In message , at 19:15:54 on Wed, 11
Dec 2013, Robin9 remarked:
I think it comes under the umbrella of "Corporate Social Responsibility"

rather than "advertising", and many large companies have significant
such budgets. Wikipedia has a page on CSR, which covers most of the
rationale.

Yes, but Caroline Pidgeon has forthrightly declared that Barclays Bank
has received great benefits from this sponsorship. Does anyone know
what she is referring to?

The sorts of corporate reputational reasons listed in Wikipedia.

Does she herself know?

It's difficult to measure, but those whose job it is can manage to do it
well enough (through interviews/focus groups and so on) just the same as
they decide if other forms of Public Relations and sponsorship activity
is working.

If there really were great advantages to Barclays from this
arrangement, why are they so casually pulling out?

They have new senior management and the banking sector is in a state of
flux. Programmes like this one are inevitably going to be looked at to
see if they still fit the company's objectives.
--
Roland Perry