Kore Software’s 20 brands on the rise in 2022

The sponsorship landscape continues to evolve, which makes it more critical than ever for brands to develop a strong strategy that engages and appeals to fans, while being able to justify their marketing spend.

While fans are used to the biggest brands showing up to sponsor the biggest sports properties, there are a number of smaller or younger brands that are experiencing significant earned social value growth. This article will explore the top 20 brands that are making a name for themselves in the sports world. It is a must-read for smaller brands looking to get involved and large brands trying to stay ahead of the curve.

Below, you will find our list of 20 brands ranked by their ad adjusted value (AAV) growth, or percentage increase in AAV seen from 2021 to 2022. With each brand, you’ll find key metrics and highlights that contributed to impressive growth across social media sponsorship value.

We saw incredible growth for brands ‘on the rise’ in 2022. With the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology explosion, the past year’s gains set records that challenge older, proven big players in the sponsorship space. Yet with the influx of major market crashes and global inflation, the market seems to have many brands in a precarious financial situation as we look towards 2023.

Globally, US$57 billion is spent on sponsorships, a figure projected to rise to US$90 billion within five years, according to McKinsey & Company. While the volume and value of deals grow, brands everywhere are looking to manage, measure, and optimize their sponsorships with more scrutiny.

Without speculating on the future of global markets, this article explores the top 20 brands that earned significant social media sponsorship value throughout 2022 but do not feature in our forthcoming Brand Benchmarking Report, the third edition of which will be released later this year.

We’ll review our method, trends, and highlights from the top campaigns, activations and sponsorship deals that boosted unprecedented gains this past year.

Methodology for choosing the brands ‘on the rise’

Using the same methodology as previous years, we selected brands ‘on the rise’ from the near end of 2021 through most of 2022. We compared the results to those from 2020 and early 2021.

Our criteria process

1. Sponsorship value (AAV) had to exceed US$1 million to prove a significant position in the world of sport. However, any brand in the top 50 by AAV wasn’t considered as mentioned above.

2. Each brand had to see an increase in AAV from 2021 to 2022 compared to 2020 and had to move up in the ranks compared to other brands. An example of moving up the ranks from a previous year means that if a brand ranked 100th by AAV in 2020, it had to rank at least 99th by AAV in 2021 or 2022.

3. To choose our finalists, we used several additional metrics, including the growth in the number of sports properties promoting the brand, the growth in the number of posts about the brand, and the change (increase) in how well the brand was promoted by the world of sports.

What was analysed

Our analysis covers posts published on social media by athletes, influencers, event promoters, teams, leagues, and venues across all major sports. The date range covers 1st September 2021 to 31st August 2022.

• Social media data includes followers, posts, engagement, and valuation data.
• Platforms: Facebook, Instagram*, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube

*Instagram data includes public Business & Creator accounts only

Trends from 2022 and what to watch for in 2023

With more than US$122 million of adjusted ad value (AAV) generated, the members of this year’s brands on the rise list increased their total AAV by 526 per cent compared to last year’s ranking. This demonstrates that there’s room for brands of all sizes and industries to score huge in the sports sponsorship game.

Growth in 2022 was mostly driven by the cryptocurrency sector, which accounts for 60 per cent of the top ten brands on this year’s list. Meanwhile, 30 percent of the top 20 was occupied by manufacturers of toys, cameras, electronics, and sports apparel and equipment.

Three crypto platforms ranked in the top five, alongside two high-growth technology services for food delivery and media streaming. Those five brands earned 14 times the average AAV growth of the previous year’s top five, which averaged 332 per cent growth.

Ranked 11th in the list, Socios.com has been showing up across multiple sports

The steep rise in sponsorship growth for the top half of this year’s top 20 is a lagging indicator of the revenue growth experienced by those sectors in 2021. While some cryptocurrency tie-ups appear stable, such as the naming rights deal for LA’s Crypto.com Arena, Coinbase’s partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA), and FTX’s sponsorship of the home of the Miami Heat, newer deals within the sector are fizzling out quickly amid the financial struggle experienced by some crypto retail platforms. Still, institutional sentiment across cryptocurrency remains high.

The high-growth mode of the technology sector has slowed down like many others, with news of cuts across the workforce and new marketing spending. The growth of the bottom half of the top 20 more aligned with the previous year’s growth, and it will be interesting to see how the technology and cryptocurrency sectors manage their current investments into 2023 and beyond.

There were no returning brands from last year’s list. That is due to either evolving out of our methodology criteria or being surpassed by the growth of this year’s leading sectors for earned media value on social.

The highlights of the 2022 brands on the rise

A key to a successful sports sponsorship is aligning on clear objectives and finding a great match to team up with on a long-term plan. The brands on this year’s list all have stories that support the relationship, either with aligned values ​​with the athlete, influencer, team or event they are partnered with in order to create a meaningful connection with the audience. When brands do this, the social media wins follow.

Here are some of the highlights from the brands on the 2022 list.

1.Binance

Total AAV: US$8.1 million
Highlights: Binance was busy inking deals with global soccer properties all year long. Announced in 2022 as the main jersey sponsor for Santos FC, which drove 23.9 per cent of its AAV, the crypto platform earned nearly one-third (31.6 per cent) of the total AAV earned by this year’s list. Much of this was thanks to an exclusive, multi-year NFT partnership with Portuguese soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo who, in collaboration with Binance, will be leading a Web 3.0 campaign and introducing new NFTs and technologies to fans.

