What’s your name and position within the organisation?
Richard Payne: Director – Sports Accounts
Can you tell us in less than 100 words what your company does?
SPORTS MARKETING SURVEYS INC. is an experienced and focused sports research agency, working with clients from across the full sporting landscape including sponsors, federations, tourist boards, facilities, retailers and equipment manufacturers, as well as some of the biggest sporting events and venues in the world, like Wimbledon, The Open Championship and Roland-Garros.
Through the latest research methodologies (quantitative and qualitative), our SMART data helps our clients gain a competitive advantage by better understanding their target market and the steps required to provide a service or product that their customers are looking for.
How have clients used SMS INC.’s research in the past?
The uses of our reports are as diverse and bespoke as the projects themselves. Our research has been used to benchmark user experience; test prices; assess feasibility of projects; measure economic impact of sports or sports events on a particular area; create new initiatives; suggest new sponsor activations; lobby for funding; make independently verified marketing claims; negotiate with sponsors; or even change the rules of a sport.
The beauty of this technique is that it goes beyond traditional awareness tracking and enables us to monitor and evaluate engagement and shifts in behaviour over time and in response to new campaigns, activations or announcements in the market.
One technique that has proved to produce useful, actionable insights of late has been our PATHWAY studies – a longitudinal methodology utilising a combination of quantitative trackers with online qualitative follow-ups (forums, focus groups, app-based tasks). The beauty of this technique is that it goes beyond traditional awareness tracking and enables us to monitor and evaluate engagement and shifts in behaviour over time and in response to new campaigns, activations or announcements in the market.
How does SPORTS MARKETING SURVEYS INC.’s approach to sponsorship differ from other organisations?
When it comes to sponsorship, we focus on measuring behavioural change among the target audience and how events and rights holders can work with their partners to optimise their relationship. This might mean measuring the impact of an association on both the sponsor brand and also on the event. It might mean assessing how individual spaces within an event, or different types of advertising impact on spectator or viewer behaviour, and understanding how this effect has been achieved. Conversely it might also involve looking at purchasing habits to understand whether visitors or viewers are more likely to click through to a sponsor website, or purchase their product as a result of associations with sporting properties.
We also work heavily within endemic sponsorship – for example player kit deals – to track usage and identify opportunities.
We also work heavily within endemic sponsorship – for example player kit deals – to track usage and identify opportunities. Our research is widely used as the source of marketing claims related to brand usage, for example as the #1 ball in golf, or the #1 racquet at Wimbledon, or the #1 bike at European cycling sportives.
We are constantly using new techniques and technologies to help events and rights holders deliver exceptional returns for sponsors and partners e.g. our SMS INC. Radar technology allows us to monitor online chatter and track engagement with and attitude to events and their partners.
How do you imagine sports sponsorship is going to evolve over the next five years?
Where beacons or geo-fences are used to send relevant messages to app users at different parts of a stadium, improving user experience and also offering new capacity for commercialisation.
One area where we expect to see major developments is in more hyper-personalisation of messaging with audiences (live and viewing) seeing sponsored content that is applicable to them. One way that this might materialise is through proximity or geo-targeted marketing e.g. where beacons or geo-fences are used to send relevant messages to app users at different parts of a stadium, improving user experience and also offering new capacity for commercialisation. For us, that also means opportunities to engage in shorter, highly relevant questionnaires with fans or players in real time.
We may also see more brands focusing on in-stadium activations, or perhaps even more grass-roots/community engagement.
With the market for sports media rights increasingly competitive, we may also see more brands focusing on in-stadium activations, or perhaps even more grass-roots/community engagement. This would have a big impact on a number of sectors of the sports industry and also make it more important than ever to understand how to engage more deeply with a chosen target audience.
What do your clients particularly value about the SPORTS MARKETING SURVEYS INC. service?
We have been active in the sports research industry since 1984 and many of our clients have worked with us year after year. From testimonials we have received, we know that people value our proactive approach, which is founded on both our sports and research expertise.
Our researchers are passionate and knowledgeable about a range of sports, which allows us to create relevant, engaging surveys that get people the answers they need, and then report on them in the context of the most pressing challenges facing a sport or client. Linked to this expertise, is the fact that we are able to build research projects in a way that maximises the participant experience, which in turn means we are often able to exceed expected sample sizes.
We have excellent relationships with media partners across several sports, which also gives us an advantage when surveying core and avid sports participants, who account for the majority of spend and who are harder to target through generic panels.
In addition, we pride ourselves on being quick to support additional enquiries, as we know that people use our research heavily for both internal and external presentations.
For more information about how SPORTS MARKETING SURVEYS INC. could help your business, please contact Richard
at: Richard.payne@sportsmarketingsurveysinc.com