Sponsorship has long been a means for brands to obtain reach and diversify their audiences, from the wealthy ancient Greeks who sponsored sporting contests to branded baseball cards and soap operas.
But while some things stay the same – not least the key role of sports and games – digital channels like social media and video have opened up new possibilities as to what brands can achieve with sponsorship.
No longer confined to passive association, sponsorships can now incorporate active participation, interactive experiences, and personalisation. Through content creation and partnerships with the right global or local influencer voices, brands can showcase authenticity, forge a connection with fans, and prolong the life of a campaign beyond the sponsorship itself.
We’ll visit Australia, Brazil and the UK – plus a few online battlefields – to find out how brands are turning sponsorships into multichannel events and reaping the rewards.
Global appliances giant Haier has consistently used sports sponsorship to drive brand awareness, particularly with younger consumers. Historically, the Chinese brand has had a football focus, via relationships with FIFA and individual leagues. But with tennis growing in popularity and the rise of the tenniscore look on catwalks and high streets, Haier saw an opportunity to drive awareness among an affluent, lifestyle-centric and increasingly diverse demographic
The brand has sponsored multiple events, including smaller ATP 500 and ATP 250 tournaments, allowing it to embed itself in more grassroots competitions. It has also targeted prestige events, using mixed experiences and digital storytelling in its partnership with the 2025 Australian Open. Here, physical pop-ups and social posts drove an interactive feel that aimed to turn Australian spectators into participants.
Branded pop-up spaces gave fans the chance to sit in an umpire’s chair, whirl a giant ball to generate spin, and play tennis-themed whack-a-mole. They could also guess the number of tennis balls in a Haier washer-dryer to win a fridge. All these events were shared via the brand’s newly-launched Instagram channel and paid partnerships with tennis influencers in posts that carried the same sense of fun and enthusiasm as the games themselves.
The channel garnered more than 50M views and 20K followers in three weeks, while the influencers turned the event into viral vlogs driving brand awareness. The sponsorship campaign drove 42% revenue growth and a 51% shipment increase YoY through January 2025.
For Junguang Liu, vice-president of Haier Smart Home, the campaign showed the value of active involvement in driving brand engagement. “In a world where audiences crave richer, more interactive experiences, sport is no longer just about watching,” he said. “It’s about participating, engaging and making the experience more immersive.”
Soda geysers are nothing new: people were reportedly dropping sweets into soft-drink bottles to create carbon-dioxide fuelled explosions as early as the 1910s. But over time, Mentos has become the sweet of choice to drop into a bottle of cola and produce an explosive reaction.
This has been a major brand recognition boon for Mentos. “If you look across socials in terms of how people associate with the brand today or how that has changed over time,” said Josephine Pike of agency Wavemaker, “the one thing that the business is globally known for – and consistently known for – is that experiment. People like to play with the brand because of the Mentos and the cola association.”
Mentos saw an opportunity to bring this cultural phenomenon into the 21st century and reinvigorate the brand. Knowing that gaming was huge for Gen Z consumers, BBH London and Wavemaker worked with Mentos on a sponsored campaign in Fortnite Creative, the sandbox version of the online shooter. The Fizzooka, a branded weapon powered by Mentos and cola that can destroy both players and areas of terrain, was introduced to maps including Piece Control 2v2 and Troll Bed Wars, selected because they sit on the platform’s lucrative homepage and were popular with Mentos’ young target audience.
With the help of YouTube channel Hacksmith Industries – which specialises in making working prototypes of ideas from films, games, and comics – Mentos also created a real-life version which they shared with ‘hero global’ influencers with large international followings, as well as a selection of ‘unique local’ creators. The metre-long device could shoot a soda geyser with the force of a firehose.
This social work helped Mentos gain significant organic traction, as well as profiting from the paid placement in Fortnite itself. In two weeks, the Mentos Fizzooka:
While the stereotypical ‘gamer’ in many people’s minds is young and male, a close look at the data reveals a very different picture: gamers are split roughly 50/50 between men and women, and the average player is aged 41. The presence of streamers with quantifiable demographic followings also means that campaigns can be targeted with precision.
Leading Brazilian cosmetics company O Boticário set out to forge connections and positive associations among female gamers via an initiative called ‘Heroínas do Game’ (Heroines of the Game), which aimed to create an inclusive environment for female gamers. The campaign saw O Boticário become the first Brazilian beauty brand to sponsor an esports team, sponsoring female players from Brazilian esports club LOUD within the first-person tactical shooter Valorant.
