10 September 2009, Stockholm, Sverige
Catella Swedish Open 2009 - a confirmed public success
A public opinion poll by the market research company Sponsor Insight confirms that the Catella Swedish Open event and tennis tournament is more popular than ever. This year Catella adopted an even higher public awareness profile for its brand than in 2008. Catella is the event's most popular sponsor along with Dagens Industri (the Swedish financial daily).
The tele-poll was conducted in mid-July in conjunction with this year's tournament. The number of respondents was 450 and the response rate was 72 per cent.
Robin Söderling enhanced the experience
The average value of the overall impact of the event increased in 2009 to 4.5 on a scale of 5 (compared with 4.3 in 2008 and 2007). One distinct feature was that visitors were more satisfied with the event and its organisation than in the past. The excitement and atmosphere were considerably heightened - an obvious effect of the participation of Robin Söderling, the Swedish tennis ace. Also, spectators were happier with the quality of the tennis than in 2008. The overall atmosphere was a success, marking a definite improvement on last year.
Loyal tennis enthusiasts
Gender-wise, spectators at the tournament were 61 per cent men and 39 per cent women, with an age range of 15 to 75. Some 50 per cent were over 46 years of age, but the age spread was rather well balanced although slightly in favour of those older than 36. The general profile of visitors to the event in Båstad, in southern Sweden, was that they were well-educated tennis enthusiasts, with a relatively large share of high-income earners.
Visitors attended primarily for the tennis, as opposed to other activities such as partying and entertainment. This was particularly evident this year compared with the data for 2008.
Spectators are loyal. In response to the question "Have you visited the Catella Swedish Open before?", eight out of ten answered positively, with five out of ten adding that they had attended six or more times. The event is a highly successful one and the statistics confirm that visitors readily return.
The southern provinces of Skåne and Halland provide 50 per cent of visitors, with the remainder coming from Stockholm and the West Coast.
Catella top-of-mind among visitors - Dagens Industri the most popular sponsor
In terms of public awareness, Catella - as in the past - was by far the number one sponsor in the mind of visitors- based on a gauge of spontaneous top-of-mind awareness. In 2007, the response was 40 per cent but in 2009 this had risen to 45 per cent. Also, one interesting feature was the higher differential vis-à-vis the sponsor that was ranked second in public awareness. In 2007 the differential was 19 percentage points, while in 2009 this had grown to a full 37 percentage points.
Catella is best known among the event's public for being the title sponsor and for the tournament name. One challenge for Catella is to highlight the company's offering. Generally speaking, the public is positive to the sponsors represented. This positive attitude increased sharply compared with previous years (2007 and 2008).
In response to the question as to whether visitors would miss a sponsor should it decide to end its participation, a majority said that they would miss Dagens Industri (DI), thus confirming that DI is the most popular sponsor.
Public opinion indicates that Catella, Dagens Industri and Tropicana are ideally suited as event sponsors.
In response to an open question to visitors as regards Catella's operations, 60 per cent said they did not know, 16 per cent suggested investment/corporate development, 13 per cent said the company was active in property, 21 per cent answered that Catella was involved in asset management, while 6 per cent responded that Catella was active in fund management. The same respondent may have presented several answers.
Those attending the Catella Swedish Open in previous years generally had a clearer image of Catella's operations. Respondents felt that the watchwords "commitment, expertise and experience" were very appropriate in describing the key concept associated with Catella.