The retained marketing agency of a major global airline approached IMR to develop a sponsorship strategy. We analysed the company’s operations, including marketing, route network, internal communications, external relationships, corporate reputation and competitor activity.

The new strategy was designed to match brand objectives, deliver activations towards internal processes and deliver a research programme that would benchmark the company’s position, monitor success and ROI, and refocus when initial objectives had been met.

Aston Villa is the biggest football club in the Midlands area of the UK. The club had a double objective: to recruit and engage younger fans and to develop relationships with the sizeable Asian population living close to its Villa Park stadium. IMR developed the first soccer reality TV show – Villawannabee. Screened on the Asia TV Network and open to children aged12-14, the show had more than 2,500 contestants. The club’s marketing department described the project as "very successful".

Parkour Generations is the world’s leading group of parkour instructors and practitioners, responsible for the discipline’s first fully recognised training regime. IMR advised the group on commercial activities, publishing contracts and on the creation of an independent federation to help develop the sport worldwide. IMR also created an annual summer training camp in the French ski resort of Morzine - still running today. This camp brought together two IMR clients to achieve income for the resort during its off-season and superb, high-altitude training facilities to parkour students.

IMR undertook a major research and consultancy project that helped the soccer club to value its rights, understand its fans and create new commercial opportunities. The research data was used to help identify potential partners and persuade them of the business case for becoming a sponsor. IMR also worked with the club on media projects, stadium facility revenues and a major community development strategy. Working closely with the club, IMR helped to increase commercial revenue by 600% in one year.

IMR recently hosted a week of training for executives from a major regional sports rights agency to help them to understand best practice in sponsorship and rights holder opportunities. The sessions focused on how sponsorship can meet corporate objectives, how strategies should be developed, the role of research in sponsorship programmes and how best to approach activating rights. It also covered how an agency can help rights holders to work with sponsors to maximise the potential of rights offerings.

IMR was recently approached by a major rights holder in Latin America seeking to understand sponsorship rights valuations across numerous properties. The client was keen to clarify the value of the rights that it held and required a competitor analysis report to benchmark its own offerings.

A leading financial services company wanted to rationalise its sponsorship portfolio and needed a competitor analysis report to help inform decision-making. IMR listed the deals and values of its ten biggest competitors across sport and the arts and analysed their strategies. The report pointed to a surprising lack of cohesion in the strategies of several major competitors and helped the client to identify where to focus future investment.

A major consulting firm required a report on total sport and arts sponsorship spend in 18 countries across Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe. With no published data available for most countries on the list, IMR produced a model based on its knowledge of selected rights fees in each territory combined with economic, sports, cultural and demographic data. The model was tested against a territory in which IMR had undertaken an intensive study and was found to be accurate, giving the client confidence in its acquisition strategy.

As part of our consultancy work for Northampton Town FC, IMR undertook research that included: press and TV rights valuations for sponsorship coverage; socio-demographic analysis of the fan base; geographical information system mapping of fan clusters; brand image attribute perceptions; and focus group studies on fans and school-age children. The results were used to inform overall strategy, present to potential partners and drive specific initiatives.

IMR was approached by a major European FMCG brand seeking to acquire second tier rights in the English Premier League. The brand was keen to understand the cost of acquisition, the media value delivered and the likelihood of the sponsorship being a success. IMR was able to identify properties relevant to the sponsor's objectives, request rights holder plans for maximising the potential of the sponsorship and negotiate fee levels downwards. The rights presented for consideration were all priced below the initial expectation of the client.

IMR worked with a major international agency to produce an analysis of the Thai sponsorship market. The agency had a retained client keen to examine the potential for rights acquisition in the country and needed expert data and analysis to inform its decision making. IMR provided sponsorship rights data, socio-economic profiles and media consumption analysis for various sports and corporate/political analysis of key rights holders.