Commonwealth Games Leave Sponsors Wanting More

The Commonwealth Games recently came to an end, but according to Marketing Week sponsors of the event were unable to take full advantage of the positivity that surrounded the event, with ineffective marketing activity.

The Games garnered the most mentions from the UK – with 667,000 online mentions, 18% of which came from Glasgow and 17% of which came from London. The international audience was limited, the article notes, however with these games described as the “standout Games in the history of the movement” by Mike Hooper, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation, the future of the event looks positive.

Nevertheless, large sponsors such as Virgin Media, received some negative responses from their sponsorship of the games. Although Virgin Media secured the highest percentage (19%) of positive press as a sponsor, they also scored the most negative, with 13%. Instead of widening their campaign, Virgin opted for a very localised focus on Glasgow itself. According to Luke Southern, programme director for Virgin’s Glasgow campaign, data gathered from the Games suggests that Virgin were “the most associated with the Games” from a “brand awareness” point of view, reiterating that Scotland is a very “important market to Virgin Media”, hence the localised content.

Following Virgin Media’s 19% score of positive mentions came Ford, which secured 9% in the same metric. The managing director for Ford, Mark Ovenden, did note that it was “too early to quantify or provide any quantitative metrics” from the Games, but claimed that their sponsorship deal had been a “success.”

Unicef was the most talked-about brand, according to Brandwatch, followed by SSE – although SSE trailed behind Unicef’s 69% share of the chat quite significantly, with only 14%.

The Commonwealth Games has been described as more of a localised event by sponsorship professionals, and as key to generating short-term engagement from an audience.