marketing plan blends with theirs, detail their potential return on
investment, and list incentives for them to become sponsors.Calculating Return on
Sponsorship Investment
Sponsors want, and expect, a quantifiable return on the money
they have invested in your event. As the event producer, you also
need this information to enhance your ability to attract larger
sponsorships in the future.
According to the IEG’s Complete Guide to Sponsorship,there
are three broad methods to evaluate the return on investment (ROI
for the sponsor):
■Measuring awareness levels achieved or attitudes changed
about the sponsor’s products or services
■Measuring increase in sales of sponsor’s products or services
■Comparing sponsor-driven media coverage to the price/cost
of equivalent advertisingIn the first two methods, the sponsor must follow certain re-
quirements. To measure awareness levels or attitudes changed, the
sponsor needs to have a presponsor level of awareness or con-
sumer attitude about the sponsoring corporation and its goods or
services. The sponsor also needs to maintain the current level of
marketing of its goods or services so that it doesn’t influence the
outcome of the ROI. Finally, the sponsor must decide which ob-
jectives it wishes to measure, such as increase in sales, increase in
brand awareness, and consumer attitude change, and should at-
tempt to track only one variable at a time.
Measuring brand awareness or attitude change is done through
either a survey or a focus group. The sponsor has to have a preevent
level of branding to compare to the level of awareness both dur-
ing and after the event. This type of measurement is typically used
for sponsors with a long-term commitment to the event and is
done over several event cycles. The sponsor needs to have defined
goals as to the amount or percentage increase that it desires in
brand awareness or attitude toward the brand.
There are many choices on which a sponsor may focus in mea-96 Chapter 4 Funding the Event Marketing Program