David Broughton, Research Director at the Sports Business Journal, has summarized the latest findings in a sports sponsorship study that should provide even more incentive for brands to pair with MMA properties.
Are sponsors connecting with fans? If so, which fan segments have the strongest connection? For all the money sponsors spend on marketing, can fans correctly pick them out of a lineup? And which sports properties have the most sponsor-loyal fans?
Those are some of the questions we set out to answer by analyzing three years’ worth of sponsor loyalty studies conducted in partnership with Turnkey Intelligence. The studies, conducted since the summer of 2007, were designed to identify key trends such as fans’ recall of official sponsors, and trial and consumption of products.
Since beginning the studies, SportsBusiness Journal has published the results of 15 individual surveys of MLB, NASCAR, NBA, NFL and NHL fans. When we revisited all three years’ worth of data, we identified several top-line trends and behavior patterns among specific demographics.
The most visible trend we discovered was that brands can expect a better return on their sports marketing objectives if they target fans age 18-34, non-Caucasian fans, and/or households with kids.
For example, 59 percent of MLB fans in the 18-34 bracket were more likely to consider trying a product or service from an official sponsor, compared with only 36 percent of fans age 35 and older.
…
In fact, two-thirds of the fans who fit into all three of those demographic subsets — age 18-34, non-white fans, and living in a household with children — are likely to use a league’s official sponsor or product, compared with 43 percent of the fans who are age 35 and older, white and have no children.”
Payout Perspective:
Be sure to check out the full article at SBJ; it serves as a nice follow-up to the current trends piece that I posted a few weeks ago.
The appeal of the 18-34 demographic is a growing focus for many companies – especially in the current economy where much of the disposable income in family budgets has been squeezed out entirely. Not only does the 18-34 demo possess a great amount of disposable cash, but its also seemingly one of the most impressionable demographics. The growing potential for significant return on a sponsorship investment that targets these individuals is helping to off-set the perceived risk that a brand takes in associating itself with the sport.
Moreover, as organizations like the UFC and Bellator continue to target the hispanic demographic, the sports appeal to advertisers and sponsors is only going to grow.
Leave a Reply