Wunderman examines top sponsors of the Olympic Games
In a study, Wunderman examined the top sponsors of the London Olympics. Using the «Social Favourability Engine,» the study analyzed the impact on social media.
The key figures of 11 sponsors were compared: Acer, Atos, Dow Chemical, GE, McDonalds, Panasonic, Omega and Samsung. Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Visa stood out in particular, according to Wunderman in a statement on Thursday. Although it is still too early to analyze the impact on brand sales, the effects on social media are already easy to measure.
While most sponsors saw a sharp increase in social media engagement during the Games, the increase in brand popularity was only marginal. "I had expected more positive activity around the brands as they were constantly visible through the sponsorship of the content. However, they have benefited less in the short term than we thought," said Jonathan Lyon, Head of Strategic Insights at Wunderman UK. The reason for this is certainly the already very high brand awareness of the sponsors, according to Wunderman in a press release on the study. Only Visa's brand popularity rose sharply by 4.2 percent, which is of course also due to Visa's cooperation with Olympic superstar Usain Bolt. The other brands only rose by an average of 0.6 percent.
To measure brand popularity, Wunderman focused on comments, posts, tweets, blog posts and forums on branded social media channels.
Social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, has increased significantly for most brands. This is a very important point, Wundermann continues. This is because the viral effects enable a significant increase in reach. Coca-Cola has had the greatest success in the area of social media engagement. The number of fans increased by 4.54 percent, or 2 million users, during the games. In comparison, growth in the four weeks before the games was only 2.3 percent. Social media engagement even increased by 200% during this period.
Taking all the brand metrics from the study together, Coca-Cola, P&G and Visa were the most successful sponsors of the London Olympics. Over the next 6-12 months, Wunderman expects to see even more precise results on the impact of sponsorship on social media.
