That was the upbeat message delivered at ESA's Annual Congress in Rome last week, which attracted more than 100 delegates from 15 European countries.
ESA chairman, Nigel Currie, said: “There is a growing feeling that marketers are recognising sponsorship as an essential part of the marketing mix and accepting that it can make a substantial difference not only to brand awareness but more significantly to a company’s bottom line.
"What is more we are seeing much greater involvement from sponsors who are seeing the rapid growth and development of sponsorship and have identified it as an area where they need to improve their knowledge and expertise”.
Currie went on to say that the annual sponsorship spend across Europe was now B7.5billion, with sport accounting for 80 per cent of this.
“The current spend on sponsorship is eight per cent of the total marketing spend across Europe. We expect this figure to rise to around 15 per cent by 2010,” Currie added.
ESA also unveiled plans to develop a research and evaluation model that can be used by all sectors involved in sponsorship.