Additionally, O Boticário partnered with more than 60 female gamer-influencers via streaming platform marketplace Warrior. Female gamers tend to be high-spending and highly engaged, but are less frequently targeted than their male counterparts – by connecting with female players and their audiences, O Boticário broke new ground and stood out from its competitors.
Sponsorship wasn’t just about getting O Boticário’s name on pixels. Rather, said Bruna Pastorini, CSO at Druid Creative Gaming, the campaign aimed to connect the beauty category with characters’ gaming journeys. “We were able to achieve a high level of message and creative customization, aligning it with in gaming moments,” she explained.
After a streamer eliminated an opponent, got a headshot or finished a game, images linked to O Boticário products and the Heroínas do Game were displayed along with tailored messages (“Eyeliner as sharp as my aim”, “Good gloss”, or “Activate your heroine skin”). A message with a link to the brand’s website was automatically sent in chat as well to drive traffic.
The sponsorship campaign generated nearly 1.5 million views and a 2.5% CTR. In addition, O Boticário created a Discord community, ‘Comunidade das Heroínas’ (Community of Heroines) that led to the formation of more than 40 amateur teams, and held its own branded cup – Taça das Implacáveis (Cup of the Relentless) – signalling to the gaming community that its support for inclusivity was more than a one-off.
Toyota is one of biggest sponsors in the world, but while big event partnerships have always been integral to the company’s efforts, grassroots initiatives are also key. The car giant’s latest UK partnership, with the English Cricket Board, is anchored in local community engagement.
Under the tagline ‘Good for Cricket’, Toyota is raising money for local clubs, supporting free places for young children and helping clubs prepare their grounds each season. A dedicated microsite hosts the Good For Cricket prize draw, which raises funds for clubs in exchange for the chance to win prizes including a brand new Toyota, a batting masterclass, or a behind-the-scenes tour of Lord’s Cricket Ground.
The initiative helps build relationships with individual clubs and their members, and clubs use social media to promote the raffle via the hashtag #ToyotaGoodForCricket, sharing photos of their clubs’ grounds and events. Toyota dealerships also get involved to boost the campaign and share video content.
We’ve got some extra helpers at Wythenshawe CC for the #GetSetWeekend powered by @ToyotaUK.
A record number of clubs and volunteers are taking part this weekend.
Share photos from your club’s event using the hashtag #ToyotaGoodForCricket and we’ll share the best of them. pic.twitter.com/PxkbVaNWjt
— England and Wales Cricket Board (@ECB_cricket) April 5, 2025
Toyota’s cricket homepage offers a central hub for the brand’s sponsorship efforts, including a gallery of social video shared by cricket partners and humorous video spots like Australian cricket legend Glenn ‘Pidge’ McGrath predicting the results of the Ashes series alongside a pigeon. The page also drives subscriptions to Toyota’s newsletter for future giveaways, news, and cricket updates.
Toyota’s decision to grow its involvement in cricket came on the back of a 2024 that saw its UK revenues soar by nearly £600 million to pass £3.5 billion. At the same time, it experienced a slight drop in UK market share in 2024 amid increased competition. The ECB sponsorship is part of a bid to drive that share upward, and Toyota GB president Scott Thompson believes says the sport is “a natural fit” that resonates with the company’s core demographic while also giving it access to “a broad range of people”.
Early signs are positive, with a fundraising prize draw bringing in 689 different cricket clubs and 15,012 supporters, raising close to £300,000 in the first year of the initiative. Toyota will be hoping for similar levels of engagement to its long-running Good for Cricket programme in Australia, which has raised over AU$12 million (£5.6 million) for community clubs, with more than 1,000 clubs supported each season.
Consumer familiarity and trust are vital in the competitive automotive market, something Thompson sets at the heart of the campaign.
“The only way you can grow the sport is to have a healthy grassroots level, because the game is evolving, it’s growing, it’s diversifying. Anybody can slap a logo on a jersey,” he explained, “but that’s not hard to do. I think where you can be seen as doing something good for the sport, it’s a much stronger link.”
In the digital age, the impact of sponsorships can be magnified with a well-planned multichannel effort that spans a variety of touchpoints.
Social media, online communities, and influencer collaborations let sponsoring brands move from a mostly-silent presence to an active partner and nurturer of community, as with O Boticário in gaming or Toyota in local cricket.
Haier and Mentos’ campaigns also showcase the power of content and social to help a smart idea resonate further, driving fan engagement and even going viral.
The right sponsorship can give a brand a wider platform, strengthening its values and boosting its visibility with the desired audience – and a savvy marketing strategy that plays to the strengths of each channel can amplify its returns.