Brexit and What It Means for Sponsorship 18th July, 2016

The sponsorship industry has seen a significant growth recently, but will Brexit stall that growth?

As the world gets smaller and brand reach gets larger, the value of global and pan-regional properties such as Formula1 and the Euros become more appealing. These platforms provide brands buying efficiencies, homogenisation, and brand consistency – being able to unite fans through passion. As passions are shared regardless of region, language or culture, the ability to utilise cross-border sponsorships is a cost effective and often resource light way to reach a target audience. Regardless of what happens when the Government enacts Article 50, the demand for these sponsorship opportunities is unlikely to decrease.

However, the challenge will be on the increased pressures to effectively deliver the same output with additional issues around talent, visas, logistics and more. This is likely to be reflected in an increase in costs of activation which is unlikely to be pared with additional brand budget. Given that working and activating in Europe could become a lot more challenging – the appetite for purchase or allocated resource for implementation will decrease, especially if budgets aren’t increased in line with the additional resource. This could then significantly impact activation decisions to support a focus on logistics, rather than a dedication to creativity.

With the UK flying the flag for creativity in our industry, it will be interesting to watch how potential cross-border challenges could impact our nation’s sponsorship activation and positioning on a global scale.