At the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) 2011 annual re:think convention, a key issues forum presentation was held entitled A Whole New Game The NFL Scores a Touchdown ith League-Sponsored ROI Measurement. The presentation gave a background and overview of the ROI model. It also discussed ways to show causality and how to project share gains to the market level. An example of a case study and it’s key learnings was shown. The presentation was given by Alicia Rankin, Head of Research & Fan Insights at the National Football League(NFL) & Darren Marshall, Executive Vice President of Consulting and Research at rEvolution.

1. A Whole New Game
The NFL Scores a Touchdown with
League-Sponsored ROI
Measurement
Alicia Rankin Darren Marshall
Head of Research & Executive Vice President,
Fan Insights Consulting & Research
National Football League rEvolution

2. Background – The ROI Model
• U.S. sponsorship market worth $10BN
• “ROI” measures focused largely on
impressions/awareness
• 2005 Knowledge Networks developed ROI model
– Goal to measure incremental sales due purely
to a sponsorship
– Effort sponsored by MillerCoors
– Multiple pilots
• Model now marketed exclusively by rEvolution
• Clients include The Home Depot, Samsung, Shell

3. ROI Model – Key Assumptions
• Only NFL fans can be influenced
• Only people in the sponsor’s target
market matter
• Only those fans aware of the sponsorship on
an unaided basis can be influenced

4. Overview of the ROI Model
• Test vs. Control approach
• Test Group = NFL fans aware of sponsor X on an
unaided basis
• Control Group = NFL fans unaware of
sponsorship on an unaided basis
– Control Group demographics weighted to match
the Test Group
Test Group Control Group
Fans aware of the
Fans unaware of
sponsorship on an
the sponsorship
unaided basis

5. Assessing Impact on Brand Share
• Brand share compared between Test and
Control Groups
− In this example, the sponsorship doubles brand share
• Only difference between the Test and Control
groups is awareness of the sponsorship
Sponsor Brand Share
20%
10%
Test Control
Sponsorship Sponsorship
Aware Fans Unaware Fans

6. How can we be sure of the causality?
Proof points
• Case studies conducted for Miller
– Over time where brand marketing focused primarily on a
particular sponsorship showed very close correlation
between model’s predicted and actual share gains
• Direct diagnostic questioning
– “Does the fact that x sponsors y make you more likely to
buy?”
• Regression analysis
• In some cases, there is no difference in share
– If causality reversed (brand loyalists more likely to be aware
of sponsorship), sponsor’s Test share would always be higher

7. Sizing the Prize
• How big is the Test Group with the 10pt
higher share?
• To find out, we take a third “Benchmark” sample
of everyone in the sponsor’s target market
Benchmark
Group

8. Projecting Share Gains to the
Market Level
• Benchmark tells us Non Fan
50%
– How many of the target market are Fan
NFL fans? 50%
– How many of these fans are aware of
the sponsorship? 80%
• In this example
– 50% are fans and 20% are aware 20%
– This is the true size of the Test Group
with the 10pt higher brand share
Aware of Unaware of
– The sponsor is raising brand share by
10pts in 10% of the market – or by 50% × 20% =
1pt overall 10%

9. ROI Calculation

10. Challenges for the NFL
• Measure not just one sponsor, but 22 of our
sponsors and 5 of other major leagues
• Sponsors have very different target
markets, ways of measuring brand share
• Need to keep to a reasonable budget

11. NFL Sponsor Case Study
ROI Calculation NFL Sponsor ROI
a) Industry Category Sales $ US $50,000,000,000
b) % of Market Reached by Aware NFL Fans 7.0%
c) Industry Category Sales Accounted for by Aware Fans = a x b $3,500,000,000
d) Sponsor Share Among Aware NFL Fans =23% $805,000,000
e) Sponsor Share if No NFL Sponsorship (Sales to Unaware Fans) =17% $595,000,000
f) Additional Sales Due to NFL Sponsorship (d - e) $210,000,000
g) Estimated Profit Margin on Sales 17%
h) Additional Profit Due to Sponsorship (f x g) $35,700,000
i) Cost of Sponsorship $15,000,000
j) ROI (h/i) 2.38:1

12. Summary of ROI
11.4
Average NFL
Sponsor
Generates
Over 2:1 ROI
4.3
3.6 3.1 2.9
2.3
1.6 1.2
0.9
0.2 0.1
0

13. Key Learnings
• Clear relationship between activation and ROI

14. Clear Relationship Between Activation
and ROI
• Since rights package the same for most
sponsors, activation was the key variable in ROI
• Gives us hard data to encourage sponsors to
activate
ROI
Activation

15. Key Learnings
• Clear relationship between activation and ROI
• Ability to demonstrate that company is a sponsor
• “Early warning” of sponsors that may not be
realizing benefits
• Some categories are more able to be influenced
by sponsorship than others

16. A Variety of Uses
• Measure ROI
• Help sponsors improve
• Inform pricing and negotiation
• Set benchmarks
• Help close new sales

17. In Summary
• This approach is a clear step forward from other
proxies on the market
• NFL able to establish a leadership position in
delivering an accurate ROI proxy
• Year two of measurement recently completed