Similar to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, IMI International’s syndicated 2010 FIFA World Cup Sponsorship Study is now available and highlights key consumer responses from eight countries around the world.  Countries include the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, UK, Ireland and Australia.

Complete perspective and context on the property, sponsoring brands, fan engagement and more is available with the following topics covered in depth:

• Sponsorship Highlights and Executive Summary
• Property Engagement and Viewership
  • Planned (March 2010 – NA Only) vs. Actual
  • Intended viewership for 2014
• How the World Cup was Consumed
  • Behaviour with various mediums
  • Behaviour when consumers couldn’t watch live
• Thoughts on the World Cup
  • Words that come to mind, favourite moments, favourite athletes
• The South Africa Effect
• Sponsorship Attitudes & Feelings
• Sponsoring Brands
  • Effect on Purchase Intent and Favourability
  • Winners and Losers of Sponsorship
    • Awareness, linkage, effect on consumers, themes that resonated
• Sponsor and Promo Tracking Case Studies

For more information on this study and its highlights, please contact Tim Bishop by phone 416-440-0310 ext 341 or 1-800-784-5757 ext 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Relative to single event visitors, repeat visitors in this actual in-market case study register incremental impact on experiential event activations regarding these key measures.  For brands looking to drive greater ROI, experiential activations should encourage attendees to come back to events.  Give attendees a compelling reason to return, possibly by including special offers, e-reminders, bring-a-friend vouchers, etc to deliver additional value and incentives.

To view the actual case study statistics, broken out by both first-time event attendees and repeat visitors, plus on brand love and purchase intent, please click on the links below for the full article.

For more information on the EMF, visit http://www.experientialforum.com/ where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.

All the evidence suggests the Leafs could comfortably co-exist with another NHL franchise in the Greater Toronto Area, arguably without a dent to the bottom line. In April, research by IMI International conducted to gauge interest in a second franchise showed there are roughly 800,000 residents who consider NHL hockey “a passion” but who haven’t been able to attend a live game in at least two years.

“There is massive demand for a second NHL team in Toronto,” said Don Mayo, global managing partner for IMI in Toronto. “If there is more supply, there will [still] definitely be great demand.”

“The Maple Leafs would be fine,” Mayo said. “The biggest impact would be on other sports teams, such as the [MLSE-owned] Raptors or the Toronto FC, or the Blue Jays [owned by Rogers Communications] because there’s only so much money in a marketplace. It would also impact cultural and other events because people don’t have unlimited funds.”

As seen in the newpaper and online on July 5 and July 8, 2010, IMI International provided local market insights for a joint Globe and Mail/TSN project to evaluate the impact of a second southern Ontario NHL franchise. 

Reporter David Naylor notes that “Hamilton and Toronto have the requisite economic prowess to support a professional sports franchise. An NHL team in Quebec City would have the professional sports market to itself, while in Winnipeg a franchise would face competition only from the opposite-season CFL.”

IMI International’s study in April 2010 across the GTA and Golden Horseshoe surrounding Toronto was conducted to determine the interest, impact and potential of a NHL team was for Hamilton, Kitchener and a second team in Toronto.

For more information, please contact IMI International.

As the headline notes, “if women hold so much buying power, why aren’t marketers doing a better job of communicating to them?  Kristin Laird outlines the key ways companies can meet the needs of female consumers”.

Of course, different consumer segments exist within the female consumer segment, so be sure you’re understanding your specific target fully prior to acting on any macro insights.

Women consumers: a snapshot

• 71% are more concerned with price than fashion or trends
• 60% enjoy sampling different brands of similar products (e.g. soft drinks) for the sake of comparison
• 47% are loyal to environmentally or socially responsible brands
• 58% actively look for products that offer coupon discounts
• 65% will encourage friends or relatives to purchase a product she likes
• 62% think store brand products are just as good as name brand products
• 39% say name brand products are a status symbol
• 58% usually purchase the lowest-priced product

IMI International provided Marketing Magazine a number of current consumer insights pertaining to female consumers, as a result of conducting three different studies earlier this year.  The studies provided these latest insights by looking at the attitudes and behaviours of Canadian women consumers 13 to 64. 

To read the full article, please visit Marketing Magazine or click on the link for IMI International’s Downloads page and find the article under the Media section.

For more information on ConsumerTrack™ Insights pertaining to Female Shoppers, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Insights from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games:
IMI International completed an extensive consumer study that highlights how sponsoring brands performed at the Games.  As is relates to experiential marketing, IMI International learnings showed that highly engaged fans who follow their sports properties closely has a direct impact on brand attitudes and purchase intent.  It’s clear that the bigger the fan, the stronger the increases in these critical ROI measures.

Shopper Marketing Insights:
Shopper marketing grows in importance for brands, agencies and retailers, and measuring its full impact is also growing in importance:  Understand the direct and peripheral impacts that experiential marketing can generate in stores.  In this case study, experientially-activated shopper marketing campaigns show that they can change purchase shopping behavior patterns over time. For marketers, agencies and retailers, it’s important to remember that effective measurement should capture the full ROI impact including featured and peripheral brands.  Be sure to get all the credit you deserve!

