Advice sought regarding F1 sponsorship

[pokethepope]

Hi guys, im looking for a little bit of advice regarding my dissertation. Im in my last year of a business degree and have chosen to research the effectiveness of F1 sponsorhsip in enhancing brand equity (simply put, does F1 sponsorship increase awareness of the brand, and does it enhance the image of the brand, and therefore an increased likelihood of purchasing the product/service associated with it).

I want to do this topic as it really interests me, but there is a sticking point: timing. The deadline is a week or so after the first race in Bahrain. Plainly, I cannot do my preffered method of research, which would be a questionnaire for F1 viewers to complete after a race so they have had a condensed 2-hours+ of exposure to the sponsors.

This leaves me with two options; go with the same question but change it from F1 to football, or stick with F1. The questionnaire will be targetting F1 fans on PH and other dedicated motoring forums, so most respondants should be relatively dedicated fans who have had at least some exposure to the sponsors over the last two or three months from testing, F1 news and so on.

So the advice i'm seeking off you guys is: do you think undertaking this reasearch on F1 in the 'off-season' is a bad idea? The questions will be fairly basic - can you recall the main sponsors, what associations in the minds of the viwer are made when a brand sponsors in F1, would it make you seek that brand out, pay more for it over a competitor etc etc. Put simply, do you think your recollection and awareness of sponsors will be sufficient enough to generate meaningful results, or would your answer to every question be "I can't remember/I don't know what I feel..."

Thanks in advance for any input

[Life Saab Itch]

You may as well do it now. Most fans I know are getting antsy about not seeing any racing for a while.

[Asterix]

The main sponsor I can remember from last year was 'Snoras' as it was particularly pertinent for Bahrain.

[StevieBee]

Doing the research now will, if anything, reveal more about brand recognition than if you were to do it mid season.

You should though, be aware that sponsorship is not just about logo>recognition>sale. That requires huge investment beyond what is paid to the teams, companies need to invest in other marketing, point of sale, etc to really milk the association.

Most (or a lot) F1 sponsorship is little more than a very expensive (but rewarding) networking opportunity. You often find that sponsorship deals are done off the back of other deals. Example:

Schuco used to sponsor McLaren. They make high-end windows and doors. They supplied all the glazing for McLaren's HQ plus a most of the new Mercedes dealership fit outs. They also purchased Mercedes trucks for their fleet. The chances of joe public a) seeing the Schuco logo on the cars and b) buying their products as result of their sponsorship are nigh on remote to the point of zero. The deal was a mutually beneficial one for all parties and had nothing to do with brand recognition.

HTH

[308mate]

Tough one but great subject.

Good examples I can think of are Hanspree's massive WSB sponsorship right before they entered the UK market, HP's Williams sponsorship was a good example which actually brought development benefits to the team other than cash alone and Tissot's sponsorship of MOTOGP, which actually caused me to go out and buy a Tissot watch with absolutely no idea why I needed that brand. I remember sitting down to watch the next race after buying it thinking "Hey! Tissot! Ive got one of tho......oh. bds!"

I would agree with the above though, the real test of how enduring these brands are to the audiance must be in the off season.

Will you consider team names as sponsorship such as Ferrari and Lotus? Or just brands associated with the team?

Will the fact that you are asking hardcore fans who make it their business to know every aspect of the team, skew the results?

Good topic. Best of luck.

[furtive]

I tried to send you a useful email but you don't accept them

[belleair302]

As somebody with over 12 years of F1 sponsorship experience both team side and agency side drop me a PM (private Message) and lets discuss the industry and its benefits / pitfalls.

[pokethepope]

Thanks for the input guys.

Asterix said:

The main sponsor I can remember from last year was 'Snoras' as it was particularly pertinent for Bahrain.

Can you expand on that? Do you mean because Renault needed the Snoras loan/sponsorship to carry on racing after losing a lot of its sponsors in the wake of the Piquet Jr. crash scandal?

StevieBee said:

You should though, be aware that sponsorship is not just about logo>recognition>sale. That requires huge investment beyond what is paid to the teams, companies need to invest in other marketing, point of sale, etc to really milk the association.

Most (or a lot) F1 sponsorship is little more than a very expensive (but rewarding) networking opportunity. You often find that sponsorship deals are done off the back of other deals.

HTH

I agree the various objectives make sponsorship much more complex than "does it increase sales". However, my word limit is 10,000, which doesn't seem that low but can quickly be swallowed up (literature review on its own can easily be several thousand words for example) so i'm wary of using a research question that is too broad, and therefore think I will limit it to just the one objective of brand awareness/equity.

308mate said:

Will you consider team names as sponsorship such as Ferrari and Lotus? Or just brands associated with the team?

Will the fact that you are asking hardcore fans who make it their business to know every aspect of the team, skew the results?

That is something I'll have to discuss with my supervisor. If I can define sponsorship as including a car maker running an F1 team - as opposed to just a bank paying to have their logo on the car - then I could either incorporate that into the question, or even focus solely on that. The research method would be similar I suppose, rather than "does watching F1 make you more aware of Santander, search out its services etc" it would be "does Lotus' participation in F1 make you more aware of its brand, will you seek out their cars if you are in the market etc".

belleair302 said:

As somebody with over 12 years of F1 sponsorship experience both team side and agency side drop me a PM (private Message) and lets discuss the industry and its benefits / pitfalls.

