Euro sponsorship body to benchmark effectiveness

The European Sponsorship Association (ESA) has appointed T-Mobile head of sponsorship Toby Hester to develop a universal method of evaluating the effectiveness of sponsorship deals.

Hester is chairing a committee with a remit to establish how best to evaluate the various roles that sponsorship can play within a brand’s marketing activity based on its objectives for the work.

The committee is talking to agencies and marketing directors to compare existing models and research methods, with the aim of developing a universal guide that ESA hopes will be accepted by the industry as a whole.

Hester says: “We are asking what information marketing directors need to be able to convince the board to sign off a major deal.”

Nigel Currie, chairman of ESA, adds: “Several agencies have come up with systems to evaluate sponsorship deals for private clients, but what’s lacking is a credible tool that’s available to all potential sponsors.”

The move comes as a direct response from ESA to critics of the sponsorship industry who have suggested that marketers are still uncertain about its effectiveness when compared to more traditional media such as television.

ESA also points to the fact that while TV and newspapers can rely on jointly funded bodies such as BARB and the Newspaper Marketing Association to promote their potential reach and effectiveness to prospective advertisers, the sponsorship industry does not offer that kind of information to potential clients.