Mobile Survey - Wimbledon Brand Recall
We wanted to gain some insight into the level of brand recall amongst viewers of a major televised sporting event in the UK using our Opinium Mobile Phone research technology. We chose the Wimbledon Men’s Semi Final match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal due to the huge levels of public interest surrounding the showdown and for its near perfect settings for our research experiment. The match was screened on the BBC and therefore none of the official sponsors, or other brands involved in the tournament, were able to purchase advertisements that could be screened during the match and would certainly bias the results.
We recruited the respondents off the Opinium Mobile Phone Panel, a highly engaged community of Opinium Panellists that have opted-in to receiving research surveys via their mobile phones. The community consists of consumers aged 18+ from all walks of life and from across the UK. Only respondents that said they were going to watch the entire match were selected.
Immediately prior to the match and at the end of every set, respondents received concise ‘in-the-moment’ engagement surveys direct to their mobile phones and were able to respond by SMS or through WAP. The single question that was asked before and during the match was, ‘who the respondents thought was going to win the match?’ This demonstrated the power of ‘in-the-moment’ mobile phone surveys and how they can be used to understand exactly how consumers are feeling as they experience a live event, service or a moment of engagement with a client’s brand. It also ensured that the respondents remained engaged during the match.
At the close of the match, and a disappointing result for Andy Murray fans, we commenced the brand recall survey, yet again, in a concise format, and direct to respondents mobile phones immediately after they had experienced the event.
We asked respondents a number of unprompted brand recall questions:
1. Which, if any, celebrities do you recall seeing during the match? (Highest: Pippa Middleton – 43%)
2. Which, if any, brands do you recall seeing during the match? (Highest: Adidas – 31%)
3. Who sponsors Rafael Nadal? (Highest: Nike – 32%; Don’t Know – 63%)
4. Who sponsors Andy Murray? (Highest: Adidas – 49%; Don’t Know – 41%)
5. Who is the official banking partner of Wimbledon? (Highest: RBS – 11%; Don’t Know – 70%)
The research revealed that by and large viewers of the match had fairly low levels of brand recall when it came to the Official Wimbledon Suppliers/Sponsors.
After four exciting sets of tennis viewed on the BBC, Evian was the highest recalled official branded sponsor with only 23% of respondents recalling that they had seen this brand during the match. Robinsons and Slazenger followed both on 20%. IBM (2%) and Rolex (2%) were the only other two official brands that could be recalled by respondents. Incidentally the unofficial brands of Adidas (31%) & Nike (29%) where the two highest recalled brands recalled by respondents. The full list of official Wimbledon Suppliers is available below.
Official Wimbledon Suppliers 2011:
Slazenger - Official Ball (1902)
Robinsons - Official Still Soft Drink (1934)
Rolex - Official Timekeeper (1978)
IBM - Official Supplier of Information Technology (1990)
Hertz - Official Car (1995)
G4S - Official Security Services Provider (1998)
Lanson - Official Champagne (2001)
Ralph Lauren - Official Outfitter (2006)
HSBC - Official Banking Partner (2007)
Evian - Official Bottled Water (2008)
Jacob's Creek - Official Wine (2011)
Lavazza - Official Coffee (2011)
Sony - Official 3D Partner (2011)
You should draw your own conclusions as to whether their involvement in the tournament saw a positive return on investment as far as awareness amongst the live television audience was concerned.
Contact us at info@opinium.co.uk to learn more about this case study.
