More and more festivals are looking for sponsorship to generate essential revenue. Here, Jessica Pomfret, account director at Meshh, talks about measurement, metrics, and tactics; all vital elements if you wish to demonstrate real sponsorship value…

How do you demonstrate the value of sponsorship at a festival? Every aspect of marketing is under increasing scrutiny to prove its worth, and to justify its position in the marketing budget. With sponsorship opportunities at festivals commanding considerable sums, there has never been a more critical time to demonstrate that they deliver a strong return on the investment made by brands. Festivals present a perfect opportunity to deploy sponsorship. Having an audience located in one place, over a period of time, that may pass or engage with sponsorship or activation maximises the opportunity for the investment to deliver a return on the investment.

Understanding the metrics at a tactical level is relatively straightforward. There will be hard metrics, e.g., the number of people who participated in an activation, or collected a sample; it’s relatively easy to work out the percentage participation of those in attendance, or within a specific section of the event.

However, what those metrics don’t show is the bigger picture or the long view. Making measurement into a strategic game, rather than simply a validation of tactics, gives brands, agencies, and festival organisers solid justification for using sponsorship as a key tool at a live event. Expanding the scope of what is measured gives a better demonstration of the value of a location. This, in turn, provides the opportunity to apply a premium to a specific location because of the ability to clearly define the number of people who pass, see, stop at, or engage with a brand activation or sponsorship opportunity at an event.

Measuring traffic flows around a site, past key locations, and recording the number of people who can see a sponsor’s promotion, can all demonstrate the value of specific sites around the festival. This can then be used to determine prime sites based on solid evidence. Showing where people stay and spend time at, or around a sponsor’s activity can justify the value of the location.

This provides a picture of what happened at a point in time at a festival; if the process is repeated over many festivals, and sponsorships, the evidence amassed over time becomes more compelling. The analysis of the data can reveal the actual value of premium sites, and opportunities to manage traffic flow to maximise benefits for sponsors. Year-on-year measurement removes the guesswork, opinion, and supposition.

Dublin-based experiential agency, EXP focus on delivering effective brand experiences for their clients including mobile operator, Three UK. The brand activates across leading UK music festivals and uses analytics to demonstrate ROI to the mobile telecoms giant.

For agencies working with multinational organisations wanting to demonstrate a clear ROI, measuring sponsorship and activations at festivals of all types and multiple geographies, over extended periods, is essential. It provides evidence that these activities, in the festival environment, deserve their share of the marketing wallet.

Tactical measurement is essential but making measurement into a long-term strategic goal moves ROI up the marketing agenda and, importantly, measures what matters.