Five shifts shaping sponsorship effectiveness, with perspectives from our Peer Connect on what they mean for brands
Executive summary: Sponsorship is becoming harder to win attention with and stand out in a crowded market. Our latest Hall & Partners Peer Connect surfaced five shifts shaping sponsorship effectiveness, from giving people a role and building a stronger brand story to contributing to culture, choosing voices for relevance and personalizing the experience.
Sponsorship is big business, and getting bigger. PwC forecasts global sport sponsorship spend increasing from around $63 billion in 2021 to $109 billion by 2030. But as investment grows, so does the competition for attention.
That creates a challenge for brands. Our own research found that one in two people felt World Cup advertising looked too similar. For some of the biggest and most visible marketing platforms in the world, simply showing up is no longer enough.
At the same time, sponsorship is being asked to do more: reach new audiences, build brands, create experiences, earn cultural relevance and demonstrate meaningful impact.
So, what does effective sponsorship look like as expectations continue to rise?
That was the question at the heart of our recent Hall & Partners Peer Connect, where we brought together around 12 clients and industry peers to share experiences, challenges and perspectives on how sponsorship is changing.
We explored five shifts shaping the next generation of sponsorship and discussed what they mean for sponsorship effectiveness in practice. Here are the five principles we took away, alongside some of the perspectives that emerged from the conversation.
Expectations and opportunities for sponsorship are evolving. The strongest sponsorships give people a reason to connect, care and participate.
Five shifts reshaping sponsorship effectiveness
Together, these shifts point to a more meaningful role for brands in sponsorship.
1. Give people a role, not just a view
For decades, sponsorship has largely been built around audiences seeing brands alongside the things they love. But some of the most interesting partnerships today are asking a different question: how can people become part of the experience?
That can mean participating, creating, contributing or interacting. Technology is opening up new possibilities, but the principle is bigger than technology. The opportunity is to turn spectators into participants and extend engagement beyond the event itself.
A powerful example comes from Orange. Through Marathon Pour Tous, its Olympic partnership gave ordinary runners the chance to experience the marathon route themselves, turning spectators into participants and extending engagement beyond the Games.
From our Peer Connect:
Participants reflected that participation does not always require a headline-grabbing activation. It can begin with something as tangible as giving people a product to try, a space in which to connect or an experience they could not access elsewhere. The important distinction is whether the sponsorship creates something people genuinely experience, rather than simply another place where they encounter the brand.
The takeaway: Create something people can be part of, not simply something they can see.
2. Build the brand story, not just the sponsorship story
Sponsorship naturally connects with people who already care about the property. Those audiences matter, but relying on fandom alone can limit the potential reach and impact of a partnership.
The opportunity is to find the bigger human emotion or brand idea that can travel beyond committed fans.
KIND’s partnership with the Lionesses did this by tapping into pride and support around the team. Ahead of the World Cup, it collected messages from supporters and turned them into a giant message under the Heathrow flight path. The idea was rooted in football, but the emotion could resonate much more broadly.
From our Peer Connect:
A recurring challenge was ensuring the property does not become more memorable than the sponsoring brand. An engaging experience can build closeness, but that value is easily lost if people remember the event without understanding the brand’s role within it. The strongest activation therefore starts with a clear brand idea, not simply a collection of available sponsorship rights.
The takeaway: The property creates the opportunity. The story determines who cares.
3. Contribute to culture, don’t just appear in it
Sponsorship has always offered brands access to culture. But the strongest partnerships can go further by adding something to the communities, rituals and conversations they enter.
That contribution can take very different forms.
Canon and RNIB’s ‘World Unseen’ campaign made accessibility integral to a photography exhibition, using tactile prints, braille, soundscapes and audio descriptions to enable blind and partially sighted people to experience photography in new ways. Guinness approached culture through existing football rituals, finding a credible role in the social experience surrounding the game rather than simply trying to own football itself.
