Montblanc has been engaged in cultural sponsorship for more than a decade; the Patronage Awards and the Donation Pens are only two examples of this. Within the communications mix, sponsorship is usually underweighted in comparison with conventional advertising, chiefly because there are hardly any direct measures of its effect. On the other hand, acceptance on the customer side is considerably higher than for television commercials or press advertisements.
An empirical study conducted in 2004 at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich – carried out using a bank as its example, but transferable in its results to other sectors – shows that cultural sponsorship increases customer retention, operationalised through the constructs of trust, satisfaction and emotional closeness. The basic precondition is that the target group is aware of the sponsorship activities at all. Stronger customer retention goes hand in hand with loyalty, repeat purchase and a greater willingness to recommend, which is reflected directly in economic figures. A connection with employee satisfaction was also demonstrated, so that cultural sponsorship serves staff motivation as well. The results were published in 2004 in Marketing Journal, volume 37, issue 3, pages 34 to 36.