ITV Conference – The Truth About Sponsorship

ITV held its The Truth About Sponsorship conference today; here is a brief summary of the points covered.

The Current State of the Market

There has been a rapid growth in broadcast sponsorship in the last three years, with such deals as Cadbury’s with Coronation Street and Vauxhall’s sponsorship of the World Cup. Of the 85% of ITV Network programmmes that are available for sponsorship, around 25% are being sponsored. The income raised by these deals accounts for 1.5-2% of total ITV revenue.

More diverse ranges of blue chip companies are being attracted to sponsorship from FMCGs and magazines to financial service and utility companies. This is due to the moving away from the notion that sponsorship is simply ‘cheap advertising’ or the badging of a programme.

Future Growth Potential

The rapid growth in the volume of sponsorship will inevitably slow down as the number of programmes available reduces. ITV does expect revenues to continue to increase as the value of sponsorship becomes more appreciated, with a predicted 50% of network programming being sponsored by the year 2010.

Lack Of Understanding Of The Value And Utilisation Of Broadcast Sponsorship

There is still a great deal of scepticism and ignorance of it among many advertising agencies and marketeers. This related to various factors such as: few marketeers and agencies have experience of broadcast sponsorship as a marketing tool; advertising agencies still don’t understand the true value of broadcast sponsorship; and agencies believe it is harder to evaluate sponsorship.

The Marketing Of Broadcast Sponsorship

ITV recognises that it must continue to: examine how to streamline the process of negotiating a sponsorship deal; invest in research to help agencies evaluate broadcast sponsorship; build closer and earlier relationships between sponsor and broadcaster.

Sponsorship – A Marketing Catalyst

Broadcast sponsorship has the potential to be a far wider marketing medium than traditional advertising. As such sponsorship is playing a major role in bridging the traditional divide between advertising and marketing.