From our Peer Connect:
The discussion also highlighted the growing importance of communities that sit outside traditional sponsorship properties. Running clubs, fitness groups and other “third spaces” are becoming places where people find connection and shared purpose. For brands, the opportunity is not simply to place themselves inside these communities, but to understand what useful role they can play in strengthening the experience.
The takeaway: Relevance is increasingly something brands need to earn by contributing value, rather than simply buying proximity to culture.
4. Choose voices for relevance, not simply reach
Talent and creators have long helped brands extend sponsorship reach. But reach alone is a fairly blunt way to choose the right voice.
The more interesting question is: what does this person bring to the partnership that the brand does not already have? That might be authority, cultural credibility, belonging within a community or simply a distinctive perspective. In each case, the voice should have a reason to belong in the story rather than feeling like a famous face added afterwards.
Three’s work pairing Karen Carney with an AI recreation of football pioneer Lily Parr illustrates the principle. Carney’s role brought relevance and credibility to a story connecting different generations of women’s football.
From our Peer Connect:
Participants noted that credibility can also come from the wider context a brand chooses to enter. The right partner, platform or voice can lend authority and strengthen positioning, but only when there is a natural connection. Borrowed trust is most powerful when the relationship feels mutually relevant, rather than when credibility has simply been hired for the campaign.
The takeaway: Don’t just ask who has the biggest audience. Ask what they can bring that your brand cannot create alone.
5. Scale the sponsorship. Personalize the experience.
One of sponsorship’s greatest strengths has always been its ability to create scale and shared emotion. Personalization does not mean giving that up.
Instead, data, technology and AI are creating opportunities to make the same partnership more relevant to different people, motivations and moments.
Volvo provides a smart example. It used addressable TV within its Sky Atlantic partnership to deliver different sponsorship messages around themes relevant to different audience segments. The partnership retained its scale while making the experience more personally relevant.
Wisła Kraków FC took the idea further with its Lucky Fan Index, using attendance and match data to give individual fans a measure of their impact on the team. Here personalization was not simply about targeting people differently. It gave supporters their own role in the story.
From our Peer Connect:
Personalization prompted some of the most interesting questions in the discussion. While the principle feels highly relevant to many brands, there were questions about what it looks like in practice beyond targeted messaging. One opportunity may be to draw on existing assets, such as customer data, loyalty relationships and preferences, to make experiences more personally meaningful, while retaining the sense of a shared moment that gives sponsorship its power.
The takeaway: Keep the platform big. Make the experience personal.
From visibility to value
Across the discussion, one practical challenge cut across all five principles: measuring and demonstrating the value that sponsorship creates. That means looking beyond short-term outcomes to understand how partnerships strengthen brand image and build equity over time, alongside their impact on engagement and commercial outcomes.
The strongest sponsorships do not just borrow attention. They earn a meaningful role in the things people care about, building connection and meaning for the brand.
Ultimately, these five shifts, and the conversations they prompted, point to a bigger change in sponsorship. The strongest sponsorships do more than put brands alongside the things people care about. They find a meaningful role within them and create value for audiences, communities and the brand itself.
Perhaps the most useful question for brands, then, is not simply what a sponsorship can give them, but what they can bring to make the sponsorship experience better.
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Key Questions
Effective sponsorship goes beyond visibility. It gives people a meaningful role, builds a clear brand story, contributes to culture, uses relevant voices and creates experiences that are personally meaningful while retaining the scale of the partnership.
Brands can move beyond simply putting their name alongside a property by creating opportunities for people to participate, contribute, interact or experience something they could not access elsewhere.
The strongest partnerships connect the property to a broader human emotion, cultural conversation or brand idea that can resonate beyond existing fans. The property creates the opportunity; the story determines who cares.
Reach should not be the only consideration. Brands should consider what a partner brings that they cannot create alone, such as authority, cultural credibility, community belonging or a distinctive perspective.
Data, technology and AI can help brands make the same partnership more relevant to different people, motivations and moments. The opportunity is to personalize the experience while retaining the shared moment and scale that make sponsorship powerful.
