationships and measure the results of their sponsorship marketing (yes, there I go again). Not just by what the sales team heard at the VIP tent, but using tangible metrics that value impressions, potential customer extraction and conversion numbers – even if the conversation occurs 6 months after the event.

Internet advertising, event and sponsorship marketing are 21^st Century tactics that will maximize brand integration into the consumer lexicon. No longer is it possible to justify spending large chunks of advertising budgets on a fragmented broadcast medium that was in its golden era 50 years ago or in a print medium that is dying under the pressure of Internet news sources in a new economy?

But the need to identify and measure metrics is tantamount to understanding and monetizing those results.

Did I mention sponsorship is one of the most trusted forms of advertising?