Channel 4 has this week published the results of a new study into the effectiveness of TV sponsorship – claiming it is the most comprehensive study of its kind ever produced.
The findings show that TV sponsorship delivers value across all brand metrics and drives positive viewer perceptions, with 89% who consider brands that sponsor TV to be more trustworthy than other forms of advertising.
The study also reveals that sponsorship particularly appeals to young audiences and had the highest cut through with two thirds of 16-34 year olds.
Meanwhile, 68% believe that sponsorship is the “future of advertising” and want to see more of sponsorship as a form of advertising, and 54% stated that they were more likely to buy a sponsor’s product.
“As an industry we haven’t talked about sponsorship for a while and it’s clear that recent generations of agency planners and buyers have not been exposed to its true potency,” said Jonathan Lewis, head of digital and partnership innovation, Channel 4.
“Some of the findings have left us pleasantly surprised, especially the positive perceptions around audience acceptance and relevancy amongst young audiences. We are delighted to see that TV sponsorship provides a transparent and effective platform for a host of brand and marketing communications challenges.”
Recent brand partnerships at Channel 4 include Lexus’ sponsorship of the Drama on 4 strand and Wickes’ sponsorship of Homes on 4.
Matthew Gaunt, customer and communications director at Wickes added: “Awareness of the Wickes’ brand among viewers significantly increased just three months into its three year sponsorship of Homes on 4, and also reported a near 40% increase in measured ROI from the activity versus the same spend in spot TV.”
Channel 4 commissioned the research agency Consumer Insight to aggregate 107 individual Channel 4 sponsorship studies, including 257 waves of research that involved speaking to over 80,000 viewers over the past five years. They combined their analysis with research from Differentology.
