ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608160015
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DENVER
SOURCE: SANDY SHORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
While most Olympic Games spectators were counting medals, Dean Bonham was measuring Olympic gold by the blink of an eye.
Working for Reebok, Bonham deals in impressions - how a television viewer reacts to its logo on a gymnast's leotard or how a tourist reacts to a glimpse of Reebok shoes on an Olympic volunteer.
``We are charged with measuring the value of the exposure,'' said Bonham, president of The Bonham Group. ``Unusual is an understatement.''
The Bonham Group's research is part of an overall effort to measure what Reebok gained from its estimated $60 million Olympic investment in ads and sponsorship fees, said Reebok spokesman Dave Fogelson.
``We, ourselves, already have a real good feel for how good a job we've done up to this point,'' Fogelson said. ``What they can tell us is areas where we need to fine-tune.''
The project attests to corporate America's growing interest in determining whether it is getting its money's worth in a sporting event sponsorship.
North American companies are expected to spend $3.5 billion in sports sponsorships this year, up from $3.05 billion in 1995 and $2.4 billion in 1993, according to IEG Inc., a corporate sponsorship research company.
Sponsors will spend an estimated $290 million on Olympic teams and competition in 1996, up from $225 million in 1994, the company said.
The top five sports for sponsorships are motorsports, golf, professional sports leagues and teams, Olympic teams and competitions and tennis, IEG said.
Reebok chose the Olympics to introduce a campaign that emphasizes its logo, as opposed to the brand name, and the retailer looked to The Bonham Group to gauge if the general public was taking note.
Based in Denver, The Bonham Group has specialized for a decade in analyzing sponsorships, sales and contract negotiations for sports and entertainment companies. It is privately held, and Bonham declined to release financial data, including the amount of the Reebok contract.
Each year, Bonham staffers interview executives of sports marketing firms, corporations, advertising firms and industry publications to develop an idea of what sports and entertainment companies are paying for sponsorships and how that can be translated into a value for exposure.
``You start with something that is really an unknown and you end up with something that, while it is not a science, it is the closest thing possible to understanding what your value is versus what you paid,'' he said.
For Reebok, Bonham's market research is part science, part survey and part guesswork, with the ultimate goal of calculating quantity and quality for each area studied, Bonham said.
The company is conducting both on-site and broadcast evaluations during the Olympics, covering everything from Reebok ads on buses and merchandise in stores in Atlanta to Reebok's exposure on television.
``What we're going to have to try to determine is what is the value of an impression from a logo on footwear versus apparel, versus a billboard and all the other categories,'' he said. ``You see, the challenge in it is sort of interesting.''
His employees watched the estimated 170 hours of the televised broadcast of the Atlanta games, counting the number of times the complete Reebok logo appears and the number of times Reebok is mentioned.
They also are analyzing the presence of the 3,000 athletes wearing Reebok merchandise and the quality of the company's 30-second ads.
They calculate a dollar value based on the length of time a logo is on the screen, and if it is clear and in focus, Bonham said. They also consider the ratings.
A two-second exposure is worth less than a 30-second spot, he said. If the exposure is blocked or fuzzy, it is worth less. If Shaquille O'Neal is wearing apparel with the logo, it is valued higher than a relatively unknown athlete.
In Atlanta, two Bonham employees and a Reebok employee scouted for the 40,000 volunteers in the Olympic Village and the city to determine where they are concentrated, during what time frame and the size of the crowd around them.
They do some observations and some interviews to determine how often a visitor may have noticed the shoes and whether that visitor took note of the brand, Bonham said. The interviews do not address consumer opinion.
``What we have to determine is whether or not those shoes being worn actually create impressions at all,'' Bonham said. ``If you are a participant or visitor, do you, in fact, consciously know those volunteers are wearing Reebok footwear?
Bonham's company also researched routes traveled by buses carrying Reebok ads and Reebok billboards, looking at traffic patterns to help define how many people noticed them.
Reebok isn't the first to use Bonham's services. Federal Express, IBM and EDS have also hired them to track their name recognition.
``I think the most important part of it, though, is it gives the sponsor a realistic value of what they are receiving for their investment,'' said Nancy Altenburg, manager of sports and event marketing for Federal Express, which hired Bonham to evaluate its sponsorship of the Orange Bowl and the St. Jude golf tournament.
Altenburg declined to say what the results of the Bonham research were or what Federal Express paid Bonham.
``The numbers that we received back, in conjunction with the other measures that we have in place, more than justify the expenses,'' she said.
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