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Sports sponsorship for brands remains “a massively valuable asset if data is properly utilised,” according to PumpJack Dataworks’ executive vice president Giles Morgan.
The coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent worldwide shutdown of sports, has cast doubt on future partnerships for brands and rights holders. A study from sports marketing agency Two Circles this month fueled further doubt, predicting that global sports sponsorship spend in 2020 is set to take a US$17.2 billion hit as a result of Covid-19.
Despite this, HSBC's former head of global sponsorship, who was speaking during SportsPro’s latest Insider Series, believes the sponsorship industry now has the data at its disposal to recover and grow.
Predicting the sector will bounce back “in about two or three years’ time”, Morgan pointed to the use of properly harvested data brought on by a “mobile world”, which he says means brands now have a direct ability to connect with defined consumer groups.
“People talk about data, but they don’t really know how to get first party fan data owned by them and out of the ground,” he said.
“Had they had that ability to do so, the sponsorship value proposition would be a lot more valuable to the rights holder. That’s why I’m very bullish about the industry going forward, though it’s going to take a little while because of a global recession that is looming fast.
“If you’re a business and you want to go direct to consumer, and you want to have a meaningful engagement with proven association and passion points between a brand and a rights holder, with the right kind of data mining, and owning your own data, you have the ability to do that. That is completely new to the industry, it didn’t happen before.”
While sponsorship deals of the past relied more on “emotion and subjective opinion”, according to Morgan, he added those methods were all but redundant because data provides concrete numbers needed to offer concrete business propositions.
“I’m so excited, genuinely, for the industry because now you can make a business case,” he said. “But you need to have real dynamic data, and what’s so exciting is that most consumers consume via mobile now.
“Everything we do in the fan journey is when you book tickets, you buy merchandise, whether you follow social media, it’s all connected via your device. The opportunity for rights holders is to pull all of that data into their own first party data set.
“Very few consumers love organisations like banks or insurance companies, etc – they’re commodities, they’re boring. But they love the passions they have with sport, music and entertainment. That’s why sponsorship is so valuable. But you need to prove it empirically and dynamically, and that is now what is available.”
Morgan’s view mirrored that of Two Circles chief executive Gareth Balch, who, during an earlier Insider Series session, stated that digital sponsorship spend is both the “greatest area for innovation” and “the most undervalued asset” in the sports marketing space.
For Morgan, a lack of true understanding of digital fanbases among stakeholders has hindered progress.
“That is the gap at the moment,” he explained. “Everybody can talk about digital engagement and how one can make a brilliant Twitter campaign. But you need to know what the currency is first. The reason why I think it’s terribly important for rights holders and brands to spend time on this architecture of mining their own fan or consumer data is then you can start building the business case back up.”
Sports sponsorship for brands remains “a massively valuable asset if data is properly utilised,” according to PumpJack Dataworks’ executive vice president Giles Morgan.
The coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent worldwide shutdown of sports, has cast doubt on future partnerships for brands and rights holders. A study from sports marketing agency Two Circles this month fueled further doubt, predicting that global sports sponsorship spend in 2020 is set to take a US$17.2 billion hit as a result of Covid-19.
Despite this, HSBC's former head of global sponsorship, who was speaking at SportsPro’s latest Insider Series, believes the sponsorship industry now has the data at its disposal to recover and grow.
Predicting the sector will bounce back “in about two or three years’ time”, Morgan pointed to the use of properly harvested data brought on by a “mobile world”, which he says means brands now have a direct ability to connect with defined consumer groups.
“People talk about data, but they don’t really know how to get first party fan data owned by them and out of the ground. Had they had that ability to do so, the sponsorship value proposition would be a lot more valuable to the rights holder. That’s why I’m very bullish about the industry going forward, though it’s going to take a little while because of a global recession that is looming fast.
“If you’re a business and you want to go direct to consumer, and you want to have a meaningful engagement with proven association and passion points between a brand and a rights holder, with the right kind of data mining, and owning your own data, you have the ability to do that. That is completely new to the industry, it didn’t happen before.”
While sponsorship deals of the past relied more on “emotion and subjective opinion”, according to Morgan, he added those methods were all but redundant because data provides concrete numbers needed to offer firm business propositions.
“I’m so excited, genuinely, for the industry because now you can make a business case,” he said.
“But you need to have real dynamic data, and what’s so exciting is that most consumers consume via mobile now. Everything we do in the fan journey is when you book tickets, you buy merchandise, whether you follow social media, it’s all connected via your device. The opportunity for rights holders is to pull all of that data into their own first party data set.
“Very few consumers love organisations like banks or insurance companies etcetera – they’re commodities, they’re boring. But they love the passions they have with sport, music and entertainment.
“That’s why sponsorship is so valuable. But you need to prove it empirically and dynamically, and that is now what is available.”
Morgan’s view mirrored that of Two Circles chief executive Gareth Balch, who, during an earlier Insider Series session, stated that digital sponsorship spend is both the “greatest area for innovation” and “the most undervalued asset” in the sports marketing space. For Morgan, a lack of true understanding from stakeholders for their digital fan base has hindered progress.
“That is the gap at the moment,” he explained. “Everybody can talk about digital engagement and how one can make a brilliant Twitter campaign. But you need to know what the currency is first. The reason why I think it’s terribly important for rights holders and brands to spend time on this architecture of mining their own fan or consumer data is then you can start building the business case back up.”
