Client Stories

Luscid's technology saves time and increases accuracy of sponsorship evaluation

Accor, a world-renowned hospitality leader, sought a precise, efficient, and transparent sponsorship decision-making process – with the aim of guiding a new 5-year partnership strategy. They were the ideal brand partner to prove the concept of how a technology capability could help solve an industry-wide challenge.

Globally, Accor is one of the most active players within the hospitality and accommodation sector with Luscid data indicating a 9 figure annual rights spend. This includes multiple regional and local partnerships.

Their portfolio encompasses 12 large scale global properties – including the likes of venue and stadium naming rights, Roland Garros, SailGP, Paris-St-Germain, NZ Cricket and the Olympic Games.

At the start of 2023, Accor recognised a need to evaluate several renewals and new opportunities with a level of accuracy and accountability that their investment justified. As with similar sized organisations – time, resource and budget were all considerations in getting this completed.

In mid 2022 – Luscid conducted an internal research project – to understand the factors at play when brands and agencies worked together on a human-lead consultancy project. 

The results showed an average duration to thoroughly evaluate one renewal option for a property was in the region of 3 weeks – which came at an average cost for a brand of £25,000 – £30,000.

With the scope of evaluation required for Accor, a timescale of 3-4 months would have been expected – requiring a significant level of both internal and external resources. This would equate to a ‘people time’ value of well into 6 figures and represents a sum of money that could otherwise be re-invested into sponsorship rights and activation – thus maximising the chances of a positive return for the brand.

The Value Xchange employed Luscid's technology and rich dataset to fuel more accountable guidance for their client portfolios to optimise their strategic service offerings to their clients

Following a successful trial period, which began at the start of Luscid’s journey, The Value Xchange provided vital feedback and considerations at an early stage, which played an active role in the development direction of the technology. The trial enabled the team to fully evaluate the benefits of integrating the platform into their day-to-day strategic client offering, and lead to a longer-term partnership between the two businesses. As a result, The Value Xchange can now swiftly access precise consumer data and provide accountable recommendations within minutes, significantly speeding up the decision-making process for their clients.

Partnerships is an industry that has fallen behind on utilising data to help drive its decision-making. We chose Luscid’s platform to help us do the due diligence on behalf of rights-owners and brands, and the whole process has been incredibly thorough. Luscid’s comprehensive analysis and access to data is unique to the market and has helped us to navigate a clear pathway forward in our clients strategy.
David Peters
Founder of The Value Xchange

Accor Hotel group, which franchises hotels and resorts and is the sixth largest hospitalist company worldwide, has benefitted from the strength of this partnership. The Value Xchange’s experience in the sector, combined with Luscid’s technology, provided objective, transparent and accountable evaluation around Accor’s incumbent portfolio, as well as the various potential new opportunities on offer. The efficiency of the technology has allowed for simultaneous evaluation across 12 markets, 25 different consumer sectors, and more than 25 specific properties. According to David Peters said, “partnering with Luscid has provided an accurate and in-depth review of Accor’s whole global strategy, offering a clearer understanding of where the commercial opportunities lie – the whole process has been very thorough”.

The work with Accor is just the beginning. With The Value Xchange combining their significant industry experience with a sector leading technology solution, they’ll be able to provide more brands with a pathway to a sponsorship solution of best fit.

Since integrating Luscid into their strategic service offering, Bright Partnerships have built time efficiency into research whilst being able to provide clients with multiple data sources in one integrated solution; providing a holistic view of the Rights Holder ecosystem.

Bright Partnerships have built a reputation as an industry leading sports and entertainment agency – with pillars of expertise across strategic, communications and experiential services. Their work has been recognised with multiple award wins over recent years, with the business recognising the need for constant innovation in order to future-proof their client offering.


Luscid entered into a collaboration with Bright Partnerships in September 2023, aiming to enhance the value delivered to their clients by providing in-depth and multifaceted data to support sponsorship strategic decision-making. 


Rob Bruce, founder of Bright Partnerships, outlined a number of industry challenges in a recent conversation with Luscid.

“Subjectivity and human bias has been in the field of sponsorship forever - playing a significant role in brand decision making, which subsequently has an impact on the effectiveness of their spend. It’s time to make a change for the better”
Rob Bruce
Founder of Bright Partnerships

Using Luscid’s platform to complement their internal expertise, Bright Partnerships have recognised the time efficiency that the Luscid platform offers, whilst simultaneously being able to provide multiple datasources in one stream, offering a unique holistic viewpoint. This places them in a favourable position to advise their clients on beneficial sponsorship decisions that are objective and accountable to their marketing needs.

 

For example, with Luscid’s technology, Bright can simultaneously examine the US and European markets with different datasets – allowing the respective nuances of each region to be isolated and analysed. The unprecedented capability of the data platform allows for a comprehensive global perspective, enabling them to access a multitude of reports and explore various regions, whilst tailoring their analysis with bespoke marketing parameters . 

 

Additionally, the platform provides a clear understanding of multiple budget ranges based on analysis of 500,000 past and live partnership deals. When combined with their decades of strategic and commercial experience across the team, the end result is an exceptionally efficient and optimised strategic offering for the agency’s client base.

“The platform's capability to generate multiple reports simultaneously provides a turnkey solution that leads to much more strategic thinking. We can assess numerous new opportunities that arise, in conjunction with an incumbent partnership portfolio. Effectively it helps to fuel a commercial decision-making process that is more nimble than the industry has traditionally been accustomed to”.
Adam Barker
Commercial Director at Bright Partnerships

What makes Luscid’s data platform particularly intriguing is that, as you delve into the list of potential partnership destinations, you often discover options that may not have been considered through manual research. Explaining the nuances of the data to clients and discussing these unexpected choices that emerge in the report adds an interesting dimension to the analysis. Adam states that “a blend of the expected and unexpected helps to reassure clients that no stone has been left unturned in our analysis”.


Looking ahead to the potential future of the Luscid platform, the incorporation of additional cultural sponsorship data is under consideration – and this would strongly align with Bright Partnerships’ desire to offer guidance across the breadth of the sports, entertainment and cultural landscape. This expansion could help the agency secure new clients within new sectors, unlocking fresh sponsorship opportunities and subsequent business growth.

2024 will be an exciting year for the agency and their clients!