sponsorships

Winning Sports Marketing: How Brands Capture Attention, Engagement and Growth

Winning Sports Marketing: How Brands Capture Attention, Engagement and Growth

  • ARF
  • Knowledge at Hand | CMO Brief

Live sports remains one of the most powerful marketing platforms in today’s fragmented media environment—combining scale, attention, emotion and cultural relevance. This CMO Brief and Knowledge at Hand report explores how different sports deliver distinct value for brands and why the most effective strategies go beyond media buys to create connected, cross-platform fan experiences that drive engagement and business results.

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  • Article

ARF Knowledge at Hand: The Value and Impact of Sports Marketing

Live sports remains one of the most powerful marketing platforms in today’s fragmented media environment—combining scale, attention, emotion and cultural relevance. This ARF Knowledge at Hand report shows how different sports deliver distinct value for brands and why the most effective strategies go beyond media buys to create connected, cross-platform fan experiences that drive engagement and business results.

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Creative Council Peek Behind the Curtain: Brand Meets Game: Navigating Creative Strategy in High-Profile Sports Sponsorships

Creative Council Peek Behind the Curtain: Brand Meets Game: Navigating Creative Strategy in High-Profile Sports Sponsorships

  • by Tommy Wu (Paramount), Young Pros Officer
  • ARF CREATIVE COUNCIL

On March 4th, The ARF Creative Council hosted its “Brand Meets Game: Navigating Creative Strategy in High-Profile Sports Sponsorship” panel, a conversation about how brands develop creative strategies and measurement frameworks for major sports partnerships. Moderated by Creative Council member Jillian Rice (Ipsos), the panel featured Matthew Gottlieb (NBCUniversal), Kristen Rumble (The Coca‑Cola Company), and Trey Ballard (Bank of America). Panelists shared perspectives on how companies activate around major sporting events, maintaining authentic connections with fans while delivering measurable business outcomes for their brands.  Kristen and Trey showed ads for their brands that had appeared in sports broadcasts to illustrate how their brand messages aligned with the spirits of the events. The discussion explored how successful sports marketing requires a balance of cultural relevance, strong creative strategy, and disciplined measurement. Speakers highlighted the importance of planning well in advance of major sporting moments, leveraging audience insights to shape storytelling, and ensuring that brand activations feel natural within the broader sports experience.

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  • Article

ARF KC Deep Dive: Olympic Sponsor Messages

The research indicates that brands that invest in Olympic sponsorships increase their brand values. Academic research, testing by practitioners and case studies revealed that Olympic sponsorships may result in increases in brand awareness, loyalty, reputation and/or corporate image. Additionally, Olympic sponsorships and their messages positively impact consumer perceptions of the brand.

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2025 TOP MEMBER QUESTIONS with ANSWERS

2025 TOP MEMBER QUESTIONS with ANSWERS

The ARF Knowledge Center provides secondary research services for ARF and ARF-MSI members on a broad range of topics, especially in advertising, marketing and research best practices. Continuing the core trend from previous years, members tended to ask questions specific to their category or business interests. However, there were also a few hot topics that popped up across membership, such as sports marketing and sponsorships, influencer marketing and AI. In addition, there were some larger, broader trends in themes specific to each constituency, outlined below.

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