Worldwide Measurement Update

The Far East

From Asia Market Intelligence:

• Kick-off for the 2002 FIFA World Cup is only a matter of months away, yet apart from Coca-Cola and Adidas, fans in five Asian markets still draw a blank in identifying the other official sponsors of the event. A survey conducted by Asia Market Intelligence (AMI) in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan last month shows spotty awareness, even ignorance, of a number of sponsors. more...
  
  
• Investment in sports sponsorship continues to rise as marketers realize that events, teams and athletes are now recognised global brands in their own right, commanding a loyalty companies would gladly pay to be associated with. AMI findings show that in most markets surveyed, roughly 10 percent of respondents who vow to watch the matches on TV are female. For detailed breakdowns in each market and which teams are favoured to win, click here.
  
  
• Despite grumblings over rights fees that continue to skyrocket, the growing audacity of ambush marketers and the dangers of commercial overkill, sponsors are still convinced that the return on their sizeable investment is significant enough to be a mainstay in their marketing programmes. Case in point: Korea's Samsung Electronics. The official world partner of the 2000 Sydney Olympics reportedly enjoyed an advertising effect worth over US$100 million after offering US$40 million in subsidies to the organizing committee.

Latin America

• Chaos in Latin American countries? Why not step back to point zero and give Measurement a chance?
  From Gabriela Carrau Morixe, Latin American Correspondent
  
  Way back, around 6 years ago when we launched The Delahaye Group in Latin America, I undertook some market research in order to see what the awareness of PR benchmarking was among communications agencies in Latin America. To my surprise, I was faced with PR professionals looking at me as if I were ET; PR was only media relations and launching events. Benchmarking was a word scarcely heard, and any measurement was done via surveys or focus groups.
  
  Not too long ago, globalization made many Latin American countries advance into new technologies, and we thought we were in the fast lane, going at a similar pace to that of developed countries. The years that followed showed the opposite: Argentina's present situation, Brazil's devaluation in 1999, and Mexico's Tequila effect before that have forced the three main markets of the region to rethink situations, influencing all their neighbors.
  
  Part of the problem was that we were not incorporating new methodologies. And there was no way I could make people understand the importance of a new discipline which was connected to management and which implied measurement of the return on investment of whatever activity your organization was doing.
  
  The case of Argentina. It only takes a look at Argentina to see that somewhere, sometime, things began to be done incorrectly. All we hear from this country is chaos, claims, instability. Huge companies, multinational and national, have made redundant most of their personnel, and many are closing. What happened to all of these companies? Were they ever aware of their objectives, and how to achieve them? Did they include any measurement program which allowed them to compare and benchmark against competitors? Were they even worried about their competitors?
  
  A constructive approach. If we are to learn from this sudden shake-up in our regional market, we should be open enough to see where we went wrong and to see that there are tools which can help us keep up with a favorable perception of our corporate image.
  
  Corporate image not only has to do with what a company says, but also with what it is. This is why it implies a challenge: companies need to be consistent in order to be credible and have a coherent image with their essence, their identity. When a chaotic situation is triggered, like the mentioned case, instead of blaming it on others, I suggest we take an inward look and visualize the organizational consistency through the mandala concept.
  
  Mandala is a Sanskrit word from India and means "circle". Traditional mandalas usually represent highly complex images which include letters and drawings. Similarly speaking, companies are very complex. This complexity must be deeply understood before starting to plan a company's image. An organization needs to make an effort to seek to understand the totality of what it is, so that it can portray the image it wants audiences to perceive. In a mandala, all parts interact, as they should in any organization. And when this is clear, then all other aspects of the Communication Process can flow from there.
  
  Keep in touch!!! —G.C.

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