MediaCom Sport Launches Connected Sponsorship

MediaCom Sport has launched Connected Sponsorship, a new suite of proprietary strategy and evaluation tools, for local and global brands investing in or considering sponsorship.

The four tools ensure that all sponsorship investment decisions are made in the context of a strategic framework. 

Connected Sponsorship enables MediaCom Sport to match opportunities to client objectives, and help them streamline strategies to deliver the fairest prices. Raising the level of accountability regularly applied to sponsorship, the tools also help clients calculate and accurately measure return on investment. 

The Connected Sponsorship suite of tools includes: 

• Connected Sponsorship Selector (CSS), which ensures that all sponsorships are on brief and identifies the opportunities most closely aligned with client brand objectives 
• Connected Sponsorship Evaluator (CSE), which calculates the true value of the marketing benefits provided by a sponsorship package and helps focus negotiations on the most valuable elements
• Connected Sponsorship Factor (CSF), which provides a single figure index of the overall return of investment, taking into account the strategic strength, the value of the benefits, and the price
• Connected Sponsorship Impact (CSI), which – developed in collaboration with econometric experts – provides a four-step process for measuring and analysing the impact of sponsorship activity on a sponsor’s brand

The tools have been developed by a team of experts across the wider MediaCom agency, led by specialists within Mediacom Sport. Collaborators include Alastair Macdonald, an acknowledged industry-leader in the area of sponsorship strategy, research and evaluation. 

With 15 years’ specialist experience, Alastair has worked with the a wide range of blue chip brands and rights owners in the UK and internationally including the Premier League, Mercedes GP, Volvo Ocean Race, Ryder Cup, Nokia, O2, Lucozade and Zurich. Alastair will be working with the MediaCom Sport leadership team to incorporate the tools in the agency’s everyday work and practice.

The tools are already in use by a variety of client launch partners in the UK, including Audi, Subway, Skoda, Green Flag, and are now being rolled out across the agency’s broader group of clients globally.

James Hough, Managing Director of MediaCom Sport UK said: “As brands now recognise sponsorship as a legitimate marketing investment, it has become increasingly important to provide a more sophisticated quality of analysis. By looking beyond media value alone, and accounting for strategic and intangible factors in a more intelligent way, our Connected Sponsorship tools provide a significant step forward for the industry. This is what both brands and rights-holders have always wanted; a new level of credibility and accountability for assessing sponsorship value and impact. The reaction of our clients to these tools has been 100% positive, which for me is a great score by the most appropriate metric.”