The Annual Sponsorship Business Survey 2012 - Sporsora

T h e A n n u a l S p o n s o r s h i p B u s i n e s s S u r v e y 2 0 1 2 P a g e | 3
Introduction
We are particularly
pleased to see that the
results of this year's
Sponsorship Business
Survey are once again very
encouraging, pointing to
the sector being in a very
healthy position despite other sectors of the
economy having struggled in 2011. Our findings
also demonstrate that the future looks optimistic
with many of the industry's key decision makers
indicating that they will maintain or increase
sponsorship investment in their sector in 2012.
This feeling is felt most strongly in North America,
supporting PWC's recent findings that the North
American sports sponsorship market will grow
6% compounded annually through to 2015. The
NBA's pre-Christmas flurry of multi-year
sponsorship announcements with Budweiser,
Gatorade, Under Armour and AutoTrader.com
serves as further evidence.
The proliferation of social media use has certainly
not gone unnoticed with significant support
amongst industry peers for the inclusion of its use
in sponsorship campaigns, yet there is recognition
of a potential over reliance on this communication
and the subsequent neglect of other
communication possibilities moving forward. We
expect individual endorsements to become more
important as a result of social media putting our
favourite athletes right in the middle of where
passionate fans congregate.
We predict growth in community-based and social
sponsorships as the economy continues to stutter
and consumers continue to expect more relevant
campaigns that benefit the individual. More major
brands will engage in these activities to deliver
corporate value and we expect this to be
particularly the case in the banking sector, where
community based and social sponsorship activity
can help to re-build reputations.
The challenge that both social media and
community sponsorships bring is how to achieve
measurement of their returns. There is no doubt
that research and evaluation has been of greater
priority in recent times and we see the next couple
of years as exciting times in our development of
our single source, evaluation, research and
advisory services for senior decision makers in the
sponsorship community.
So, what lies ahead in 2012? More investment
from the BRICs? The emergence of the CIVETS? I’m
particularly interested to see what comes out of
Turkey in their year as The European Capital of
Sport.
Jon Stainer
Deputy Managing Director
IFM Sports Marketing Surveys