Brand advertising spend bounces back to unprecedented levels

Latest revenue figures from the UK’s largest media owners are suggesting Qtr4 spend for ATL spend could reach £7.9BN, an astonishing £1bn more than the previous highest quarterly spend in history. Both new to TV brands and the travel sector are spending, which is very uncommon in what is the most expensive period of the year to advertise on TV.

This is great news for the economy. Looking at the split of spend in this record busting period shows marketers are investing in building their brands to grow their share of market as the economy recovers after the 10% fall in GDP in 2020 . Brand and performance advertising spend is up and indicates a balance of spend the likes of Mark Ritson et al would approve of!

The Value Xchange have always encouraged brands to look at partnerships in Sport and Entertainment as a platform for communication and not a channel. Media is simple to measure as joint industry research like BARB will tell you how many people saw your TV ad and how many times, digital media can measure a multiplicity of KPI’s such as exposure, clicks, engagement etc.  Sponsorships  can hold its own to ROI scrutiny. It starts with having the correct rights and benefits are secured to support the objectives and the means are in place to measure the outcomes of the partnership, both in the short term and the long term.

Many rights owners have invested significant resource in their owned and operated media channels, they own great content, and they are repurposing for each platform to ensure it resonates with their fanbase.

With growing digital platforms and actionable fan bases, rights owners have had to change their value proposition….TV facing logo and a prawn sandwich in an executive box for the C-suite and their chums, alone…will very rarely land you the repeatable 7 figure deals. The sophisticated rights owners act more akin to a brand than ever before, fan centric, ensuring content is the tool to retain and attract the new fan.

We are working with several top Premier League clubs who are actively looking at tactical opportunities with brands in non-conflicting categories of short-term campaign length, rather than the usual multi-year deal. A key component of these deals is utilising their digital platforms with branded content that has the same accountability as a digital media plan. Working with brands in this way, allowing them to dip their toes and judge its effectiveness through the lens of media measurement, is a great way to get brands who are short term, performance marketing focussed, to realise the value of the sports audience and the values of association, building the clubs pipeline for long term partnerships and mutual success.

Finally, for the avoidance of doubt, we are not saying partnerships that don’t measure up vs media metrics should be disregarded as the value of partnerships goes way beyond that. As per Binet and Field’s 60:40 rule, the association and opportunity to engage with a customer through their passion is immensely powerful to build long term brand value, but we believe it can also help a brand tactical short term performance KPI’s to. If traditional rights owners recognise this Sport and Entertainment partnerships will enjoy a bumper post covid period in the same way media owners are enjoying their current Qtr. 4 growth.