ABSTRACT
What is sponsorship? Sponsorship has become a critical element in the integrated marketing communication mix (discussed in Chapter 7) of many private and public sector organizations. Among the different types of marketing communication (for example, public relations, advertising, personal selling, sales promotions and direct marketing), sponsorship is said to be one of the most powerful mediums now used to communicate and form relationships with stakeholders and markets (Grey and Skildum-Reid, 2003). Globally, expenditure on event sponsorship is escalating each year – from £18.1 billion in 2001 to an estimated £29.1 billion in 2005 according to research by consultants SponsorClick (Day, 2002). Drawing on data from Mintel and IPSOS UK/Sportscan, overall sponsorship spending in the UK each year is estimated to be around £816.3 million, made up of sport (£412.5 million), arts and business (estimated £129.8 million), broadcasting (estimated £205 million) and community (£69 million) (Sponsorshiponline.co.uk, 2005). Importantly, most spending estimates only take into account the sponsorship purchase itself, but it is generally accepted that many sponsors will spend at least equal to the cost of the event property itself on leveraging or maximizing investment impacts (Meenaghan, 2001a).
