I recently posted my first video tutorial on the Power Sponsorship YouTube channel. It is entitled, “Sponsorship Measurement Basics in About 10 Minutes”.

Clearly, I am not able to provide definitive guide to best practice sponsorship measurement in ten minutes, but I gave it a red hot go, and managed to hit the biggest dos and don’ts. All up, I’m pretty happy with it and so are most of the people I’ve heard from… except the measurement agencies. They’re having a few problems with my advice. Then again, they probably would.

Their feedback – and I’ve head from about a dozen of them now – is surprisingly uniform, taking me to task for one or more of these issues.

Issue #1: Sponsors need to have their sponsorships measured objectively by an outside organisation

Uh, no. Here’s the deal: Best practice sponsors measure results against objectives – objectives set by various division across the company, including brand marketing. Measuring against objective is, by definition, objective. It’s a yes/no equation. Did we achieve this objective or didn’t we? And there is no way any organisation outside of the company is going to be better placed to measure against a company’s benchmarked objectives than the experts within the company itself (perception research excepted – see below).

Where a company can often benefit from an outside, objective opinion is in the evaluation of a sponsorship (or portfolio) – also known as a “sponsorship audit”. An audit is not about measuring historic results, but about assessing the suitability of a sponsorship going forward. The result of an audit, or evaluation, is a recommendation. That could include internal training or sell-in, renegotiation of benefits, reassignment to a different brand, new angles for leverage, an exit plan, or any number of other strategies to get a portfolio working at peak efficiency.

Issue #2: Sponsors need to know how much exposure they get

(Honourable mention: You can’t tell me all that exposure isn’t worth millions!)

Again, no. Sponsors need to know what results they get. Exposure is a low-value mechanism that says nothing about whether the sponsor has changed their target markets’ perceptions or behaviours.

Counting logos and assigning some arbitrary figure to them has a big history, but no relevance in our highly accountable environment. The problem is, there has been a whole industry of “measurement agencies” set up around this inherently flawed concept, and it is 100% in their best interest for sponsorship measurement to stay in the dark ages. Which brings me to…

Issue #3: I am damaging part of the sponsorship industry

You know, I don’t want anyone’s company to struggle. I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs. But I believe that measurement is a critically important factor to the advancement of our entire industry. If sponsors embraced a multifaceted, objective-driven measurement approach, sponsorship would be one of the most accountable of all marketing media. Getting measurement right is the biggest credibility boost we would ever give our industry. We simply can’t afford to protect practitioners who are setting that credibility and accountability back. I stand by that.

And all you sponsorship associations who take sponsorship from and promote these services? You need to take a good, hard look at yourselves, because you are selling out your members.

Sponsors often do need outside help to understand the value of their sponsorships, but there are really only three roles:

Consulting – Helping a sponsor understand the range of objectives that can be achieved through sponsorship, educating key stakeholders, and getting their buy-in. This is a good choice for sponsors who are stepping up in sophistication, but it’s about developing the internal infrastructure and approach, not measuring anything for them.

Audit/evaluation – The ability to assess mountains of data and feedback, as well as seeing the potential and identifying trouble spots, is a specialised skill that a lot of companies wouldn’t have in-house. This can also be a political minefield, and it might be a lot better for a sponsorship manager’s career trajectory to have someone outside of the company tell the MD’s that her/his favourite sponsorship is a dog.

Research – Most major sponsors do brand tracking research, or at least have some kind of reasonably recent research about their target markets’ perceptions of their brand. Sponsorship research is about asking a selection of the same questions that were asked on that tracking, of people at varying degrees of involvement of the event and the sponsorship leverage activities. The existing research is the benchmark, the new research shows the impact on perceptions. That is straightforward enough, but deciding who to ask, how to ask, which questions will provide the most relevant picture, and crunching the data is something that is often better tackled by a professional research organisation.

The upshot for sponsorship measurement agencies is that there plenty of opportunities to provide expert advice to companies, but the days of logo and column-inch counting are numbered. It’s time to repurpose. Dumbing down the industry to protect your livelihood will not work.