Essay on Corporate Sponsorship Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

On Corporate Sponsorship - Essay Example The phenomenon of event sponsorship by corporate entities has been on the rise. As per the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) Sponsorship Report (a leading resource on sponsorship research), the amount of spending by North American corporate entities for event marketing has gone up from $850 million in 1985 to some $10.3 billion in 2003 (Independent Evaluation Consortium, 2003). There is a growing need to explore why corporate brands are willing to support event management more than ever. This text will explore the growth of sponsorship and its importance for the event industry by analysing the process and motivations along with the advantages and disadvantages of sponsorship. In itself sponsorship has evolved into a complex phenomenon over time and there are multiple possible definitions that may cause confusion. Research on the matter indicates that there are myriad definitions of sponsorship that have appeared over the last 25 years (Skinner & Rukavina, 2003). This text will utili se the definition of sponsorship provided by BDS Sponsorship Limited (which is one of Europe’s leading commercialisation and sponsorship consultancies): â€Å"Sponsorship is a business relationship between a provider of funds, resources or services and an individual, event or organisation which offers in return rights and association that may be used for commercial advantage in return for the sponsorship investment.† Sponsorship has been deeply rooted in history given that wealthy patrons would invest in the works of artists in order to receive appreciation from people who would view those works of art. The expansion of sponsorship became more common in the seventies as the amount of sponsorship in the United Kingdom grew by some 250% (Lawson, 1984). On the other hand, sponsorships were given for works of art till a point in time after which these sponsorships were diverted the music and sports industries. This trend continues into the modern day as â€Å"the value of sponsorship towards the arts— [this] appeared especially with books and less so with music. The area of the arts generally received an honour or prestige rated above commercialisation† (Lawson, 1984). Sponsorship for sports can be seen as booming in the aftermath of Peter Ueberroth’s sell out of the LA Olympic Games. Skinner and Rukavina (2003) have described this as â€Å"an explosion of sponsorship marketing.† Before this point in time it was felt by event managers that they would be seen as sell outs if they tried to attract too much attention from sponsors. Lawson (1984) has described this in the following words: â€Å"Sponsorship, it was thought, could detract from the popular image of the arts as being untainted by money.† Although this line of thinking persisted before this point in time but after Ueberroth’s actions, â€Å"many event managers forgot the notion that their events could be tainted. They increased their sponsorship leve ls dramatically, and approximately 40,000 events were created in the next ten years because of sponsorship funding† (Skinner & Rukavina, 2003). In this respect, it must be kept in mind that without support from sponsors it would not be possible to hold many different kinds of events. This takes place because sponsors often provide the major financial components of these events. The