What’s your name and position within the organisation?
Sarah Dawson, Managing Director – Brands at CSM
Give us a brief history of CSM and what makes your company unique?
Over the last ten years, we have brought together more than fifteen individual agencies that all shared a similar culture, vision and values, under one brand. This was to form the challenger agency ‘CSM’ that we are today – our DNA has strengthened, as many of the original entrepreneurs are still involved.
With a team of 1200+ people in 25+ locations, we service global clients across hundreds of markets. I believe we do this well because we are all committed to our success and operate as one team, focused on “how do we help clients win.” There are few businesses of our size that operate in this manner – all our policies, finances, people and talent, systems, communication channels, training etc. are delivered to all offices at the same time, and are globally aligned, rather than HQ or market led.
I don’t think any agency in our industry can be truly unique, however, where we believe we excel, is in our relationships. We employ good people who are bright, well liked, full of energy and can build and foster strong relationships. Our clients like their teams, and, in turn, the teams want to succeed for our clients – they consistently strive and evolve to achieve success. You cannot underestimate the importance of this in building long-term relationships.
What are the current trends within your business area, and how are they affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?
We have seen a marked growth in brands that appreciate the benefits of engaging around audience passion points, compared with the traditional model of advertising alone. However, unfortunately they don’t always have the environment necessary to execute it to the optimum level. In a procurement driven world, the benefits of instinctive marketeers are being limited, which is a shame. In order to make a difference, the organisational environment needs to be conducive to boldness – encouraging creativity to thrive, of course, in a responsible way. The secret to creating the right environment can be found in the culture, get this right and the environment will follow.
Within the rights holder landscape, the evolution is still somewhat slow. Rights holders that are yet to update their partnership offerings, be it through complacency or lack of control, undoubtedly place their future revenues at risk. This is particularly concerning where there is an over reliance on so-called contentious industries such as betting and alcohol. It will become increasingly important for rights holders to question whether their offering holds true value for a contemporary brand. While many are currently reluctant to take a stake in partnerships – and ‘put their money where their mouth is’ – we believe this will become imperative in time.
With respect to the OTT market, there is visible growth, but a mass market pipeline, which keeps attracting potential viewers, is needed for long term success. If there isn’t a recruitment process to attract new avid fans and viewers, it is unlikely that the current audience will continue to remain engaged.
Finally, there has been a notable uplift in client expectations relating to return on investment (ROI). ROI is something that has been banded around as a bit of a buzzword for many years, but, with ever-increasing scrutiny around all significant investments, meaningful and measurable ROI is a must-have for all clients now.
How do you measure the effectiveness of your sponsorship campaigns? What metrics do you use – and how has your approach to this evolved in recent years?
We place great emphasis on the Measurement and Evaluation (M&E) of sponsorship performance. Our process is anchored in the specific objectives of each brand partnership and is therefore bespoke to each of our clients.
Objectives vary, but are often focused on driving awareness and improving brand equity, supporting B2C marketing to drive sales, changing behaviour through Purpose and CSR initiatives, building B2B relationships and engaging the internal business network and more and more customer acquisition and direct sales.
The measurement plans we develop are multifaceted, using both quantitative and qualitative metrics, whilst remaining cost-efficient. In the first instance, we measure the sponsorship footprint – the reach, exposure and efficiency delivered by sponsorship activities through the likes of media exposure, digital, social, PR, hospitality, events and more. We then aim to answer the ‘so what?’ question by measuring the sponsorship impact – in other words, the effect that these sponsorship activities are having on a company’s business, B2B and B2C, brand and internal objectives.
M&E is growing in importance, but brands still don’t invest enough, relative to their sponsorship budget. In a recent industry survey of sponsorship decision makers, only 6 out of 10 brands said they evaluate the performance of their sponsorship activities using independent data or internal business metrics. The remainder either rely on the rights holder, anecdotal feedback, or don’t think they need to track performance at all! And, of those that do, the majority spend just 1% or less of their sponsorship budget on M&E.
How has sponsorship changed in your industry over the past few years? And what predictions can you make about how it’s going to change in the next five years?
A simple but significant change is that we seem to now only work in “partnerships” rather than “sponsorships.” Our industry is firmly a buyer’s market, which means that rights holders in particular are having to work harder and smarter in terms of how they’re selling their assets. More rights holders will need to offer everything brands need for a partnership to work, in one deal, to really succeed. This trajectory will continue over the next five years. In turn, brands will be looking for tailored opportunities and greater flexibility within contracts. ‘Off-the-shelf’ just won’t cut it anymore and the rights holders that recognise this and find ways to work with other parties to deliver what the brand needs, will flourish.
In most organisations, partnerships now sit as part of an integrated marketing plan, rather than a standalone function, which means that from an agency perspective we have had to evolve too. We need to compete on a level playing field with capability-specialist agencies. Our people are our greatest asset – rather than sport and entertainment marketers, we are a capability-led agency, a group of marketers who happen to ply our trade in an area that is our greatest passion: sport and entertainment.
How are you harnessing and executing on digital strategy, and what problems / opportunities has this created?
Our approach to digital is constantly evolving. Our specialist team, CSM Engage, focus on monetising the previously untapped audiences available to rights holders and brands in the sports and entertainment space.
We help rights holders generate new and sustainable streams of revenue by understanding more about their audience and exploring how to activate in this space on behalf of brands. For brands, our strategies revolve around leveraging the full set of rights to capture and own – rather than rent – the audience, with the intention of connecting with them through the lens of the partnership, by tapping into their passion points.
The opportunity this unlocks for both rights holders and brands is significant. We’ve found that we’re able to generate an increase in digital marketing effectiveness – key media metrics through to sales – at an average of 79% higher than brand industry benchmarks when we talk to the audience through the lens of a partnership.
For rights holders, this means we’re quantifying the true impact and value of their IP. For brands, we’re unlocking new and powerful audiences to connect with and commercialise.
At the heart of everything, we’re using partnerships as a way to capture data and insights from engaged audiences, which in turn, shapes and informs the content we create – connecting with people on a 1-to-1 level, at scale, more efficiently than most other sports marketing agencies.