The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup 2023 after a nail-biting encounter with the All Blacks. When sponsoring an event, it is crucial to measure your share of voice in relation to other sponsors as well as track and compare the volume and frequency of conversations, mentions, and engagements around your brand in order to gain real-time insights into how your brand is perceived as well as understand the ROI of your sponsorship.
Using the Springboks as the case study for a sponsorship analysis example, we used our media monitoring software, Meltwater influencer marketing suite and Meltwater social listening suite to assess the effectiveness of sponsorship at the Rugby World Cup 2023. The global data used is drawn from 1st September - 30th October, capturing all the content leading up to the final as well as the days after the victory.
Sponsorship Analysis Example:
Harnessing Social Listening Data for Sponsorship ROI Analysis
Identifying Key Metrics for the Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
Monitoring Brand Mentions for Understanding Sponsorship ROI
Understanding Brand Sentiment in Regards to Sponsorship ROI
Measuring Share of Voice To Understand Sponsorship ROI
Leveraging Influencer Marketing for a Higher Sponsorship ROI
Monitoring Competitor Sponsorships: All Blacks x Rugby World Cup 2023
Conduct Your Own Sponsorship Analysis with Meltwater
Tip: Download our free guide to measuring sponsorship ROI and learn more about modernizing sponsorship ROI measurement with AI.
Harnessing Social Listening Data for Sponsorship ROI Analysis
Knowledge is power, and this is especially true when accessing the data provided by social listening. Monitoring hashtags, engagement, mentions, and conversations gives you real-time insights into how the event - and its sponsors - is being perceived and discussed among fans and influencers.
As a brand, social listening enables you to identify trending topics, sentiment analysis and competitor analysis:
Top Hashtags for the Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
These trending hashtags were relevant to the Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023:
- #rwc2023 - 161k
- #rwcfinal - 80k
- #springboks - 77.6k
- #strongertogether - 52.1k
- #nzlvrsa - 23.7k
- #rsavnzl - 15.7k
- #gobokke - 13.9k
- #rsa - 11k
- #rsavsnzl - 6.85k
- #rwc23final - 6.42k
Tip: Check out the most trending hashtags in Australia and the most trending hashtags in South Africa.
Mentions trend during the Bokke games 2023
Monitoring the mentions shows both the total mentions and the conversation spikes during the Bokke games. There were bigger spikes mid to end of October.
Social media monitoring tools like the allow you to drill deeper into such spikes and perform a media impact analysis.
Engagement trend by source type for Springboks content
Total engagement exceeded 7 million, with drastic spikes during both the quarter, semi and final games.
The engagement source type is denoted by the different graph colours:
Access to the most engaged content provides a wealth of insights and trend analysis:
Springboks mentions per source type
The number of mentions per source type allows brands to see exactly which platform their audience favours.
In the case of the Springboks, the majority of the conversations took place over Twitter:
- Twitter: 501k
- News: 19.3k
- Facebook: 1k
- Blogs: 391
- Forums: 199
- Podcasts: 18
Tip: Learn more about Facebook monitoring and about Reddit marketing.
Identifying Key Metrics for the Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
Because every brand is different, with unique objectives, challenges and opportunities, the success measurement metrics for measuring sponsorship ROI will vary. However, the one constant is the need to identify these key metrics.
In the instance of the Springboks at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, these include:
- Share of voice
- Brand visibility (via brand tracking and brand monitoring)
- The impact of sponsorship activations
- The reach and frequency of sponsor mentions
- The sentiment analysis of sponsor-related conversations
Let's dig a little deeper:
Monitoring Brand Mentions for Understanding Sponsorship ROI
Knowing where to talk to your audience is helpful, but knowing where and what your audience is saying about your brand is essential.
Monitoring online news articles, social media conversations and blogs provides insights into how a brand is being discussed by fans, media, and influencers.
That authentic audience perception is something brands rarely access, and provides insight into overall brand sentiment and how to improve where needed.
Tip: Learn how to find the right influencers to partner with and take a look at the top South African fitness and sports influencers.
Understanding Brand Sentiment in Regards to Sponsorship ROI
With access to sentiment analysis of brand-related conversations, brands can gain an excellent understanding of how they are received in the mind of the consumer. The below sentiment graph shows the rating of Springbok-related conversations.
48.1% - nearly half - were positive, with only 4.6% - 1 in 20 - containing negative sentiments.
Measuring Share of Voice To Understand Sponsorship ROI
Along with the volume and frequency of brand conversations, mentions, and engagements, it is also crucial to measure your reach versus your competitors’. Understanding visibility and popularity in comparison to other brands is an essential insight.
The below graph shows the Springbok share of voice compared to the All Blacks, globally. Although the difference is only 5.2%, this equated to a reach of 53,000 in favour of the Springboks between September 8th and October 30th.
Leveraging Influencer Marketing for a Higher Sponsorship ROI
Through media and social media monitoring added to our social influencers tool, we can identify key rugby influencers based on their top based on influencer score that is calculated by machine learning algorithms that take into account engagements, audiences, skills and real views.
Collaborating with these influencers can amplify the reach and impact of sponsorships. The engagement percentage is useful in giving brands an indication of how receptive their community is.
The above screenshot is pulled from our influencer marketing tool and reveals the top 10 Springbok rugby influencers based on their influence score. It is not surprising that Siya Kolisi, Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende and Eben Etzebeth all feature.
Monitoring Competitor Sponsorships: All Blacks x Rugby World Cup 2023
By monitoring competitor sponsorships, activations, and conversations, you gain strategy insights and identify opportunities.
The graphs below show the All Blacks mentions, engagement and sentiment rates. These like-for-like comparisons made it easy to see where each team measures up and which channels are proving popular:
Mentions Trend of All Blacks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
First, it is important to understand the overall trend of media mentions of your competitor(s) - in this case, with the All Blacks team - to be able to compare those with your own brand's mentions.
This helps you get a better idea of your competitors' sponsorships.
Engagement Trend by Source Type of All Blacks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
How did the audience engage with your competitor's content? Where are spikes and what impacted those spikes? Which channels generate the most engagement for your competitors?
Answering questions like these will bring you one step closer to getting ahead of your competitition.
Mentions Trend by Search of All Blacks vs. Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
Comparing your brand mention search trend with your competitors' helps you understand timely events that impacted your industry's media coverage.
Tip: Learn how to measure media coverage.
Share of Voice by Sentiment of All Blacks vs. Springboks during the Rugby World Cup 2023
Last but not least, you should compare your brand's sentiment with the sentiment of your competitors' mentions.
If you see a big difference in positive mentions, dig deeper to understand what made your audience dislike your brand, and what's your competitors' approach to media communications. Learn from your mistakes and your competitor's successes and the other way around.
This way, your next sponsorship will generate an even bigger ROI!
Conduct Your Own Sponsorship Analysis with Meltwater
Get the most out of the data available to your brand by using the best tools and technology: The Meltwater Suite.
If you'd like to be able to conduct sponsorship analysis on your own, our Suite of solutions will help.
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