AD Agencies
Advertisers to spend $66 bn on sponsorship this year: WARC report
MUMBAI: Advertisers are expected to spend a combined $66 billion on sponsorship this year, though fewer than one in five are confident that they can actually measure the business value return of the sponsorships they undertake.
According to WARC’s recent report on global ad trends, sponsorship growth is trending ahead of most paid media, and $66 billion is expected to be invested this year which will mostly be on sports properties.
Brand spend on sponsorship which is inclusive of rights but excluding activation is expected to rise by 4.9 per cent to reach $65.8 billion worldwide this year.
Sponsorship is growing faster than all paid media channels excluding internet formats.
North America makes up the greatest share of spend at 36.8 per cent or $24.2 billion, followed by Europe at 26.7 per cent or $17.6 billion, Asia-Pacific at 25.2 per cent or $16.6 billion, Latin America at 7.0 per cent or $4.6 billion, and then the Middle East and Africa at 4.3 per cent or $2.8 billion.
Most of this money is going to sports properties. Among these are the FIFA World Cup in Russia, which is thought to have attracted $1.7billion worth of deals. At a time of fragmentation, sport offers large, engaged, multiscreen audiences. By volume of data, the 2018 FIFA World Cup was the most-streamed sporting event in history. TV is still king for live sporting events, with World Cup matches reaching 44 per cent of the global population via television.
Sponsorships are principally used to drive brand metrics and reach.
Generating brand awareness is the most important objective for sponsorship campaigns. This mirrors separate WARC research in this year’s WARC 100 that found 61 per cent of successful campaigns counted brand awareness as a core objective. This suggests sponsorship plays the same role as mass-reach media, fitting into the ‘upper-funnel’ of a marketing plan (generating awareness and consideration).
Sponsors rely on intermediate metrics; true ROI remains a challenge.
Only 19 per cent of sponsorship professionals are confident that they can actually measure the business value return of the sponsorships they undertake. Further, only 37 per cent of practitioners have a standardised process for measuring sponsorship.
The top two named tools used for evaluation are digital and social media metrics. However, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) states that social media metrics often provide a distracting noise due to their weak relationship to sales.
Social Media and live events power sponsorship activation.
Social is considered the number one activation channel for sponsorships by 83 per cent of marketers. However, the prevailing sentiment is that authentic engagement of sponsorship, through digital and social activation, remains a challenge.
Possibly by way of remedy, the share of marketers activating sponsorships through experiential live events has risen to two-thirds (65 per cent) over the last year.
WARC data editor James McDonald said, “As brands continue to jostle for a finite amount of consumer attention, the changing way in which media is consumed has led to the fragmentation of audiences. Yet sports generate an engaged, mass audience which sponsors can reach, before amplifying their campaigns via social media and experiential events.”
Sponsorships facilitate the upper part of the sales funnel – driving brand awareness and consideration – in much the same way as TV. This can present challenges, however, such as the knowledge gap between brand impact and sales impact.
AD Agencies
AdTrust Summit 2026 to examine trust, AI and Gen Alpha in advertising
Two-day summit in Mumbai to explore ethics, regulation and the future of advertising trust
MUMBAI: At a time when advertising is navigating a delicate trust deficit, the Advertising Standards Council of India is preparing to bring the industry to the table. On 17 and 18 March, the body will host the inaugural AdTrust Summit 2026 in Mumbai, a two-day gathering designed to spark conversation around responsibility, regulation and credibility in modern advertising.
The summit, to be held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex, will bring together leaders from advertising, media, technology and policy to examine how brands can build trust in a marketplace increasingly shaped by algorithms, influencers and artificial intelligence.
In an age of deepfakes, dark patterns and blurred lines between content and commerce, the question is no longer just how brands capture attention, but whether audiences believe what they see. The AdTrust Summit aims to unpack that challenge.
Day one will turn its attention to the youngest digital natives. Titled Decoding Gen Alpha, the session will unveil ‘What the Sigma?’, a study by ASCI and Futurebrands Consulting that explores how children growing up in a hyper-digital environment encounter advertising and commercial messaging.
The report presentation will be delivered by Santosh Desai, founder and director at Think9 Consumer Technologies and a social commentator known for his insights into consumer behaviour. The discussion that follows will attempt to decode how Gen Alpha consumes media, interacts with brands and navigates the growing overlap between entertainment and marketing.
In a move that mirrors the subject itself, two Gen Alpha students will also join the conversation, offering a rare perspective from the generation advertisers are trying to understand.
The second panel of the day will shift the focus from observation to implication, asking what the report’s findings mean for brands, agencies and society. Speakers include Karthik Srinivasan, communications strategy consultant; Preeti Vyas, president at Mythik; and Abigail Dias, associate president planning at Ogilvy. The session will be moderated by Sonali Krishna, editor at ET Brand Equity.
Day two moves from insight to regulation. Under the theme From Compliance to Trust, ASCI will release its Ad Law Compendium, a comprehensive guide to India’s advertising regulations.
The day will open with a keynote by Sudhanshu Vats, chairman at ASCI and managing director at Pidilite Industries, followed by a chief guest address by Sanjay Jaju, secretary at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Legal experts from Khaitan & Co., including Haigreve Khaitan, senior partner, and Tanu Banerjee, partner, will present an overview of the current advertising law landscape in India and examine whether existing frameworks are equipped to deal with emerging technologies and formats.
Subsequent panels will explore issues increasingly shaping the industry’s ethical compass. Conversations will range from the limits of persuasive design and the rise of dark patterns, to the growing scrutiny brands face from digital creators and consumer watchdogs.
One session will also feature Revant Himatsingka, widely known online as the Food Pharmer, whose critiques of packaged food brands have sparked debate around transparency and corporate accountability.
Later discussions will turn toward media literacy among Gen Alpha, asking how children can be equipped to navigate a digital world where gaming, content and commerce are becoming indistinguishable.
The summit will conclude with a final panel on the future of advertising, bringing together voices from agencies, legal circles and technology platforms to discuss how innovation, intelligence and integrity can coexist.
For an industry built on persuasion, trust has always been its quiet currency. But as audiences grow more sceptical and digital ecosystems more complex, that currency is under pressure.
Events like the AdTrust Summit suggest the advertising world knows it cannot afford to take credibility for granted. The real challenge now is turning conversation into commitment.
