Industry Welcomes New Sponsorship Tracking System
A number of influential industry figures have expressed their support for an innovative new reporting system created by BARB to measure the sponsorship of television programmes.
Speaking at an evening meeting held by the Media Research Group earlier this week, Andy Thompson, head of sponsorship at ITV, said: “Sponsorship is key and critical for all of us and it will now play a bigger and a more important part than it has over the past three or four years.”
He added: “The industry is now at the size and scale that justifies us tracking sponsorship and to be able to see exactly what’s going on with the sponsorship credits when they’re going out. It completes the circle in enabling us to see what’s going on with programming, ad-breaks and sponsorship bumpers as well. We are fully endorsing it and are fully behind it as of today.”
BARB’s system has been in development since last year and is currently operating on a test basis with the intention of being fully operational by the autumn. The system uses a series of ‘tags’ to label sponsored programmes which are stored in the broadcasters’ log files.
Some audience members at the MRG meeting raised questions over the measurement system’s technicalities. However, Thompson was eager to get the system running before ironing problems out at a later stage.
He said: “Going forward I’m sure there will be teething problems, there always are with these things, but from 2005 onwards we are going to be there with a viable and credible reporting system which is obviously important for proof of transmission.”
Television sponsorship and promotion has become increasingly popular over the last few years, with the UK’s commercial broadcasters quick to exploit the earning potential of the rising demand for brand association.
Thompson explained: “Sponsorship is taking 3% or 4% of income, in lots of other countries it’s 10% or 15%. Certainly we will see very big growth this year, around 15% to 20% growth year on year is definitely going to be happening. It is accepted now that sponsorship is a genuine part of the marketing mix.”
David Peters, head of sponsorship at Carat, believes the new system will be invaluable as sponsorship escalates. He said: “Advertisers spend about £100 million a year on television sponsorship. Incredibly, this money is being spent without the sponsor actually knowing whether their credits have been broadcast.”
“It is unimaginable that we would take the word of broadcasters that commercials had been broadcast, so why should sponsorship be treated any different. For this reason alone we need verification of sponsorship credits.”
He added: “I’m not suggesting that broadcasters deliberately fail to broadcast the sponsors’ credits, but mistakes do happen. From personal experience I am aware of failure to broadcast credits or for programmes not to be broadcast at all. In all cases it was Carat which alerted the media owner, who professed to be unaware of the problem. Facts, frankly, which alarm me a great deal.”
BARB’s new measurement initiative marks the start of several new systems being developed by the ratings giant, including a new reporting system capable of measuring interactive advertising and red-button programmes.
The push towards measurement of interactive services and alternative video streams follows increasingly ‘urgent’ calls from agencies and broadcasters fearing that viewers are missing ad breaks while browsing interactive content (see BARB Responds To Calls For Interactive Measurement).
BARB: 020 7529 5531 www.barb.co.uk
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