Consumer Research Yields Valuable Insights into Why Partnerships Work

Sports and entertainment marketers have decades of success stories about sponsorships that helped brands achieve business objectives. We also now have a body of academic research that shows how partnerships impact consumers and other target audiences.

But in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately environment that brands operate in when making decisions about how to get the most out of their marketing budgets, current data on how partnerships impact consumers is paramount for both buyers and sellers of sponsorships and related promotional opportunities.

Toronto-based sponsorship intelligence provider SponsorPulse has added some beneficial information in that regard through findings shared in its Benchmark Report that combines market data from more than 100,000 North American consumers with detailed information from 370 unique brand sponsorships and 950 activations.

At the top, the report includes positive information on consumers’ response to partnerships, including the fact that on average just over half (51 percent) of a property’s fans have aided awareness of a brand’s sponsorship, there is an average net increase in brand favorability of 40 percent among those aware of the sponsorship versus those who are not, and there is a 36 percent increase in purchase intent among those aware versus those who are not.

That’s all good news, however the report digs deeper into those numbers to reveal an often overlooked element when working with averages, namely the large spread between the maximum and minimum results that show there are incredible winners in the sponsorship game, but also others who are getting little or no bang for their buck.

Specifically, in terms of aided awareness, top performers are achieving 83 percent recall rates, while those at the bottom have just nine percent of fans aware of their sponsorship—a massive spread of 74 points. In terms of favorability, the most successful brands are seeing 68 percent increases while the least successful are achieving just 16 percent gains. Regarding purchase intent, those doing the best saw a rise of 57 percent, while those at the bottom grew intent by only 12 percent.

While there are multiple factors that could cause such disparity in results, decades of experience tells me that the chief reason for the performance gap is that those earing the best return are effectively activating their deals while those underperforming are either not activating or doing so with promotions, content, etc. that is not relevant and engaging to their audience.

It's also helpful to see how consumer reaction trends over time, and SponsorPulse also reports positive information in that regard. From 2019 to 2024, the percentage of consumers who said they purchased a product because the brand sponsored something they follow grew from 32 percent to 40 percent.

In addition to its Benchmark Report, SponsorPulse also has reported data from a survey of U.S. consumers that contains some significantly positive information across a variety of responses to partnerships, including the following:

• 63 percent definitely or somewhat agree that brand logos and associations with a team have become part of that team’s personality and image
• 60 percent definitely or somewhat agree that they notice when a new brand or company starts partnering with a team or league I care about
• 57 percent definitely or somewhat agree that they would rather see advertising featuring players, teams or events they care about than regular advertising
• 57 percent definitely or somewhat agree that they are more likely to participate in a promotion or contest if the prizes are associated with a sports league or team they like
• 53 percent definitely or somewhat agree that it’s not a coincidence some of the brands they are most loyal to also sponsor something they care about.