Bruce Cook
Founder and MD
Tell us a bit about who you are and where you’ve come from.
I’m a sponsorship and insight consultant, and currently the Founder and MD of SponsorLab. Before this entrepreneurial adventure, I was Head of Group Sponsorship at the Royal Bank of Scotland and latterly Strategic Consulting Lead at YouGov Sport, helping clients to measure sponsorship performance.
As an American transported to Scotland, my 30+ years in sports started in professional tennis, included a 5-year stint at the US Olympic Committee, a few years with the NFL Europe League, and one of my favourite roles was running Scotland’s only professional basketball team. All of those involved sponsorship in some way.
So, tell us what SponsorLab is and why you created it.
SponsorLab is all about improving sponsorship performance. It’s an online subscription tool designed to help brands, agencies and rights-holders to better manage and assess sponsorship performance. It works from a strategic perspective, rather than just a collection and presentation of data.
Data is important, but I’ve always felt there was more to it than that. Most sponsorships start out with relatively clear objectives and then collect data throughout the activation campaign as proof of success. However, too often the final report is comprised mostly of the carefully selected numbers that present the most positive view of performance. It looks good but it isn’t necessarily helpful when it comes to true strategic assessment and decisions.
I’ve experienced this ‘post-rationalisation’ approach from my days running major sponsorships and from working with insight clients. SponsorLab was created to address this issue by providing a clear and simple scorecard system that prompts and guides the correct conversations and actions along the way. It’s been quite a journey so far, but the feedback has been incredibly positive.
What approach differentiates SponsorLab and makes your offering unique?
Well, there are a lot of good sponsorship tools and platforms out there, and some of them touch on what we do, but I think SponsorLab is different in a few ways.
First, it’s just so simple and easy to use. Anyone can be fully trained in about 30 minutes. Initially I was concerned that it didn’t look as complex as other platforms, but most people are telling me that the simplicity is one of the things they love the most about it because that creates a clarity and focus of thought most tools don’t.
Second, and most importantly, it’s about the process. SponsorLab is a scorecard, and it gives you performance scores on each KPI, Objective, and Sponsorship, but you don’t get any of those unless you’ve gone through the process. A lot of steps in the ideal process often get missed.
Without a framework like SponsorLab, it’s easy to skip straight from directional objectives to the final report. But that final report is meaningless if you haven’t stopped along the way to connect sponsorship objectives to the brand strategy, to debate and weight your objectives to clarify priorities, and to set specific measurable KPIs on each objective to clearly define what success looks like. It all seems obvious on the surface but too often it’s only done halfway. SponsorLab makes sure you do it properly while keeping everything clean and organised. It’s really a time-saver rather than time-waster like some tools.
What do you see as current trends in sponsorship that impact what you’re doing?
Well, I guess it’s more the norm than a trend now, but there is a continuing need for justification through data.
Sponsorship investment is like any business cost in that it must be justified with proof. This has led to more and more data collection, but that has actually made the analysis more complex.
A big part of what we’re doing is aimed at making that challenge easier to navigate. We help you clear the bugs and mud from your windscreen so you can more clearly see where you’re going.
How do you feel sponsorship has changed over the past five years, and what predictions can you make about how it’s going to change in the next five years?
I don’t think it will be a surprise that I’m first going to mention purpose.
Purpose within a sponsorship is now more often the primary strategic pillar than a box-tick afterthought. The challenge with this is that the impact of a purpose campaign can be much more difficult to measure. It requires another level of thinking, but it’s doable.
AI is obviously going to play a big role, and I think it’s coming with increasing speed. It was nowhere in sponsorship a year ago, it’s creeping in now, and it will be everywhere before the end of 2025.
That said, I’d be foolish to claim to know exactly how it will manifest. Many brands are trying some very bold stuff already, and I’m sure some will crash and burn. But enough will bring results and we will all learn and move forward… and fast.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I just want to say how pleased I am to be a proper ESA Member now. I’ve been to a few great events already and really looking forward to getting more involved in this growing community and meeting more of the other members. If anyone is up for a chat, please drop me a note.
And a special thanks to all of you who read this all the way to the end!
