MMA and Copernicus Launch a Joint Solution to Help Marketers Evaluate the Impact of Sponsorship Investments

New service addresses sponsorship’s effect on ROI and brand and customer equity.

Wilton, CT (PRWEB) November 29, 2005 –-

Marketing Management Analytics, Inc. (MMA), the marketing analytics pioneer, and Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research, a firm that helps Fortune 500 companies make better marketing decisions, today announced the introduction of the MMA/Copernicus Sponsorship Evaluation Service, a cutting-edge new service that tells marketers how a sponsorship program affects three key measures: sales-based ROI and brand and customer equity.

MMA and Copernicus, also of Wilton, Conn., are independent operating units of Carat, one of the world’s leading media services companies.

Although sponsorships are the fastest growing marketing channel with worldwide spending projected to hit $48.7 billion in 2006 according to SponsorClick’s Marketing Global 2004 report, just one quarter of marketers are measuring the impact of their sponsorship investments, according to a May 2005 Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Branded Entertainment Survey. And more than half of marketers—56%—report serious challenges in measuring the impact, according to the ANA survey.

“Too many marketers are wasting money on poorly targeted, over-priced sponsorship programs, but don’t realize it. They believe they can justify these investments in the name of long term brand equity, but rarely put the appropriate research in place to measure it,” said Kevin Clancy, Chairman and CEO of Copernicus. “The Sponsorship Evaluation Service will make it easy for marketers to get a three dimensional assessment of sponsorship performance, including sales-based ROI, and brand and customer equity.”

“Well-executed sponsorship programs often have many moving parts, which makes it difficult to have a complete view of performance,” said Ed See, Chief Operating Officer of MMA. “The key to success is to add the appropriate measurement criteria into the program design so that all components of sponsorship can be tracked. Our service includes both up-front planning and post execution evaluation.”

With The MMA/Copernicus Sponsorship Evaluation Service, marketers will get:

• A blueprint for measuring sponsorship (what and how to measure)
• An understanding of sponsorship’s sales contribution and ROI compared to other marketing tactics (e.g. TV, Print, Online)
• A breakdown of how the different components of sponsorship, i.e., event exposure, supporting media and promotions contribute to sales and ROI
• Insight into sponsorship’s impact on brand equity based on quantitative research
• An approach for setting goals for and tracking activation activities
• Prescriptive guidance on how to optimize sponsorship investments

About Marketing Management Analytics, Inc. (MMA)

MMA pioneered the use of marketing mix modeling to help companies plan, measure, validate, and optimize their marketing performance. Since that time, MMA has conducted more than 1000 studies on hundreds of brands and businesses in more than 20 countries. MMA’s clients include many of the most recognized marketers in the world. MMA has been a unit of Aegis Group, PLC, London (AGS.L) since 1997. For more information about Avista DSS and other MMA services, visit http://www.mma.com.

About Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research

Copernicus is in the business of transforming companies. The firm offers Six Sigma, state-of-the-science consumer and business-to-business consulting, research, and modeling tools to help develop, plan, and implement marketing strategies that change brand trajectories, career paths, even entire companies and industries. For more information about the services of the firm, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com.

Contacts:

Wendy Marx

Marx Communications

203-445-2850

Tom Mariam

Marx Communications

914-939-4294

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