Chances are, when Wolff Heinrichsdorff, the co-managing director of Montblanc's international operations, visits London, he spends more time visiting the venerable German pens-to-accessories company's boutiques in Old Bond Street or Burlington Arcade than snaking around the forbidding streets of Bermondsey, south-east London, at night. And he probably spends far more time shaking the hands of business leaders discreetly attired in charcoal than mugging it up for the flashbulbs with a sixty-something woman with shocking pink hair, lurid giant panda-like eye shadow and an outfit iridescent witheven brighter hues. Yet one chilly Wednesday evening last November, Heinrichsdorff found himself presiding over the glamorous re-opening of the UK's grittily sited Fashion and Textile Museum and bestowing the 15th Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award on the flamboyant Swinging 60s fashion designer, Zandra Rhodes. While leading lights from the creative community queued up to rhapsodise about the trademark Rhodes ensembles, the assembled guests were exposed to Montblanc's own trademark – a snowflake, plastered around the dais from which the speeches were being made. By the time the designer collected her €15,000 prize cheque and an outsized limited-edition fountain pen, no one could have been unaware that Rhodes was sharing star billing with another attention-seeking brand. Rhodes, the driving force behind the museum, was certainly on air-kissing terms with the protocol. "Cynical?" she gasped in mock horror, while the champagne was still circulating on trays. "All of life's cynical. Everything has a price and there's no such thing as a free lunch."

A seat at art and culture's top table is something Montblanc has been cultivating for a long time. Twelve years ago, the company began sponsoring the Philharmonia of the Nations, in which young musicians from more than 40 countries and five continents promote the message of peace throughout the world. Since 2002 Montblanc has sponsored the Young Directors Project, a competition for young, international theatre directors and their ensembles as part of the Salzburg Festival. And, in 1992, it established the Foundation d'Enterprise Montblanc de la Culture 'to support and honour modern-day patrons of the arts who have given their time, energy and money in order to encourage cultural life to flourish'. Companies love sponsoring the arts "because it is a way of positioning themselves with world-class activities", reckons Colin Tweedy, chief executive of London-based outfit Arts & Business, launched 30 years ago to create mutually beneficial partnerships. "It is a focused way for businesses to entertain their clients and a very subtle way of associating themselves with something very substantial or very important. There is a definite feel-good factor in associating your company with the right event – unlike sport, where audiences can have a 'bad' result – and it appeals equally to women and men."

Moreover, Heinrichsdorf believes, sponsorship is also good for management and employees at Montblanc, quite apart from the brand building. "Of course it helps Montblanc to be talked about, but it is also fun for the management to be involved and gets the brand in direct touch with individuals who love the arts, who love opera, fine art, collecting and connoisseurship – this is Montblanc's audience too." He further muses that Montblanc's presence in arts sponsorship "is becoming increasingly international, and so is our business". More and more companies appear to be embracing this outlook. Swiss bank UBS, for example, sponsors 19 orchestras around the world, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. The bank's UK managing director, Richard Hardie, describes the involvement with LSO as one that is getting "deeper and richer" and insists that it achieves more than just marketing and brand building for a company capitalised at more than €150bn. Exhibiting a mindset more Woodstock than Wall Street, Hardie recounts how UBS sent traders to sit with the orchestra during rehearsals. Apparently, they couldn't see any musician looking at the conductor even though the players were fully aware of what the conductor wanted. The traders, explains Hardie, gained an insight into the importance of knowing the mind of the conductor, "a lesson that passed readily back into an investment banking situation with teams and principals". The LSO in return has apparently learned a lot about logistics and how to maximise technology while travelling.