‘2012 Effect to boost all sports sponsorship’

The London 2012 Olympics will generate brand interest in all sports sponsorship, according to leading figures in the sponsorship industry.

Industry insiders say that London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has been approaching the chief executives of multi-national corporations about getting involved in the games, as sports sponsorship is gaining recognition as a valuable marketing tool at board level.

One sponsorship director says/ "2012 has put sponsorship on the map for a lot of clients that weren’t previously thinking about it."

In a bid to widen the pool of possible partners and raise more than £700m in sponsorship, LOCOG has adopted a strategy of going straight to the top of corporations and is also targeting firms that would not normally consider sponsorship.

Jon Wyatt, business director at sports sponsorship agency Fast Track, says: "LOCOG is directly or indirectly targeting the board level of companies because the size and scale of investment for the Olympics makes this a business decision. And they are debating with a lot of brands that have never done sponsorship."

David Peters, head of sponsorship at Carat says: "LOCOG is speaking to senior executives at a lot of different brands and it is stimulating debate in the industry as a whole."