Thanks for the offer. I have a meeting with my supervisor on monday, providing he gives me the go ahead with my intended topic and research method i'll send you a PM.

[skeggysteve]

OP, I don't know if it will help but I say it and let you decide.

Few years ago I was told by someone that did know about F1 sponsorship.
They told me that companies do not sponsor F1 teams to sell they do it for brand awareness.
When the Beatrices (sp) corp. sponsored the Lola F1 they spent the same on TV adverts in the 2 weeks of the LA Olympics as they did on the whole year for the F1 deal.

[Asterix]

pokethepope said:

Thanks for the input guys.

Asterix said:

The main sponsor I can remember from last year was 'Snoras' as it was particularly pertinent for Bahrain.

Can you expand on that? Do you mean because Renault needed the Snoras loan/sponsorship to carry on racing after losing a lot of its sponsors in the wake of the Piquet Jr. crash scandal?

Unfortunately, not that scientific - it was a really boring race.

[Kinky]

belleair302 said:

As somebody with over 12 years of F1 sponsorship experience both team side and agency side drop me a PM (private Message) and lets discuss the industry and its benefits / pitfalls.

In addition to Mr. 302 above, there's also some of us who have been, and are currently sponsoring an F1 team

[skeggysteve]

Kinky said:

some of us who have been, and are currently sponsoring an F1 team

I thought Guinness stopped sponsoring F1 a few years ago?

[Kinky]

skeggysteve said:

Kinky said:

some of us who have been, and are currently sponsoring an F1 team

I thought Guinness stopped sponsoring F1 a few years ago?

Yeah - something to do with the drivers continually spilling their drinks during the race.



And here's one for you

[XG332]

Look at other levels of motorsport aswell.

[northo]

Kinky said:

In addition to Mr. 302 above, there's also some of us who have been, and are currently sponsoring an F1 team

Do you fancy sponsoring another? Or maybe WRC?

Edited by northo on Thursday 17th February 13:52

[MikeO996]

skeggysteve said:

OP, I don't know if it will help but I say it and let you decide.

Few years ago I was told by someone that did know about F1 sponsorship.
They told me that companies do not sponsor F1 teams to sell they do it for brand awareness.
When the Beatrices (sp) corp. sponsored the Lola F1 they spent the same on TV adverts in the 2 weeks of the LA Olympics as they did on the whole year for the F1 deal.

Just read the Bernie Ecclestone bio (hagiography) by Sid Watkin's missus. Found it interesting to learn that one of the prime arguments Bernie and Max used for allowing tobacco advertising was that there was no evidence that it encouraged people to smoke - just that increased brand awareness amongst smokers. Sounded like bks to me.

[KaraK]

pokethepope said:

Hi guys, im looking for a little bit of advice regarding my dissertation. Im in my last year of a business degree and have chosen to research the effectiveness of F1 sponsorhsip in enhancing brand equity (simply put, does F1 sponsorship increase awareness of the brand, and does it enhance the image of the brand, and therefore an increased likelihood of purchasing the product/service associated with it).

I want to do this topic as it really interests me, but there is a sticking point: timing. The deadline is a week or so after the first race in Bahrain. Plainly, I cannot do my preffered method of research, which would be a questionnaire for F1 viewers to complete after a race so they have had a condensed 2-hours+ of exposure to the sponsors.

This leaves me with two options; go with the same question but change it from F1 to football, or stick with F1. The questionnaire will be targetting F1 fans on PH and other dedicated motoring forums, so most respondants should be relatively dedicated fans who have had at least some exposure to the sponsors over the last two or three months from testing, F1 news and so on.

So the advice i'm seeking off you guys is: do you think undertaking this reasearch on F1 in the 'off-season' is a bad idea? The questions will be fairly basic - can you recall the main sponsors, what associations in the minds of the viwer are made when a brand sponsors in F1, would it make you seek that brand out, pay more for it over a competitor etc etc. Put simply, do you think your recollection and awareness of sponsors will be sufficient enough to generate meaningful results, or would your answer to every question be "I can't remember/I don't know what I feel..."

Thanks in advance for any input

I might be oversimplifying here but surely any decent amount of contemporary race footage would do? Why not get a group of people signed up, get them to answer a questionaire on the sponsers (who sponsers who etc) then have them watch a season review video of last year (there must be loads around) then answer the same questions again and see if it made a difference?

[nsmith1180]

There is a channel on Justin TV, Backup F1 Legends, it runs GP reruns from 1950s through to Abu Dhabi 2010. Run by a bloke called Bwass_244.

Send your respondants there, get them to watch a race then complete the survey??

If you want, ill have a word with Bwass and see if he can run modern races for a while, 05-10 sort of thing so most sponsors will be the same.

[anonymous-user]

I work for a major FI1 sponsor (not in that dept), we do not sell consumer products in the West, (we only sell consumer products in one of the countries that hold a GP), and have over 90% of our domestic market in consumer products. So there is no way that we are in F1 to sell products, it all about general brand awareness