Understanding the differences in why companies do sponsorship helps rights holders and their agencies know which levers to pull when pitching depending on the category they might target and their own field

caytoo analysed nearly 11,250 sponsorship deals signed around the world over the last two and a half years to identify the main reason why each company signed that sponsorship deal.

The purpose is to help rights holders get a directional sense of which benefits or reasons to focus on depending on (a) which categories they’re thinking about targeting and (b) what field their own organisation is in (such as sport, entertainment or culture).

Market overview

Not unsurprisngly, Brand Awareness is the most common main reason sponsors do deals – accounting for 34% of all deals – followed by Social Impact at 16%.

So, on a very broad level, the data suggests your pitch has the greatest chance of success if it primarily covers:

1. How you can help a company achieve brand awareness
2. How it demonstrates how they benefit society
3. That you’re well matched because you exhibit similar values
4. That you’re in the same geographical area so they’re seen to be supporting that area

Differences between rights holder fields

However, these reasons are not neccessaily the same depending whether the rights holder chosen is a sport, entertainment, business or lifestyle/culture organisation.  So, it makes more sense for rights holders to play on ones in which target sponsors tend to believe that their field provides the greatest benefit in.

For example:

• Although Brand Awareness is the main reason for 34% of deals, this spikes at 44% among deals with entertainment properties; so rights holders in this field should play more on the numbers angle
• Although Social Impact (the need to be seen to be benefitting society) is the main reason for 16% of deals, this spikes at 72% among deals with Charities (perhaps unsurprisingly)
• Aligning Values accounts for 18% of deals involving Lifestyle/Culture properties compared to 14% of other deals; so Lifestyle/Culture rights holders need to draw out their shared values when pitching brands
• Engaging Fans accounts for twice the share of deals in Sport (12%) vs non-sport (6%); so Sport rights holders should illustrate how they can help potential sponsors do this

All data and insights are in the full ‘why companies do sponsorship’ report.

Differences between sponsor categories

Even more so than the rights holder field, the reasons companies do sponsorship deals varies significantly between the categories in which they fall. For example:

• Brand Awareness is 1.3x more likely to be the main reason a company in the Media & Entertainment sector does a deal versus the average company
• Social Impact is 2x more likely to be the main reason a Utility company does a deal versus the average
• Values Alignment is 1.3x more likely to be the main reason a Health & Wellbeing company does a deal versus the average
• Having a local connection is 2.6x more likely to be the main reason a Real Estate company does a deal versus the average
• Engaging Fans is 1.9x more likely to be the main reason a Telecoms company does a deal versus the average

Knowing these type of data points will help you identify and prioritise which categories to pitch for sponsorship based on how strongly you believe your organisation/rights are beneficial in a particular way.

For instance, drilling down to a subcategory level (per the table above) reveals that Brand Awareness accounts for the biggest share of deals done by Tourist Boards, Gambling brands and Auto Components & Tyres brands. So, if you believe Brand Awareness is a major benefit you provide, these are the categories to prioritise and with that message.

All the data and insights are covered in the full ‘why companies do sponsorship’ report.