Originally published: B&T, 04 May 2026
Brands collectively spend billions securing sponsorship presence at major events. Yet for most, the honest answer to “did it work?” remains elusive. New research from Australian marketing consultancy Honeycomb Strategy suggests the problem is not measurement – it is the “mental model “marketers are using to design sponsorships in the first place.
Pit Stop to Podium, the latest in Honeycomb Strategy’s Digital Insights Series, was conducted in partnership with research firm Pureprofile. It analysed 19 sponsors across the 2026 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix – tracking what on-ground attendees and broadcast audiences noticed, remembered and felt, not just days after the event, but weeks later, once the immediate noise had cleared.
Being present is not the same as being remembered
For decades, sponsorship has been treated as a game of exposure – logos, signage and reach. But gone are the days where slapping your logo everywhere delivers results. The brands that win aren’t just visible, they harness behavioural science to become relevant, memorable and impossible to ignore.
Even in the days immediately following the event, consumer attention was far from guaranteed. Over time, memory consolidated around a small number of brands, while many others quickly faded from view.
The research evaluated sponsors across four dimensions: attention, memory, experience and sentiment. As the data makes clear, great sponsorship is not just about what people saw – it is about what they remembered, felt and did next.
