New report helps combat threats to brewery sponsorship, says organisation

30-May-2011 - Last updated on 16-Mar-2017 at 22:04 GMT

Related tags Europe European union Brewers

A new report into the role of brewery sponsorship of community and public events could help the industry fight against potential legislative threats, according to The Brewers of Europe.

In regards to brewery event sponsorship, there is currently an ongoing debate with the industry on one side and NGO’s on the other, a spokesperson for the organisation told BeverageDaily.com.

Although at the moment there is no EU legislation in place to eradicate or restrict such sponsorship, the European Health Forum is under discussion on the issue, he explained, with already sponsorship restrictions in certain European countries such as France, Sweden and Norway.

“The threat is only going to grow, the pressure is not going to go away,” he said.

Some of the debates about brewery sponsorship are based on a supposed link between alcohol related problems and such events, however this is not necessarily the case, said the spokesperson.

The whole picture needs to be addressed, he said, for example the new study by Sponsorship Ideas suggests positives can come out of sponsorship, claiming that thousands of public events across Europe are heavily dependent on nearly €1bn of brewery funding each year.

Findings

While major high-profile sports sponsorships grab the headlines, 62 per cent of brewer-supported events take place at local and regional level, according to the report.

Of the 8,000 events which were counted as part of the study, less than 12 per cent of sponsorship went to major sports, it claims.

“The €928m funds a broad range of activities including the arts, culture, innovation and science as well as sport, sometimes even without explicit reference to the brewer sponsor,” reports the study.

“This is in addition to the better-known social responsibility activities such as anti drink driving campaigns that Europe’s brewers have run for decades,” said The Brewers of Europe.

Although the organisation has done a lot over the last decade to address the sector’s positive impact in terms of economy, it has previously lacked evidence to show how brewers contribute to the local community in this way, Pierre-Olivier Bergeron, The Brewers of Europe secretary general told this publication.