Top Sponsorship Trends 2020

Global Sponsorship Scope:

Sponsorship is a form of powerful marketing aspect that provides certain privileges and benefits to the sponsor. Usually sponsors use the images and logo of the partner and known themselves an official sponsor of the property. Sponsorship is an effective strategy when the sponsors and the property have similar aims, intents and vision. It provides business access, connections, hospitality, affinity & big audience access and also helps to know public insight in a way that can be difficult to achieve own marketing and branding efforts alone. Sponsors and properties working together to create a broader reach to its customers and shared same objectives by multiplying the resources they have and enhancing the relationship with customers. Sponsorship is much great than advertising.

Corporate sponsorship is a practice of advertising in which companies pay to be associated with certain events and programs. The sponsorship activity is mostly referred to as event marketing or cause marketing. In addition, sponsorships allow reaching targeted niche markets without the expense and improbability associated with traditional advertising. Strategic sponsorships can assist businesses to meet multiple marketing goals at once.

Global Sponsorship Dynamics:

The growth of the sponsorship is primarily driven by some key factors such as increasing need for driving sales proficiencies with brand awareness, the most suitable option than traditional advertising and growing demand for building relationships with customers to upturn global reach of products or services. Many sponsorship opportunities enable consumers to identify company’s product in a way that encourages them to make a purchase. For example; food or cosmetic companies at a trade show keep samples for a customer to try it at the same location to make them purchase full size products. In addition, sponsorships with in kind products are often inexpensive than traditional advertising. For example, a pet store owner offers branded leashes for a local kennel club's annual dog show. People know their brand's name that will be recognized repeatedly as best product by their target customers.

Furthermore, increasing sports sponsorship spending is another factor driving the growth of the sponsorship market. For example; the instance given by Forbes that the global spending in sports sponsorships is growing rapidly, by means of the total worldwide spending in sports stood at around 65.84 billion dollars in 2018. And around 70% of sponsorship spending is directed at sports. Along with the global growth momentum, the world of sports sponsorships is primarily driven by North America. Sports sponsorships spending mainly come from the American and Canadian markets which are accounted for nearly 37 %.

Recent Developments:

High-tech companies are heavily investing on sports sponsorship deals to capture new marketplaces.

Technology companies have shifted their focus to sports sponsorships on account of driving customer engagement platform and deeper penetration in small as well as large markets and to expand its global reach to a targeted audience. For example; the proliferation of sports platforms in the India, tournaments and sports leagues are proving to be valuable platforms in helping new technological companies build their brands. For example; Digital travel platform Booking.com signed an agreement of five year global partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC). Moreover, shared mobility transportation companies like Uber, internet registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy became sponsors of ICC World Cup 2019. Specialists realized that sponsorships of big sporting events can help high tech companies to capture market share in particular products or services and improve brand awareness strategy.

Top Sponsorship Trends 2020

• Top Sponsorship Trends 1- Technology is helping sponsorship marketers

Sponsorship marketing is rapidly growing nowadays and technology is enabling its growth, where more brands are using this marketing strategy than traditional approach to target demographics at live events. Although it is a relatively new marketing method, brands are largely utilizing the latest technological advances and incorporating this advanced technology into their marketing strategies in order to drive long term growth opportunities. There is a technology like augmented reality (AR), where customers can engage with brands in virtual worlds and involve themselves in 360-degree digital environments. For example; Coca-Cola launched an augmented reality (AR) experience outside a train station in Switzerland, to celebrate the FIFA World Cup.

In the recent years of virtual and augmented reality technology, the sports teams and brands making use of pre-existing platforms like Snapchat or Instagram to create exceptional experiences for global audiences inside and outside stadiums.

• Top Sponsorship Trends 2- Social networking channels

Sports teams, athletes and brands realize the significance of social channels in building their fan base and capitalizing on brand opportunities. For example; The North Face clothing brand is a best example of how social sponsorship deals with athletes can help to promote company’s own products. The North Face social content is produced with the objective of helping outdoor athletes with its social content putting the experiences of the experts at the brand's campaigns. Such planning creates closeness between the sports stars and their fans. Also, it creates a great opportunity for leading brands to authentically sponsor the action.

• Top Sponsorship Trends 3- Rise of eSports Sponsorship

Over the last few years advertisers and sponsors have been investing millions into the world of gaming. BMW, Nike, and even Louis Vuitton are pouring its huge resources into eSports. For example; in 2018, there were a total of about 380 million eSports viewers in the world, with 214 million of them being irregular viewers. According Newzoo predicted that by 2021 the viewership will rise by around 13%. With the rising interest the consumer preferences has largely in eSports, thus sponsors have started investing millions of dollars into the sports and gaming. These investments have reached from sponsorship of teams and events to endorsement deals with individual eSports athletes or even total team ownership. Additionally, recently Nike’s sponsorship of the League of Legends Pro League is the most intricate partnerships. This USD 144 million investment in sponsorship includes all the team players, coaches, managers, and refs wearing only Nike gear on game days.

• Top Sponsorship Trends 4- Sportainment

Sports have become one of the keystones of the sponsorship and entertainment industry. Sports have become one of the cornerstones of the entertainment industry. Sport sponsorship and events not only have gained momentum due to the celebration of matches, tournaments, but also proven to be valuable for everything in gaming industry. Sport sponsorship with entertainment is moving towards a new definition of sport marketing which is also known as sportainment. It improves brand image especially in sport events. The most important feature about fan experience is that the user can be connected the action with the brand in the most natural way.