(Statement by Todd Deacon, General Manager, Sweeney Sports)
Nike regained top place in the Australian sports sponsorship list during the past winter when Olympic activities increased awareness of sponsors generally.
A six percentage point increase in awareness to 32% of the population resulted in Nike repeating its 2006 performance of overtaking former long-time leader Uncle Tobys.
The results come from the tenth winter edition of the Sweeney Sports Report. The Report is recognised as Australia’s most comprehensive and authoritative sports survey.
Awareness of individual sponsors has decreased in recent years, thought to be a result of increasing saturation of sponsorship opportunities caused by more and more companies trying to lever associations with sportspersons, sports and sporting events to gain the attention of target consumers.
However, similar to past Olympic years, awareness increased during the 2008 winter as companies invested more heavily in Olympic sports and athletes.
The most growth was recorded by Speedo, an eight percentage point increase lifting it from equal twelfth to equal sixth most recognised sponsor. Its association with swimming was dominant especially because of the spectacular results achieved with its innovative Razor suit, leading to extensive pre-Games media coverage domestically and internationally.
Nike, which gained awareness from its strong support of Olympic athletes and athletics, also benefited for other reasons – principally its associations with Tiger Woods, who won the 2008 US Open golf in spectacular fashion, and also with tennis’s world No. 1 combatants Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Uncle Tobys achieved only moderate improvement through its sponsorship of Australian elite swimmers. It was the runaway leader in the awareness stakes for many years because of its comprehensive iron man sponsorship. Since the sponsorship ended seven years ago, in favour of a more broad-based sponsorship strategy, the residual effect of the powerful iron man association maintained Uncle Tobys as the most recognised sports sponsor – except in 2006 and now this winter.
In other results:
• Adidas posted a respectable increase of four percentage points largely because of improved associations with athletics and soccer.
• Ford and Holden also posted four percentage point increases, reflecting the increasing popularity of motor car racing, especially the V8 Supercar series.
To read more about this press release, please download the PDF by clicking on the link below.
For information about the Sweeney Sports Report, please contact Todd Deacon on todd.deacon@sweeneyresearch.com.au
