Paper Title
Exploring the Awareness of Embedded Sponsors’ Messages: The Case Study of the UEFA Champions League

Abstract
Sponsorship has become an important part of marketing strategies and a major communication tool. As sponsorship is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, multiple variables are used to measure its effectiveness. So far, research has shown that sponsorship can be efficiently measured through awareness. One of the most common forms of sponsorship is sport sponsorship which includes sponsorship of athletes, teams, sport associations, events and competitions. It is of interest to inspect whether consumers remember embedded sponsors’ messages and do they make difference between sponsors of competitions and sponsors of teams. To explore the observed issue on a particular sport competition, a questionnaire related to the UEFA Champions league sponsors in the season 2016/17 was designed. The presented approach and results can be a foundation for further academic research on consumers’ awareness of embedded sponsor messages and sponsorship effectiveness. Keywords - Embedded Marketing, Sports marketing, UEFA Champions League