2. Coinbase

Total AAV: US$3.6 million
Highlights: The world’s first publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange dove into the world of basketball by partnering with the NBA and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), which drove 62 per cent of all its earned value over the past year. A recent deal with the Chicago Bulls also makes them the first NBA team to offer an NFT collection on Coinbase.

3. Getir

Total AAV: US$6.9 million
Highlights: Social promotion for the high-growth grocery app, Getir, was dominated by European soccer in 2022. Tottenham Hotspur drove 48.5 per cent of their value, and 193 posts were deliberately brand related.

4. Tezos

Total AAV: US$15.7 million
highlights: By partnering with Oracle Red Bull Racing, Tezos gained a foothold in the motorsport world. Additionally, partnerships with the New York Mets and Manchester United have provided diversification across sports for the open source blockchain platform.

5. Roku

Total AAV: US$3.4 million
Highlights: Deals with the Polish Football Association (PZPN) and Poland’s top-flight Ekstraklasa were two of the streaming service’s most valuable partnerships. In addition, the company struck a one-year deal with Brazil’s Sao Paulo FC to stream matches during the 2021/22 season.

6. Stake.com

Total AAV: US$2.5 million
Highlights: Stake.com formed valuable partnerships with mixed martial arts (MMA) and cricket entities, which drove 23.17 per cent of all AAV for the cryptocurrency-fuelled sports betting platform. Stake.com is also in its first season as the main shirt sponsor of Premier League side Everton.

7.FTX

Total AAV: US$7.7 million
Highlights: Cryptocurrency exchange FTX created a highly valuable partnership with Tom Brady, who uploaded ten deliberate promotional posts, generating US$558,500 in AAV, equal to 7.2 per cent of FTX’s total value earned.

I’m gonna miss that ketchup bottle tomorrow. Ready to go to Pittsburgh! @FTX_Official #FTXPartner pic.twitter.com/293YqpNsLJ

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) October 15, 2022

8. Tesla

Total AAV: US$1.2 million
Highlights: A true symbol of digital evolution, Tesla invested in esports, earning 58.3 per cent of its value from team Faze Rug, and 5.5 per cent from esports athlete Imane. Those two entities drove 63.8 per cent of Tesla’s total value.

9. Sorare

Total AAV: US$1.1 million
Highlights: Kylian Mbappe drove 13.24 per cent of AAV for the blockchain built, fantasy gaming platform Sorare. The French soccer player ranks third highest of all entities, driving US$146,800 in value per post.

10.Disney

Total AAV: US$15 million
Highlights: Legendary sports stories promoted on social by the athletes themselves proved to be a winning combination for Disney. With their release of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s movie, Rise, the NBA star proved to be a valuable partner, driving US$487,200 in AAV across ten posts.

11. Socios.com

Total AAV: US$11.1 million
Highlights: Lionel Messi drove 9.7 per cent of all Socios.com’s earned value across social. The crypto-based fan rewards platform has created a foothold in the global soccer market, with partnerships spanning France, Spain, Italy, and more.

12. BetPlay

Total AAV: US$3 million
Highlights: At 91 per cent, nearly all of BetPlay’s earned social media value came from global soccer entities. The top five entities alone drove 62.2 per cent of all value.

13. TDK

Total AAV: US$3 million
Highlights: TDK was a banner sponsor for the World Athletics Championships and earned all of its AAV from logo value. 68 percent of this value came from the promoter of the event, the World Athletics.

14. Google

Total AAV: US$20.1 million
Highlights: Google diversified its sponsorship spending in 2022. The tech company teamed up with entities across 89 different sports. The NBA and Golden State Warriors drove 71.1 per cent of total earned value, with the NBA alone delivering US$11.7 million worth of value.

15. Old bike

Total AAV: US$1.6 million
Highlights: French engineering giant Altrad primarily focuses its sponsorship dollars on rugby, specifically with the French and New Zealand national teams, who drove the majority of the company’s social media ad value.

16.Insta360

Total AAV: US$1.8 million
Highlights: It makes sense that Insta360 thrived in the extreme sports world. Mountain bike, supermoto, street bike, road racing and motocross were their top five promoting sports, accounting for 71.2 per cent of the company’s value. Supermoto athlete Samantha Marques drove US$364,700 in AAV for the action sport camera manufacturer.

17. Legos

Total AAV: US$1.4 million
Highlights: A campaign partnership with McLaren F1 resulted in 21 deliberate posts and US$436.8k in AAV. FC Barcelona had the second most valuable post for the Lego brand, driving US$122,300 in AAV. The post promoted Lego’s new Ansu Fati model.

18. 4F

Total AAV: US$1 million
Highlights: 4F Sports made a key investment in Robert Lewandowski that resulted in US$921,200 in AAV (85.6 per cent of all 4F’s value in sports) through 23 deliberately promoted posts. The Polish-based company also partnered with the Polish Olympic Committee (PKOI) to earn US$10,200 in AAV.

19. Just Eat Takeaway

Total AAV: US$9.9 million
Highlights: The Dutch-based food ordering and delivery service became a sponsor of the Uefa Champions League. Cricket star Virat Kohli was the second highest-earning athlete for Just Eat Takeaway, delivering US$254,700 in AAV.

20. Billabong

Total AAV: US$3.7 million
Highlights: Billabong continues to thrive in the surf world, with the World Surf League (WSL) driving US$2.9 million in AAV for the niche brand.