Social video posted by Premier League clubs last season was worth £88m in kit supplier brand value according to research by social video intelligence company Burst Insights.

‘Putting A Price On Social Video’ is the first ever in-depth practical guide to placing a commercial value on creative video assets.

The 90 page report shows the top 5% of videos (around 60 per club) posted on Instagram, Twitter and Vine were worth around £3.5m in kit supplier brand exposure value.

Using a brand value algorithm from the report, it’s estimated that social video posted by Premier League clubs during 2015/16 season was worth a total of £88m in kit supplier brand value which also included both Facebook and YouTube media platforms.

Simon Bibby, Head of Research at Burst Insight said: “Sports clubs are making social video their number one marketing priority but so far the value of that content has been left on the commercial subs bench.

“This industry-first report does more than reveal content trends that boost fan engagement and confirm how to put a sponsorship brand value on social video.

“The report provides a framework for how clubs should be reporting social video success back to their sponsor brands and learnings that both the commercial and creative teams within clubs can put into action.”

For the report a total of 956 top performing videos from selected platforms were analysed against 48 research creative criteria benchmarks.

The report’s key findings include: 

• Manchester United top the Premier League social video value table. Two clubs earned a £1m+ valuation on their 60 best performing social videos from last season, Manchester United (£1,130,625) and Chelsea (£1,086,000). Two additional clubs joined them in having an average video value above £10k, Liverpool (£16,304) and Arsenal (£16,050). Manchester City finished fifth in the value rankings, and was the only other club to have an estimated £1m+ value for their kit supplier across all of their 2015/16 social video posts.

• Kit suppliers featured in less than half of fan favorite videos. 53% of videos analysed featured no recognisable kit supplier branding. An additional 8% of videos contained kit branding from previous seasons. Interviews delivered the most ‘dominant’ sponsorship exposure (64%), while high production social adverts were the only other double digit format, representing 18% of all high brand exposure videos. This confirms that analysing creative performance is crucial to optimising commercial value.

• Social video is a squad game. An average of 23 players and management staff appeared in each club’s top 60 videos. Yannick Bolasie surprisingly made the most individual appearances (16), followed by Harry Kane (15) and clutch of stars on 13 appearances for their clubs (Aguero, Payet, Mahrez).

• Players aren’t the only likeable asset clubs have. Current squad players featured in two thirds of videos (67%). The next most popular assets were fans them self, featuring in 15% of clips. Appearances by club legends (12.5%) just pipped club managers (11.8%) as the third most popular video asset. Stadiums featured over 100 times (10.7% of videos), boosting the clubs who have sold stadium rights.

• Game footage remains the most popular content format. Short match clips made up 29.3% of all videos analysed. Providing a key assist was pre match footage (19%), while interviews ranked third with 16.1%. Training ground footage shared 7% of the spotlight, aiding clubs with separate training kit/ground sponsorship deals. 

Monetising social video challenge

While TV rights are contributing a vital role off the pitch to a club’s bottom line, the impact of social video content produced by teams is still yet to make its commercial debut.

Its value has remained unscouted to date by sports clubs and partnering brands, despite marketeers increasingly seeking exposure to the social fan bases of the English Premier League clubs, which was a community of 309m fans at the end of the 2015/16 season.

The challenge for sports clubs comes from putting a justifiable price on this potentially lucrative new content medium.

Putting A Price On Social Video report addresses both the performance and profitability issues surrounding social video, creating a framework for how football organisations and sponsorship partners can mutually gain from greater social video performance insight.

Where other video monetisation companies are aiming to replicate traditional TV brand exposure methods, Simon warned against signing up to this retrospective approach, adding: “TV viewership is declining while content engagement on social media platforms is exploding.

“As a result, the value to brands of partnering with sports clubs is shifting from infrequent TV exposure to the continuous content approach that all clubs are now adopting.

“Valuing TV brand exposure is based on passive viewership figures and it is a mistake to see social video as simply an extension of TV audiences.

“Brands are more interested in content engagement, which is why Burst Insights has developed a system that is built around valuing social engagement and turning it into a social currency for brand value.”

Burst Insights owns the world’s most comprehensive database of brandcentric short-form social video.

The company’s Discovery Platform enables users to search, rank, watch, tag and analyse over 10,000 brand accounts who have created 3 billion plus videos.

fcbusiness readers can take advantage of an exclusive 10% discount when buying the report using FCBUSINESS at the checkout. Visit the Burst Insight website now to purchase.

To speak direct to Burst Insights call Simon Bibby on O7535 236465 or email simon@burstinsights.com