Think of a sport. Now think of an Airline.

A nice article in the Independent today about how Emirates have used sponsorship to create a household name in the UK.

As well as title sponsorship of the state of the art stadium for Arsenal football Club in north London, Emirates have added title sponsorship of a roundabout to their list of properties.

More interesting to me than the fact that the Concord Roundabout will now be the Emirates Roundabout is that sponsorship makes up 50 percent of the £150m Emirates spends on marketing, including advertising and public relations. This is up from a spilt of 90% to 10% in favour of advertising.

While the company gives an indication that they are looking for a 6-7 times return on investment, they admit that it is an 'exposure' model of sponsorship, counting logos and then comparing it with how much it would have cost if you had bought that space on television or in the newspapers.

Even for a big player in the sponsorship game, they admit "It's not too scientific, it's a finger in the air type of measurement. But when you sponsor quite a lot as we do, you get more than a gut feeling of whether the sponsorship is doing well or not."

Surely the digital age can bring more clarity than that!