Over the years programme sponsorship had increased from “a handful to hundreds of deals,” Krempel said.

“What has not kept pace with growth is the understanding of how sponsorship works,” he said. “We believe it is good for more than just product awareness.”

David Howells, research manager at News International Newspapers, told Research: “It’s not just about brand awareness. In our markets there is pretty much perfect awareness.

“Salience is important. We try to look at how we can improve the brand in people’s consideration set.”

Mike Hall, founder of ad research specialist Hall & Partners, said results of a research project showed that people were “incredibly sponsorship-literate”. However James King, UK marketing manager of Motorola, said it would be good to get a definitive answer on whether people differentiate between sponsorship and advertising.

“It is an argument being debated at the moment,” he said.

Hall & Partners and Sponsorvision have teamed up to develop what they claim to be new ways of evaluating sponsorship effectiveness.

Krempel told Research that TV sponsorship accounts for only 3% of UK broadcasters’ revenue at present, although he expects this figure to double or treble in five to ten years.

He estimated TV sponsorship in Europe is worth from seven to ten per cent of all ad spend.