Media&Marketing Emmet OliverA noticeable trend around the world is the shift away from traditional advertising towards sponsorship, often of major sporting events. But just how effective is the spending?

Ahead of the Ryder Cup in September, companies are pouring millions of euro into sporting sponsorship, but a new report from Amárach Consulting questions whether certain sponsorship are meeting expectations.

Amárach asked 1,000 adults to name companies associated with rugby and golf. When it came to rugby, 30 per cent of adults, which would translate as translate as 900,000 people, were able to name Heineken. This compared with just 9 per cent for Guinness and 7 per cent for Permanent TSB.

Clearly, the Munster/Heineken Cup phenomenon had something to do with the high recall results achieved by Heineken, but considering Permanent TSB sponsored the Irish rugby team, its brand recognition has to be considered disappointing.

The company recently informed the IRFU that it was ending its sponsorship of the Ireland team.

O2 is now sponsoring the national team, but it's too early to see any strong indications of its linkage with the rugby team.

Rugby, the survey findings reveal, remains very much in third position as a sport, with almost 40 per cent of respondents not able to recall any rugby sponsor. Recall among the public of Bank of Scotland's sponsorship of Leinster was relatively low, but that is probably the fault of the team, which bowed out in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup.

Toyota, which sponsors the Munster team, has benefited from the team's success, but Bank of Ireland, which used to sponsor the team, must now regret ending its association.

The problem with the Ryder Cup is arguably one of clutter, with so many companies listed as sponsors, including AIB, Failte Ireland, Waterford Crystal, 02 and Bord Bia.

AIB because of its "epic" advertising campaign is recognised as a Ryder Cup sponsor by 9 per cent of adults. O2 struggled to make a breakthrough with just 2 per cent, but Ballygowan was even worse with just 1 per cent recognition. Most astonishing was that 4 per cent of respondents named Nissan as a Ryder Cup sponsor, even though the company sponsors the Irish Open, not the Ryder Cup.

Once again, the overall recall was pretty low, with 58 per cent having no knowledge of any Ryder Cup sponsors.

Those in the ABC1 socio-economic category, who are likely to play more golf than other groups, had the biggest problems recalling which brands were involved.

The "enduring value" of sporting sponsorship cannot be underestimated however, Amárach argues.

For example, 5 per cent of adults still associate Murphys with the Irish Open, even though the company has not sponsored the event for four years

'Metro' readership

Metro, the Dublin freesheet, has lodged a complaint with the Competition Authority over its exclusion from the newspaper readership figures.

The paper claims its exclusion from the Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) is anti-competitive and discriminatory. It claims that in previous instances in France and Italy, the Metro ultimately had to be admitted to the readership system.

If Metro, which has a distribution of 55,211, gains access to the readership, it will probably be followed by Herald AM, owned by Independent News & Media.

Metro is published by a company called Fortunegreen Ltd.

Associated Newspapers and Irish Times Ltd both have a 45 per cent stake in this firm. Swedish newspaper group Metro International has the remainder of the shares.

Nielsen's Sky error

As companies like Sky and Channel 6 consider setting up their own television audience research system, the operator of the current system, AGB Nielsen, has had to admit to a significant technical problem in relation to Sky One.

In a note sent to advertising agencies in the last week, the company admitted data for Sky One needed to be treated with "great caution". This is because technology which identifies the channel was not present during the period between April 14th and June 1st.

Sky told The Irish Times that the company was very dissatisfied with the news.

But the real import of the incident is that it is likely to accelerate the setting up of a new system.

Sky and Channel 6 claim the current system favours RTÉ and TV3 and Sky representatives are not allowed on the executive committee.

RTÉ's figures soar

Meanwhile RTÉ itself will be cheered by the latest audience figures which put its combined (RTÉ 1 and RTÉ 2) share of viewing coming to 40 per cent. This is the highest level in five years.

TV3 lost lost some ground to RTÉ 2, with much of this likely to be caused by the ratings achieved by the World Cup on that station.

Emmet Oliver can be contacted at eoliver@irish-times.ie