New Havas Research Shows UK Public Believes Modern Sponsorship Must Be Meaningful

51% of the UK public believe brands should be actively involved in supporting social causes in their sport and entertainment sponsorships, with 84% stating that “brands should help enable more people to play sport”, 81% saying “brands should promote healthy living” and 77% saying “brands should support their local community”.

Havas Sports & Entertainment ignition (HS&E ignition) has today revealed the first independent research of its kind, looking at the impact of brands in sport and entertainment. The findings from research of 7,000 consumers (UK only), and also 30 rights holders and brands, look at the ‘meaningfulness’ of sponsor activity and the relationships brands have established with their consumers and fans.

Speaking about the study Gavin Peters, Head of Insight, HS&E ignition said: “This research clearly shows that people want brands to be actively involved in their passions, even more so when it benefits their community. With that in mind, marketing investment from brands to properties will have the greatest impact when they’re acting as a catalyst for actual change, rather than purely a badging exercise.”

Gordon Lott, Managing Director, HS&E ignition said: “Our research clearly shows that brands’ sponsorships do already make a difference, and the overwhelming majority of people (76%) think that brands should be involved in sponsorship in sport and entertainment.

“We know that brands’ sponsorship activities are very effective in helping ‘brand understanding’ (32% of people understand brands more) and translating that understanding through to ‘brand consideration’ (22% of people consider them more) and ‘brand recommendation’ (20% of people recommend them more) as a result.  However our research also shows there is real potential for brands to significantly improve these figures by targeting more of their activity towards benefitting communities and other social causes.

“This perspective has always been core to our beliefs and the way we work at HS&E ignition, but until now we didn’t have the data to back up these views.  Now we do”.

The brands whose impact was measured across sport, entertainment and social agendas include financial services (e.g. HSBC, Barclays, Aviva), mobile (e.g. O2 and Vodafone), FMCG (e.g. Gillette, Nivea), energy (e.g. Shell and BP), as well as governing bodies (e.g. Premier League, FIFA and IOC) and more.

This research forms part of Havas Media Group’s Meaningful Brands programme which is the first global analytical framework to connect human well-being with brands at a business level and measure the benefits brands bring to our lives.