Current developments & future directions in sponsorship

Throughout its relatively brief history commercial sponsorship has changed in many fundamental ways. Most evident has been its development from small-scale activity to major global industry. In recent years the opportunities for sponsorship investment have expanded beyond the traditional options of sport and arts. New industries and companies continue to adopt sponsorship as a method of marketing communications. One of the most notable developments has been a change in corporate attitudes to managing sponsorship. Hitherto treated as ‘something different’, many sponsors today have in place sophisticated planning, selection and evaluation procedures for their sponsorship programmes. This desire for improved management has had a knock-on effect on a growing support industry, in particular on research companies as well as sponsorship consultants and advertising agencies.As an industry, sponsorship has settled down from the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast to the dynamic and turbulent environment of that era, today sponsorship is an increasingly regulated and self-conscious industry. Its very success may herald some potentially negative omens as the increasing proliferation of sponsorship leads to a cluttered sponsorship environment, encouraging perhaps some degree of consumer cynicism. The performance of sponsorship vis-à-vis other methods of communication in recessionary times, is testimony to the regard in which sponsorship is now held as a legitimate mode of communication.