Ireland RepTrak® Sponsorship Report 2018

The Ireland Sponsorship RepTrak® study set out to analyse how sponsorship activities link into the overall reputation for an organisation.  Based on the perceptions of 7,094 members of the public who completed the survey between 5^th January and 5^th March 2018, the Ireland Sponsorship RepTrak® survey measures the consumer perceptions of the sponsorship activities and whether they impact on the corporate reputation for 80 of the largest, most familiar, and most important organisations in Ireland.  The results confirm that organisations aligning their brands with the right sponsorship property can enhance an organisation’s overall reputation.  The reputational study also reveals what kind of sponsorships are likely to be perceived by the Irish public as having the most positive impact on a sponsor’s corporate reputation.

Although sport dominates the Irish sponsorship landscape, with the sponsorship industry reported to be worth more than €200 million, the study revealed that sponsorship properties that are either cause-related or linked to a charitable drive are most likely to improve an organisation’s reputation, according to 59% of the respondents.  However, this was followed closely by brands establishing strategic partnerships with either national sporting teams/bodies or directly sponsoring local sports clubs. Both kinds of sponsorships were considered by over half of the respondents (each received 52%) as being likely to have a positive effect on an organisation’s reputation.  Organisations who are combining national sponsorship properties, communicated through local touch points, with activities which enable them to have a positive influence on society, are those most likely to resonate with their customers and the Irish public in general.