Argues that the general area of commercial sponsorship activity, while attracting increasing interest from marketing practitioners as an important strategic option in marketing communications, has not been the subject of sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive investigation by theoreticians....

An introduction to sponsorships as a marketing communication is given. The factors underlying the growth of sponsorship are summarised and the changes currently taking place are outlined: the new type of sponsor; the changing patterns of sponsorship expenditure; the better range and quality of...