The Effectiveness of Television Program Sponsorship in the United Kingdom - Assignment Example

In the UK the rate of growth of revenues from TV programme sponsorship has accelerated over the past few years whilst income from air time sales has remained flat. Explain the advantages to advertisers of sponsoring programmes as opposed to buying conventional spots in commercial breaks. Are there any limitations? Introduction Over the years, the rate of growth of revenues from TV programme sponsporship has accelerated in the UK, in contrast to air time sales from conventional spots in commercial break. This paper aims to explore the benefits of utilizing sponsorship of TV programmes as a major marketing communication tool in contrast to conventional commercial media buys. The paper also explores the limitations of utilizing sponsorship which come in the form of risks that the advertiser has to face. But because of the accelerated growth in sponsorship in contrast to conventional spots, it is apparent that the benefits have outweighed the limitations of it as a marketing communication tool to many advertisers. Benefits While the growth of TV programme sponsorship has accelerated over the past few years in contrast to the relatively stable airtime sales, the trend in terms of advertisers’ preference of using sponsorship as a major marketing communication tool over advertising is apparent. Tom Duncan, in his book “Principles of Advertising and IMC” has enumerated various benefits of sponsorships. Some considerations when choosing which to sponsor has been founded on benefits to the advertisers such as: “target audience reach, brand image reinforcement, extendibility, brand involvement, cost effectiveness, and other sponsors (2005, 614).” These benefits are the basis for the considerations of various advertisers when choosing a program. Most of these benefits are related to enriching the association of brand image by the TV programme by making the brand part of the programme actively. In contrast to buying air times which are more passive and weaker in terms of reinforcing the brand, advertisers see these benefits of sponsorship as a better strategic tool for the brands. Target audience reach When the target audience of the TV programme matches the target market of the advertiser, the brand has better chances of reach, as well as extending the benefits of the brand by sponsoring the TV programme. The major objective of marketing communications is to communicate the brand and the brand’s benefits to its target market. By resorting to sponsorship in contrast to conventional spots in commercial breaks, the advertiser has a better chance to communicate to the target audience through the programme itself. Brand image reinforcement One major advantage of sponsorship is making a brand associated with a certain TV programme. When the target audience of the programme is the same with the target market of the advertiser, the overall theme of the programme adds association to the brand, thus enriching the image of the brand of the advertiser. A brand’s meaning is crucial through the various things which are associated with it—the more consistent the association with a certain theme, the clearer the brand positioning becomes and what the brand stands for in its customers. Therefore, sponsoring TV programme will reinforce the brand if their images are fit with each other’s positioning. Extendibility The major benefit of sponsorship over conventional TV spots is the programme’s ability to provide more brand exposure. While in conventional spots the brand message is communicated for a certain period the TV ad is paid to run, the extendibility through other media provides advertisers more brand exposure. When a brand becomes part of the TV programme and the TV programme is transferred to different media such as DVDs, the brand is immortalized along with the programme. This reinforcement which is not available through conventional spots in commercial breaks provides the advertisers a huge advantage in terms of brand exposure, without having to incur additional costs for exposing the brand. Brand involvement Sponsorship also provides brand involvement, which is another advantage over conventional spots in commercial breaks. When sponsoring a TV programme and the brand is featured as it is used, the involvement the programme provides creates value to the brand. When brands are featured as being used in the TV programme, the benefits and experience of using the brand can be shown to the target audience. Having seen the experience that the brand provides as it is used adds credibility to the brand itself, which is not provided by conventional spots in commercial breaks. Cost effectiveness When sponsoring TV programmes, the targeted audience of the show provides a targeted and strategic approach for advertisers as regards promoting their brands. This targeted approach provides cost-effectiveness as another advantage over using commercial breaks. In theory, the reach for both sponsorship and buying conventional commercial spots are the same when a TV programme is involved. However, as the other benefits of sponsorship are reiterated earlier, sponsorship is considered to be the more cost-effective of the two. The effect of the sponsorship can be greater as the brand is actively promoted as