What’s your name and position within the organisation?
Samantha Lamberti, Head of Consulting, Europe & Middle East at Nielsen Sports.
I work with our clients to transform data into actionable solutions and drive strategic business results.
Can you tell us what your company does and how you help your clients?
Nielsen Sports is the global leader in sports intelligence, measurement and consulting services providing brands and rights holders with impactful solutions to maximise ROI around sports marketing and sports organisations’ commercial strategy.
We are committed to building powerful data-driven products and services; we work with the world’s top leagues, teams and brands to deliver the most comprehensive fact-based results.
What major changes are you seeing in the sponsorship industry?
The sponsorship industry is evolving fast, following the pace of major economic, social and cultural changes worldwide.
While few trends have now become more prominent – but present for several years, such as media fragmentation, use of data within sports marketing and diversity & inclusivity across the board, some others are more recent. For example, the increasing use of athletes & celebrities within sports campaigns to influence consumers’ opinion is a phenomenon that has recently emerged. Brands and rights holders devolve greater attention and budget to incorporating influencers in their marketing & commercial strategies.
One other interesting anomaly is certainly esports; brands’ budgets are now more than ever before being shifted to esports properties to engage with audiences not-conventional for traditional sports and to enter a world less cluttered than traditional sports sponsorships.
Personally, I think we will soon be seeing changes in the business model between brands and rights holders. Fans are increasingly becoming even more crucial in bringing sponsorships to life, activations are predominantly experiential rather than limited to passive branding, so the question is: will brands continue to buy tangible assets? If not, how will the business model change? For example, I see new incentive-based or revenue-sharing models being established as a consequence of this trend.
You have mentioned influencers, has Nielsen Sports formally addressed their role within the sponsorship mix?
Yes, we have. For the majority of our clients, the role of influencers has become central to their strategy, but like all things new, there has been a lack of clarity on how to leverage their brand and the return they generate is still limited. We at Nielsen Sports have put together a methodology, leveraging our marketing 4R-approach (Reach, Relevance, Resonance and Return), that is able to identify best-fit influencers for brands & rights holders as well as derive the associated monetary value. We have been working closely with global-leading brands to ensure that the methodology was the best suited to serve their requirements.
If you are interested in more information on athletes as endorsers, you can reach out to me or find out more information by downloading our free report here.