Katie Melua played at the Colston Hall in Bristol on Sunday night. It was a pleasant enough way to spend Easter Day, with songs that your grandma probably likes humming along to about nine million bicycles in Beijing. What left a taste as sickly as one too many Easter eggs was the incessant branding of the concert by a car manufacturer.

There was a car parked outside the foyer, with a video on a loop about why the global marketing manager had chosen Melua as the face of their brand. Inside, there were posters and boards everywhere. There was no way that anybody in the building could possibly not have known about a certain new car.

I was half-expecting a large griffin logo projected onto the stage, but the concert hall was thankfully a Vauxhall-free zone.

“We are thrilled to be working with Katie Melua,” writes marketing director Peter Hope in a free CD you could pick up, with lots of information about the car and also a Melua song, Inside The House.

“Vauxhall is all about being British, forward-thinking and energetic, and we think that Katie embodies those values perfectly.”

As if that wasn’t sickly enough, “Vauxhall ambassador” Melua also pipes up: “I like the way Vauxhall addresses topics like environmental protection and sustainability and I feel very comfortable with the partnership; it’s a great fit.”

This quote strikes me as very odd. She is defending her association with a car manufacturer rather than celebrating it, facing potential criticism in a classic attack-best-form-of-defence technique.

It’s not as if Melua needs the money, but her million-selling pedigree might be able to shift a few more cars.

In Bristol earlier this month, Jamie Cullum played a special invite-only gig at the new Audi showroom in Cribbs Causeway. Audi is one of Cullum’s sponsors and not only had the marque enticed the jazz hobbit to play a special gig, but paid the chefs from Michelin-starred Casamia in Westbury-on-Trym to provide the food for guests who included mild-mannered Wayne Rooney on best behaviour.

Auspicious timing from Audi given that the Stokes Croft riot last week began with a police raid on a squat, and only a few years ago the former Audi garage on Cheltenham Road almost next door to the now boarded-up Tesco store was squatted and became the Invisible Circus’ first Bristol home (and start of Naomi Smyth’s documentary).

Cullum is also a musician who does not need the financial rewards of a corporate tie-in as much as thousands of other artists across the country. But once again, a car maker aligning themselves to a popular musician has the aim of reflecting well on their brand, with the end result of selling more vehicles.

With their Arts Council England funding application recently refused, St George’s concert hall will be increasingly reliant on corporate sponsorship to survive, as are many other arts organisations in Bristol.

But even this can be problematic. Until recently, Shell sponsored the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition on its annual visit to the City Museum. The current exhibition’s title sponsor is Veolia, a recycling and waste management company.

Over in London, BP’s association with the Tate gallery is being questioned by protesters who are unhappy at the association between the corporate giant and the art world.

If cultural organisations are to survive in these difficult economic times, however, we might have to bite our tongues more in the future and accept that these corporate tie-ins and sponsorships are a necessary evil to ensure the future of the arts.