compared to the passive promotion through conventional commercial spots. Other sponsors A TV programme usually has a lot of other sponsors. By sponsoring a TV programme, aside from the association that the programme brings to the brand, the brand gets more association with the other brands that sponsor the TV programme. As we have discussed, it is very essential for a brand’s image formation to have strong associations with various entity that reinforces what it stands for. By being associated with the other brands and what they stand for, the brand’s meaning is enriched with its positioning becoming clearer. Limitations TV programme sponsorship, while it has a lot of benefits to the advertisers also has some limitations on its part. These limitations come in the form of risks that the advertiser has to take when resorting to sponsorship as a major marketing communication tool in contrast to buying conventional spots in commercial breaks. According to Pickton and Broderick in their book “Integrated Marketing Communications,” these risks include “negative associations, sponsorship clutter, over-commercialisation, and evaluation problems (2002, 518).” Negative associations Sponsoring a TV programme does come with some risks. When a TV programme encounters shortcomings and negative issues arise, there is a possibility of the negative association to the sponsoring brand. While this does not usually happen, the increase in regulation of TV programmes does pose certain risks on the part of the brand that does the sponsoring. Sponsorship clutter A TV programme may not have only one sponsor, and the problem arises when there are a lot of brands that sponsor the programme which creates a clutter in terms of the message that the advertiser wants to communicate. When there are a lot of sponsors, there is a huge chance that there are other sponsors that, although not in total conflict with the brand, may pose some confusion in terms of the message a brand wants to communicate. One brand may have a different association that distorts the programme’s image that the other brand wants to be associated with, and this could create a clutter. In some instances, the advertisers fail to meet their objective of communicating the messages the brand carries through sponsorship and this is the risk that the advertiser has to face. Over-commercialization Over-commercialization can be a turn off to the target audience as well as other stakeholders that are related to the brand. When a TV programme that the brand sponsors become overly-commercialized, as related to the sponsorship clutter, the target audience can resort to tuning out the message the brands want to communicate through the programme. When doing sponsorship, one benefit is for the target audience to get involved with the brand. However, when there are a lot of sponsors in a programme such that it becomes excessively commercialized, there seems to be a lot of messages screaming to get into the target audience’s head. This can be offensive to the audience which makes them tune out those brand messages. When this happens, the advertiser fails to communicate to fulfill its marketing communications objective through sponsorship. Evaluation problems Another limitation of sponsorship is the problem of evaluating its effects on the target audience. While the other tools of marketing communication provide more accessible ways to measure and evaluate the effect of the marketing communication activity, in doing sponsorship it is harder to do because of the different factors that affect it. Thus, utilizing sponsorship over the conventional spots in commercial breaks poses some limitation as regards its measure of effectiveness. Conclusion Sponsorship has grown over the years in the UK in contrast to sales of conventional spots in commercial breaks. As a marketing communication tool, sponsorship of TV programmes has a lot of advantages over these conventional spots which have something to do with target audience reach, brand image reinforcement, extendibility, brand involvement, cost effectiveness, and other sponsors. These considerations of many advertisers when choosing which programme to sponsor are based on the benefits that these considerations provide. However, although sponsorship has a lot of advantages, there are some risks that are associated with it. These include negative associations, sponsorship clutter, over-commercialisation, and evaluation problems. Although there are limitations to using sponsorship, the benefits that it provides outweigh the limitations which make advertisers utilize it more than buying conventional spots in commercial breaks. Works Cited Duncan, Tom. “Principles of Advertising and IMC.” 2nd ed. New Jersey: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Keller, Kevin. “Mastering the Marketing Communications Mix: Micro and Macro Pespectives on Integrated Marketing Communications Program.” Journal of Marketing Management. Vol. 17. Hanover: Westburn Publishers Ltd., p. 819-847. Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong. “Principles of Marketing.” 10th ed. Philippines: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd, 2004. Pickton David, and Amanda Broderick. “Integrated marketing communications.” Philippines: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd, 2002. Read More