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This month's Adstats features charts covering global sponsorship expenditure, including trends in global sponsorship spend, marketing spend by category, channels used in sponsorship, objectives in sponsorship evaluation and metrics used to evaluate sponsorships.

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The number of international sponsorships is on the rise and they are likely to continue to be considered as important brand promotion tools. But with so many brands using the same consumer touchpoints of sport and TV sponsorship, could saturation soon be reached with genuine cut-through and consumer connection more difficult to achieve? Using research from HPI, this article looks at why brands should not necessarily withdraw from these high-profile sponsorships, but supplement the activity with local or community sponsorships that operate nationwide. It uses examples like Morrisons' Let's Grow scheme, which has sponsored more than 20,000 schools and Spar with its community-based Sprints Programme for young talent in addition to its sponsorship of UK Athletics.

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This summary from the Advertising Research Foundation offers an overview of recent research and debate related to the topic of sports sponsorship in the USA. This includes industry outlook, where sports and entertainment sponsorship grows at a faster rate than other types of partnerships. Guiding principles that can be used to make partnerships more robust and valuable include adopt more emotional messaging techniques, tell stories and embrace real-time opportunities.

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Learn how automotive sector experts use sponsorship effectively in this document with cases from Volkswagen (India), Skoda (UK), Hero Honda (India) and Infiniti (USA).

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This document highlights best practice in using sponsorship effectively in the food sector with cases from Yeo Valley (UK), Smarties (Canada), Wheat Thins (USA) and Kraft (Canada).

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Discover top sponsorship strategies for the soft drinks sector in this document with cases from Coca-Cola (global), Glaxose (Bangladesh), Rubicon (UK) and Ovaltine (UK).

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Discover top sponsorship strategies for the alcoholic drinks sector in this document with cases from Heineken (Thailand), Blossom Hill (UK), Speight's (New Zealand) and Tribute Ale (UK).

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This document highlights best practice in using sponsorship effectively in the telecoms sector with cases from Vodafone (India), Talk Talk (UK), O2 (UK) and O2 (Ireland).

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In this lecture, Austin Lally, president for Braun and Appliances at Procter & Gamble, advocates sports marketing for global brands. Described as the best example of Passion Point Marketing - meeting consumers where their passion points are for increased and deeper engagement - Lally warns that only those brands with the intention to touch large numbers of consumers can make the economies work. He stresses that brands must be authentic in their relationships with the sports they get involved with but must also be rigorous in showing direct impact on sales. Lally provides examples of successful sports sponsorship from Procter & Gamble, with focus on Gillette's ability to blend global and local programmes, and P&G's "Thank you, Mum" activity at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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This paper outlines how Microsoft Advertising sought to identify which elements of online sponsorships are linked to strong in-market performance, by using Millward Brown Digital's 'MarketNorms' database. The analysis revealed that online sponsorships have a more positive branding effect compared to a typical digital campaign. Specifically, successful online sponsorships are likely to include both interactive and non-interactive elements and have the strongest impact when they are contextually relevant. The analysis also claims online sponsorships that use celebrity spokespeople or co-branding are more likely to struggle in-market. The paper also outlines the impact of online sponsorships in the automotive and CPG market, claiming automotive sponsorships tend to be twice as persuasive as the typical digital automotive campaign and CPG sponsorships are incrementally stronger than typical CPG campaigns. The paper also provides a summary of creative elements in online sponsorships that have the most impact in meeting specific branding goals, such as online ad awareness and brand favourability.