May 28th, 2007
Counting TV Time for Sponsor Logos in Sports Contests
By Doreen Carvajal
New York Times
When the sleek yacht of the Luna Rossa team sailed away with a victory in the America’s Cup semifinals on a sunny weekend in the Mediterranean, there were two vital results.
The Italian crew eliminated the American team of BMW Oracle Racing with a 33-second lead. And fleeting glimpses of the flapping mainsails — branded with the logos of Telecom Italia Mobile and the broadband service Alice — reached millions of television viewers.
Those glimpses are now being counted down to the second, categorized by clear and partial visibility, tallied by major countries and then compared with the cost of traditional spot advertisements.
For sponsors, triumph is a sporting bottom line that results in about a three-to-one return on investment, said Andrea Zamboni, a marketing director for Arbiter in Verona, Italy.
Arbiter is one of an elite group of “brand counters” that sponsors hire to track logos with digital technology and to find ways to make the brands appear in more prominent times on television.
“The information is important for us to optimize branding positions and compare various options,” said Björn Widemann, manager of global sponsorships for Allianz, a leading financial services company, which backed the BMW Oracle racing team and is using a brand counter.
Arbiter is tracking the count for Telecom Italia Mobile and Alice, the sponsors of the winning Luna Rossa team. It is also gathering information for sponsors of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, as well as the European Champion League winner, AC Milan.
IFM Sports in Germany is conducting the tally for Allianz and BMW.
Brand counting gathers sensitive information that will help determine whether BMW will back another expensive America’s Cup challenge after the team’s defeat. Cycling sponsors are also using brand counting to re-evaluate their deals as European television ratings decline in the aftermath of doping scandals.
“There is an obvious mainstream trend for measuring sports right now,” said Michael Dinkel, a professor of sports management at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. “The need for those methods will significantly grow in the near future because all kinds of sports sponsorships have to yield a profit and generate a return on investment.”
In 2006, IFM Sports calculated that the average co-sponsor backing a racing yacht in the early acts of the Louis Vuitton Cup reaped about 13 hours of international brand exposure — with partial and clear visibility — for an ad value equaling $1.6 million. The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup goes on to compete for the America’s Cup.
“Measuring is becoming fundamental,” said Mr. Zamboni of Arbiter. “Imagine how much BMW has invested in America’s Cup to have their name on a boat. And obviously in headquarters they have to justify that investment that could have been used for other forms of communications.”
Arbiter uses a four-step method with a digital scanner that divides a screen into modules and tracks logo appearances on selected television channels through 24-hour periods.
When the results are in, sponsors can congratulate themselves for making a satisfying return on investment. Or, if they are unhappy, they can negotiate concessions from the teams they sponsor, perhaps cash give-backs or greater visibility for their logos when the next competition swings around.
Or they may decide to simply bolt.
Mark Bullingham, a consultant specializing in sailing sponsorships with Brand Rapport in London, said most America’s Cup sponsors would not make a move until they knew the outcome of the winner-take-all competition, which permits the triumphant racing syndicate to pick the host city.
“I’m sure it’s likely that BMW is re-examining their sponsorship,” Mr. Bullingham said. “They will look at the value that they got for the whole thing, because obviously the media coverage was damaged for them by not making the finals.”
Mr. Bullingham said that while brand counting was useful, additional research was needed to accurately calculate value. Brand counting, he said, “doesn’t tell you whether you’re getting to the right people or changing their minds, or that the brand has changed in awareness or perception.”
Since the American team was eliminated, there has been considerable speculation that BMW would pull out and sponsor a German team. The company is saying little as it dissects all the data. “We will now analyze our entire campaign in detail and consider the concept of future cups when deciding the basis for our continued commitment,” said Jan-Christiaan Koenders, the company’s director of brand communications. “Our first option would certainly be discussions with the BMW Oracle Racing Team.”