Wealthy but demanding Ryder Cup fans require a tailored approach to sponsorship and activation
Over five and a half million adults in Britain claim to be ‘very likely’ to follow this month’s Ryder Cup, data from BMRB Sport reveals. They represent an extremely lucrative group to advertisers, being twice as likely as the average adult to have an income of £50,000 or more and almost 50% more likely to own their home outright. In addition, they are far more likely than the average to be ‘Empty Nesters’, (aged 55+, married, but do not live with son/daughter), with resulting improvements in disposable income.
Ryder Cup enthusiasts are also 31% more likely than the average adult to be in the top AB social grades, making them an even more valuable target than those very interested in golf generally (who are only 17% more likely to be AB).
Valuable but idiosyncratic
As well as being affluent, BMRB Sport data shows that passionate followers of the Ryder Cup are also almost a third more likely than the average adult to admit they buy products from companies who sponsor events and teams. This combination of wealth and propensity to be influenced by sponsorship makes them unusually interesting.
For example, Virgin Atlantic is a prominent sponsor of the European team at this year’s Ryder Cup, as it has been in previous years. Ryder Cup fans are 60% more likely than the average adult to have flown with Virgin on holiday or business in the last 12 months, suggesting that the match is good.
These enthusiasts are prepared to pay more for quality, being significantly more likely than the average adult to believe it is worth paying more for good quality wine and beer. They are much more likely to take several holidays a year, to have a coupe/convertible/sports car and to own high-value jewellery.
They are also quite a traditional group (e.g. a third more likely to agree that computers confuse them) and like to look after themselves (e.g. 40% more likely to have a periodic health check up).
The kinds of products and services that these Ryder Cup fans are likely to respond to reflect their upmarket interests. They are much more financially aware and engaged than the average adult, being nearly a third more likely to have an ISA and almost two thirds more likely to be interested in financial services advertising. As such, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s sponsoring of Sky Sports coverage of the Ryder Cup represents a good match with some of the key interests of those following the tournament.
In order to target this group as efficiently as possible, it is important for potential sponsors and advertisers to be aware of the extent to which Ryder Cup enthusiasts are likely to live in the traditional home of golf, Scotland. They are over 80% more likely to live there. Nevertheless, in terms of sheer numbers, the region where the highest number of them live is also the most populous: the South East.
The media that they are most likely to be in the top 20% of by weight of consumption are newspapers (57% more likely than the average), television (29% more likely) and internet (22% more likely). The newspaper topics they are most likely to read are business/company news, personal finance and sport, all of which they are over twice as likely as the average regular newspaper reader to be very interested in.
James Powell, BMRB
These data are taken from the latest wave of BMRB’s TGI Sport+ survey, conducted between October 2007 and March 2008. Sport+ is available to TGI subscribers or via BMRB Sport’s consultancy services. For more information, please contact:
James Smythe
Director, BMRB Sport
James.smythe@bmrb.co.uk
020 8433 4456
07881 686262
