London Marathon - Sponsorship

The most obvious and biggest sponsor this year for the London Marathon is Virgin Money, a worldwide financial service company owned by Richard Branson that deal with things such as mortgages and savings.

If you click on News and Media you can here is a section called ‘About Virgin Money’, when asked why they chose to sponsor the Marathon they stated “it’s an honour to be linked to such an iconic event” and they talk about how previously a lot of money was raised by online donation sites who would take out a charge for their services so Virgin money “ thought we could put our expertise with money and our financial systems to good use, and come up with an alternative that’s 100 per cent not-for-profit. So millions more £s would go where they’re needed most. Our online donation site virginmoneygiving.com was born.”

Alongside this the London Marathon is sponsored by a range of other companies.

Both TAGheur and realbuzz.com feature on the website itself with TAGheur being used as the clock that counts down to the day of the event and realbuzz.com is used as communication tool for anyone interested or taking part in the London Marathon.

I feel a sponsor that is well fitted to this event is Buxton water as it is a huge necessity during this event, similarly also being sponsored by Lucozade is suitable as the main aim of this sport drink is to rehydrate and revitalise individuals.

However the Marathon is also sponsored by the car company Renault which at first seems a little odd, when the marathon is all about being healthy but I feel the reason Renault would sponsor this event is to offset the image of a large carbon footprint that cars give off, similar to when McDonalds sponsored the Olympics.

Another well suited sponsor is Adidas as they are one of the leading sportswear brands with international recognition, having such a large company sponsor the London marathon shows the importance and growing scale of the event. In return for the sponsorship the Marathon advertise the brand Adidas by having their official merchandise with the Adidas logo on and promoting products on the London Marathons social media.

 It is also sponsored by BBC Sport, Radio 5 Live both giving sports coverage normally and BBC London as the event obviously takes place in London.

Overall I would say that the London Marathon has strong well suited sponsors and partners that represent the event well