We’ve listed below the common terms and definitions that ASN uses within our dataset:

Labels

• Category – the recognised industry category for the Sponsor. Sub-category gives you break-down options within the selected Category
• Holding Company – the recognised owner of the Sponsor brand. In many cases, the Holding Company is the same as the brand
• Platform – the type of the event. And Sub-platform gives you break-down options for the selected Platform
• Property – the name of the event, team, celebrity, television show etc

Status – an indication of the contract status of each deal:

• New – a first time deal. Sometimes you will see this ‘- – – – – – -‘ which means ASN has seen the deal for the first time but we suspect it might not be a first-time deal
• Lifetime – used in rare occasions where the sponsor is indelibly linked to the platform and/or probably has been for a long time e.g. Bridgestone Museum of Art in Japan
• Renewal – a renewed deal
• Reduction – the sponsor has reduced in status in the hierarchy
• Ongoing – the middle year(s) of a multi-year deal
• Settlement – a deal is cancelled prematurely
• Withdrawal – a deal that has terminated

Type – an indication of the sponsor’s position in a family of sponsors for any given platform. This is not rigourous, but offers a relative scale of how sponsors rank versus each other:

• Title – the topmost sponsor position and only used when the sponsor appears in the Platform’s name – e.g. Barclays Premier League
• Presenting – a slightly lower position, used for the most high-ranking sponsor that isn’t in the name. The status is often telegraphed by the tagline ‘PLATFORM presented by ABC’
• Endorsement – used for a Celebrity sponsorship
• Foundation – used as the default status for government sponsorship or for very long-term sponsors (often paired with the ‘Lifetime’ Status)
• Licence –  sponsorships where the brand only receives basic IP rights, e.g. image rights for on-pack branding etc.
• Product Placement – a deal where we have seen product placement rights (in content), but no other rights
• Official, Supplier – lower sponsor positions
• Media – a media partner, often barter value

Platform definitions

• Branded Content: TV – any non-sport content sponsorship on traditional television. The sponsorship of sporting content is categorised under the sport itself
• Branded Content: Online Content – any non-sport content sponsorship in the digital domain. Again, sponsorship of ‘digital’ sporting content is categorised under the sport itself
• Branded Content: Movies – a movie sponsorship (i.e. when the movie is in the cinemas and the brand is inside the movie). Often accompanied by a ‘Product Placement’ type
• Branded Content: TV/ Movies – when the movie has moved onto traditional TV and the brand appears around the movie
• Celebrities – Sporting celebrity endorsements are listed under their recognised sport (Platform). Any other celebrity endorsement is listed under ‘Celebrity (Non-sport)’. Eg Sachin Tendulkar will be found under the Platform ‘Cricket’, but Jackie Chan will be under Celebrity (Non-sport)
• Athletics & Olympics – Any athletics platform under the IOC or a local Olympic Committee’s authority is classified as Olympics; all other platforms are classified as Athletics

Please also see our other post “The ASN definition of Content” for more on this topic

Geography
ASN only lists deals that take place in Asian markets excluding Central Asia, Middle East and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands)

When you see a platform that is in the “Pan-Asia” territory, that means that it touches down in multiple markets not a singular Asian market. Sponsorship of a television show on a regional beam on a cable network would be a good example. Pan-Asia is not broken down further so the cluster could be SE Asia, North Asia, South Asia… or simply 2 geographically distant markets

Genres
In ASN reports, we often plot the flow of money into 5 more macro ‘genres’ of Sponsorship. These break down the sponsorship activity into 5 different types of execution so we can see investment trends in more breadth:

• Celebrities & Teams, e.g. Jackie Chan, Sam Tsui, Chinese National Table Tennis Team, Cristiano Ronaldo (Asia-only endorsements)
• Events – short-term event-led platforms (usually under 2 weeks), e.g. the SEA Games (10 days), a Formula 1 Grand Prix (4 days), a music concert (1 day)
• Content – content-led sponsorship, across any screen. See above for examples
• Venue – venue-based sponsorship, e.g. Singapore Sports Hub, Bridgestone Art Museum
• Annual Properties – longer-term platforms that last for a ‘season’ and which are not any of the above, e.g. National Olympic Committees, football leagues, orchestras