For more information on the EMF, visit http://www.experientialforum.com/ where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.

Tim Bishop, Business Development, North America, will be speaking about social media measurement plus providing the latest insights and experience on how to measure ROI (and as a hint, it’s not about friends, fans or retweets…).

In recent years, social media has grown from a provocative set of online community chat rooms to a legitimate marketing communication vehicle that attracts millions of diverse users from around the world.  

What is a marketer to do:  Avoid social media until it becomes more proven since this all seems too “new” and “risky”?  Or jump into it without a good understanding of how it compares to other marketing tools? 

The safe bet is to understand its measurable impact.  IMI International has been studying social media from its inception using ROI measurement models to evaluate it compared to all other marketing tactics.

Tim will highlight how to measure impact and ROI, plus share consumer insights, best practices and global case studies so that social media can be considered as an effective tool within your sponsorship activation toolkit.

For a summary of Tim’s presentation, please click to visit IMI International’s Downloads page and look under “Conferences”.

For more information on social media ROI and measurement, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Don Mayo, Managing Partner of IMI International, is again one of the leading conference speakers for the Canadian Sponsorship Forum.  Held annually, this year’s event is hosted in beautiful Whistler, BC, site of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Be the first to see research focused on actual in-market effectiveness, impact of recent brand activations, consumer-validated insights and recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Games observations. Whether you’re an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation, you will learn best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events.

Derived from a study completed during February & March 2010 by IMI International and in association with TrojanOne, the key focus of this session will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games as well as other major properties. Don will isolate case studies on ‘who impacted consumers,’ ‘who avoided consumers’ and ‘means to optimize your activation plan going forward.’ Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.  

The key focus will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics plus other major properties, such as the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards, Daytona 500, NBA All Star Game, Mardi Gras and others.

Based on the study’s consumer-validated insights plus recent at-the-Games observation, IMI International will isolate some case studies on ‘who impacted consumers’, ‘who avoided consumers’ and means to optimize your activation plan going forward. Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.

Highlights will include some of the ‘winner’ activations, featuring not only how marketing impacted behaviour, talk value and brand equity, but how winning campaigns engaged consumers. Additionally, the presentation will detail best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events, whether you are an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation.

This month’s topic is “How to Measure & Optimize Experiential Marketing” which is a three-step process:

1. Isolate the experiential impact versus other marketing campaign drivers
2. Use consistent measures, with the key categories being efficiency (reach), effectiveness (residual impact) and cost effectiveness ($ cost for the gains)
3. Compare results to an objective database in order to show relative program strength

With this consistent approach, experiential programs can be evaluated against each other and against various marketing programs. 

For experiential programs, as with all marketing campaigns, it is imperative to focus on targeted reach and conversion to actual program impact.  Further, leveraging IMI International’s best practices by dollarizing experiential impact via a ‘Cost Per Impacted Consumer’ model equalizes all campaigns so the best, fact-based marketing investment decisions can be made.

For more information on the EMF, visit www.experientialforum.com where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.

The topic, “Optimizing Your Marketing Effectiveness and ROI”, will showcase the latest in IMI International’s consumer insights completed across Canada in Q4 2009.  Specifically, Julius will highlight the influence of promotions and brand activation on retail activity, brand purchasing and brand image. 

This session will provide attendees with the facts on the impact of promotions, events, sponsorships, advertising, pricing, social media and digital now versus two years ago.  Further, this session will provide delegates with fact-based case studies for agencies, retailers, marketers, governments, services and brands on means to optimize their marketing effectiveness and ROI.  

IMI International consults and provides strategic resources across the globe and will share these insights and case studies specific to the Quebec marketplace versus the rest of Canada and rest of North America.

About Julius Diamond: 

For close to 40 years, IMI International has focused on helping its clients maximize their return on investment from marketing and communication programs. Julius has been involved in the founding of two other companies: A retail shoe repair chain that operated throughout North America and a real estate development company with assets and operations in Canada and the United States. Mr. Diamond has been involved with several charity organizations and sits on the board of advisors of several small companies. Julius has direct experience in marketing, sales, finance and operations and graduated from the Ivy School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 1966 and has an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

This Canadian consumer insights module conducted in autumn 2009 looks at a number of topics, including:

• How consumers viewed the recession during 2009
• The effect of the recession on various marketing tactics
• The changing attitudes of consumers and how these can explain the change in marketing tactic effectiveness
• Brand health with 85 brands ranked based on consumer responses
• Brand-specific examples of good and bad tactics used over the last 2 years
• Keys to your marketing success in 2010

This module provides a look into how consumers are thinking, what tactics will work the hardest for you and how brands have utilized these to their advantage.

For more information on ConsumerTrack™ Insights, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.