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Rolex and Kia shine,
In the Open's sponsor race,
Data tells the tale.
Rolex, Kia dominate Australian Open 2024 sponsorship visibility: Meltwater report
The Australian Open 2024 has seen a significant increase in mentions, up from 1.99 million in 2023 to 2.53 million this year, according to an analysis by Meltwater, a global leader in social and media intelligence and data analytics. The analysis was conducted over the finals weekend using Meltwater's AI-powered visual listening and company search capabilities.
Rolex emerged as the most recognised visual logo with a 43.9% Share of Voice (SOV) in terms of Australian Open 2024 coverage. Meanwhile, Kia maintained the highest SOV (58.7%) and mentions (21.5K) since 1 January 2024.
The analysis also revealed that the coverage of Women's Australian Open 2024 winner Aryna Sabalenka's Nike sponsorship grew by 119% between the Women's semi-finals, from 168 posts on 25 January to 368 posts during the Women's finals on 27 January. On the other hand, Men's Australian Open 2024 winner Jannik Sinner's Nike sponsorship coverage grew by just 2% between the Men's semi-finals, from 1.37k on 26 January to 1.41k in the Men's finals (28 January). Sinner's mentions spiked over the weekend and grew by 842%, receiving a total of 402K mentions.
Nike's sponsorship of both the Men's and Women's finals also drove a spike in posts via logo recognition. The Women's Nike Sponsored Finalists (Sabalenka and Zheng) drove 91.6k posts throughout the tournament (14 - 27 January), whereas the Men's Sponsored Finalist (Sinner) drove 1.02m posts throughout (14 - 28 January).
Men's Runner Up Daniil Medvedev's Lacoste sponsorship coverage also grew between the Men's semi-finals from 322 posts (26 January) to 372 posts by the Men's finals (28 January). New Balance, a new sponsor, saw a spike in coverage with 307 posts on 23 January due to Coco Gauff's quarter-final win against Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk.
Ross Candido, VP ANZ and SEA at Meltwater, emphasised the importance of brands equipping themselves with the tools to measure attribution. "The Australian Open stands as one of Australia's premier events, captivating both local and global audiences. For this reason, sponsors must equip themselves with the tools to measure attribution, enabling them to not only justify their brand investments, but also gain valuable real-time insights to identify new opportunities to drive further impact. While traditional media attribution in Australia is still a mainstay and critically important, it is paramount for brands to extend their real-time insights beyond 'words' and deploy new AI-powered visual listening capabilities that allow them to search and analyse images and videos, identify specific logos, products, celebrities, memes, emotions, age groups, and more. Failing to integrate image recognition into their social media tracking, means missing out on potentially as much as 90% of their coverage in today's creator-driven economy. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words."