The ANA and MASB (Marketing Accountability Standards Board) have partnered on a project to provide greater insight and guidance into sponsorship measurement. As an important first step, a survey was fielded to ANA members to better understand current practices in sponsorship measurement.
Marketing expenditures on sponsorship have increased considerably over the past several years, but progress in measuring and assessing sponsorship’s business impact has been marginal, according to the study.
For background, total North American sponsorship spending is estimated by ESP Properties (formerly IEG) to be $24.2 billion in 2018, up 41% since 2010, the year of the initial ANA sponsorship measurement survey.
Only 37% of respondents have a standardized process for measuring return on sponsorship — this is a “foundational finding” of the research. Among those with a measurement process, 57% of respondents have a sponsorship measurement budget, and among those, most spend only five percent or less on sponsorship measurement as a percentage of sponsorship rights (i.e., the cost of the sponsorship itself, not including activation costs).
Despite the continued growth of sponsorship investment and the repeated sentiment from marketers that there is a need for improved measurement and assessment of sponsorship’s business impact, there has been little progress toward this goal.
This research has been an important first step to help better understand current practices in sponsorship measurement and provide initial insight and guidance to improve sponsorship accountability metrics.
Improving Sponsorship Accountability Metrics. (2018, July 10). ANA/MASB.