Henri van der Aat, ESA Vice Chairman, says the growth mirrors a maturing market, particularly in Northern Europe, and ESA is striving to further unify, strengthen and advance the business of sponsorship in Europe.
“Sponsorship has enjoyed tremendous growth in the past decade and the European market is now worth an estimated € 6.5billion. It continues to gain an increasing share of the marketing budget and is flourishing in the established markets such as Germany, France, the UK and The Netherlands as well as gaining momentum in Eastern Europe.
“We have appointed Natasha Vanoye and William Fenton, two sponsorship professionals with many years of experience between them, to build on this period of growth. They will focus on raising the Association’s profile, building relations and co-operation with sponsorship professionals across Europe and expanding ESA’s information base”.
The European Sponsorship Association, which has its head office in the UK, believes that its strength comes from like-minded people investing the time to debate and develop policies and strategy that affect the whole industry.
The Association has built up a strong reputation for lobbying and has worked closely with the European Commission on a range of issues including the White Paper on Sport. It recently joined more than 40 businesses and non-governmental organisations to agree to take action to protect European citizens from the harmful use of alcohol. The move, in response to a European Commission initiative, resulted in the signing of a Charter to establish the Alcohol and Health Forum.
With Education high on the agenda, the Association’s annual conference, ‘Future Sponsorship’ attracts leading industry thinkers and practitioners from sponsors, agencies, rights holders and governing organisations to discuss the latest developments within the industry. This year’s two-day conference will take place in Brussels on the 8th and 9th November 2007.
The Conference will also play host to the ESA European Sponsorship Awards, the only pan-European sponsorship awards for sponsors, rights holders and agencies.
