The rise of multi-asset sponsorship - why quantity and quality help the big brands get bigger
Sports sponsorships are one of the most common forms of marketing strategies for leading brands, with Statista reporting that the global sports sponsorship market was worth $66 billion in 2022 and expected to grow to almost $108 billion by 2030.
Within this sphere, one particular strategy has monopolised businesses’ approach to sponsorships, namely, multi-asset sport sponsorships. In this feature we delve deeper into the strategy and why the biggest brands are opting for this approach.
Dominic Mills
Published on April 19th, 2024
In this Insight:
A growing trend amongst the biggest brands
Marketing is a notoriously difficult business function when it comes to measuring return on investment. It is however, something that no business can thrive without, and sees giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft dedicate more than 7% of their yearly revenue to marketing, equating to billions of dollars each year.
Sports, and sports sponsorships are a key part of this marketing investment for many of the world’s leading businesses. In 2021, sports media company SportsPro conducted a study, ‘World’s 50 Most Marketable (50MM) Brands’, to understand which businesses receive the most value from their sports sponsorships.
The list includes businesses from a wide range of industries, including: automotive, beverage, fashion, financial services, telecommunications, travel etc., and sees businesses earn brand value of anywhere between $35M and $617M every year.
Despite originating from a wide range of different industries, all the leading brands on the 50MM list have one key aspect in common, they have all chosen to invest in two or more sponsorship assets in sport, instead of focusing their resources on singular investments.
With every single leading brand in the space opting for this method, we decided to delve deeper into why this method seems to be working so well and how other businesses can use it to their advantage.
What is multi-asset sponsorship?
Multi-asset sponsorship is the practice of businesses choosing to spread their sponsorship investment across multiple athletes, teams, competitions and/or sports.
This approach allows organisations to maximise their reach across multiple markets and tailor their messaging to engage with different target audiences, whilst keeping their marketing activities under one central sport sponsorship strategy.
Businesses have been using sponsorships in sport as a platform to build their brands for over a hundred years, and often with great success, but the multi-asset approach to sponsorship is, in that sense, a relatively new concept.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, major sports transitioned from being a local/nationally centred interest, to becoming a global platform. With this change, sponsoring brands moved away from small-scale local investment and instead focused on building a wider portfolio of global sponsorship assets that could reach a larger, and equally engaged audience.
Yearly brand value received from sports sponsorships
Reaping the rewards
One of the first brands to see the potential of multi-asset sponsorship strategy was Nike. The Oregon-headquartered sporting apparel brand built their marketing strategy around athlete sponsorships before branching out to sponsor teams and competitions as they have become one of the most well recognised brands in the world.
Their early adoption of the strategy saw Nike set a new trend in sport sponsorships, one which landed them top spot in SportsPro’s ‘World’s 50 Most Marketable Brands’ list by generating a staggering $617M of brand value per year from their sponsorship investments.
Other sporting goods manufacturers such as Adidas and Puma followed in Nike’s sponsorship footsteps and have also delivered great success, but recent times have seen a multitude of industries adopt Nike’s strategy.
Brands from the automotive industry have shown particular investment in the space, with the industry claiming over $727M of brand value per year and accounting for 13 places in SportsPro’s ‘World’s 50 Most Marketable Brands’ list.
The financial services (7) and beverage industries (5) have also reaped the rewards from the strategy with brands such as Santander, Red Bull, State Farm, Monster Energy, Heineken, Gatorade, Kia and Mastercard all generating over $90M per year in brand value.
How to implement multi-asset sponsorship
As with any business decision, organisations need to find the path which best fits their objectives, long-term vision and way of working, but there are a few steps which are key when looking to implement a multi-asset sponsorship approach.
Before building a portfolio of sponsorships in sport, it’s important to take the time to understand what a sponsorship entails and familiarise yourself with some of its many components and how that fits with your business. Our FAQ page is a great place to start.
Once you’ve built this understanding, you will need to set up a sport sponsorship strategy, where you lay out what you’re looking to get out of your investment. This will set the foundation for choosing which avenue(s) of sport sponsorship you target.
Finally, it’s time to assess what sports properties, whether athletes, teams or leagues, are available for sponsorship opportunities. Here it’s important to build meaningfully and stay true to your strategy, multi-asset sponsorship portfolios are often built over several years.
At SPORTFIVE, we work with the biggest brands to help mould and implement sponsorships in sport. From connecting brands like Santander, Blue Yonder and Callaway with golfing superstar Jon Rahm, to activating LEGO’s meaningful campaign work, we build the bridges between brands and sport.
If you want to find out more about athlete sponsorship or our work, feel free to get in touch.
