AZ Alkmaar

Case Study

RELO METRICS POWERS AZ ALKMAAR’S DATA DRIVEN STRATEGY

The perennial Eredivisie club improved partnership exposure
through optimization and key insights.

The Client

About

AZ Alkmaar, one of the marquee clubs competing in the Eredivisie Dutch Premier League, leverages data in every aspect of its business. From evaluating fan engagement to ticket sales to player performance, quantitative evaluation is at the heart of every decision that the club makes. AZ Alkmaar embraces the importance of strategic planning and it permeates through all departments within the club. AZ Alkmaar is known to be one of the most innovative football clubs both on and off the pitch.

“Data is at the heart of everything we do as a club. Relo’s sponsorship valuation data is critical for providing value back to our partners and proving that their investments and marketing campaigns are delivering against goals and objectives.”

Steven Schmitz,
Business to Business Marketeer
The Challenge

Given its data-centric strategy, AZ Alkmaar was looking for a solution to bring more data, analytics, and performance measurement to their corporate partnerships team. As the team brought on more substantial sponsorship agreements over the past few seasons, including a new club title partnership, measurement became a top priority to prove and showcase the value of their property.

Most importantly, AZ was looking for a data solution that could be easily shared and integrated across all aspects of the organization, including the partnership sales, partnership management, marketing, and data analytics departments.

The Solution

AZ Alkmaar teamed up with Relo Metrics in 2022 to execute a media valuation strategy for its entire sponsorship activation footprint across broadcast and social media. Relo’s sponsorship intelligence platform helps teams and leagues aggregate the necessary insights to sell, retain and expand partnership revenue.

AZ trusts Relo to analyze sponsor exposures in an organized and digestible manner that aligns with its data-centric strategy.

The Outcome

Over the past eight months, Relo has successfully ingested, analyzed, and evaluated AZ Alkmaar’s sponsorship data for the Eredivisie season. Through this partnership, AZ is now able to provide key performance metrics back to their sponsors in near real-time. More importantly, AZ is carrying out its data-driven strategic vision to make more impactful business decisions across the entire club.

Original Van Muijen Highboard vs. Updated Van Muijen Highboard - the original creative was challenging to identify and lagged behind other tv-visible highboard sponsors - some sponsors had triple to quadruple the value.

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Critical Insights

During the first year of the partnership, Relo has unlocked
critical insights for the AZ Alkmaar team:

  • 125% ROI

    Relo has helped Alkmaar prove a 125% return
    on investment (ROI) rate for the season thus far.

Partnership Tracking and Return on Investment (ROI):

Relo helps AZ Alkmaar successfully measure the performance of TV-visible signage across broadcast and social media. More specifically, AZ leverages Relo’s Pacing Tool to compare and contrast the performance of sponsors against all assets. By using this tool, AZ is able to prove its ability to deliver value against contractual elements such as impressions, engagements and media value for its entire partner portfolio. To date, AZ Alkmaar hit 125% of their partnership ROI goals thanks to the visibility and live key results tracking they set up in Pacing.

  • 25% INCREASE

    Exposures have increased by 25% on a per
    game basis and media value has risen considerably

Optimization:

AZ uses Relo’s competitive insights to identify partners that are over and underperforming. For example, Relo helped AZ identify a sponsor that was delivering 60% less exposure on a prominent, static fieldside sign compared to other partners that activate on similar signage. After learning about this underperformance, AZ collaborated with the partner to update its creative - since making this adjustment, exposures have increased by 25% on a per game basis and media value has risen considerably. AZ didn’t have to wait until the end of the season for a partnership recap and was able to make the adjustment with the partner midseason by using Relo’s insights.

AZ was able to compare and contrast content that is currently unbranded to monitor performance and identify areas of opportunity.

Performance

Social Campaign

AZ evaluates the performance of all ongoing social media campaigns to ensure that partners were integrated in the best way possible throughout the season. Additionally, AZ was able to compare and contrast content that is currently unbranded to monitor performance and identify areas of opportunity. These insights were critical to prove that partners were maximizing their performance across all social platforms.

With these key takeaways, AZ Alkmaar is incorporating more granularity and detail in partnership recaps and successfully proving the value of its property.

About Relo

Relo Metrics is an AI-powered sponsorship intelligence platform that allows rights holders, properties, and brands to understand, measure, and maximize their sponsorship investments. Relo tracks sponsor exposures across live broadcasts, social media, and OTT streaming platforms and leverages an allin- one platform with a single methodology in near real-time. Over 200+ global stakeholders in the sports marketing and sponsorship industry trust Relo’s data to power their partnership performance.