MIAMI BEACH — The first thing art collectors are likely to see when they enter the international art fair in Miami today is not a work of art but a fleet of BMW 7 series sedans.

BMW is providing the sedans for a shuttle service available to fair-goers with VIP status. Also outside the main fair is a UBS lounge serving Champagne, a NetJets information table, and a display of Bulgari jewels.

It is part of the fair’s circus-like environment: Companies providing luxury services and products put themselves in front of their target customers. They also seek to associate their brands with the discernment and creativity of the art world. Some see sponsorships as a way to build good will in the local community.

“We achieve brand, business, and employee objectives with our sponsorship,” the head of sponsorships and events for UBS’s American division, Loren Taufield, said. UBS, which is the sole lead sponsor, plans to entertain 3,500 to 4,000 clients and potential clients this year. “Clients love being at this fair. We can’t keep up with the demand,” Ms. Taufield said.

UBS’s VIP lounge is the focus of its activities at the fair, which takes place in a convention center with pink and turquoise décor. The UBS lounge is an oasis of European chic where 450 of the firm’s advisers and art bankers hang out in order to mingle and talk business with clients. UBS also offers private tours of the fair by art experts in five languages.

Measuring return on investment is notoriously difficult in the area of sponsorships. Some executives cited the rising attendance in the five-year history of the fair as proof of their success.

A marketing professor at Columbia University School of Business, Gita Johar, cautioned that people are unlikely to remember the sponsor of events they attend. “My research has shown that you have to work really hard to build an association,” Ms. Johar said.

Ms. Johar has found one predictor of success: long-term commitment.”If the association with the arts and culture is consistent and builds over time, people will give the company credit,” she said.

UBS has a history of supporting the arts. It sponsors the Art Basel fair in Switzerland. Art Basel Miami Beach is its largest project in America, where it is also the sponsor of Sean Scully’s “Wall of Light” and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It also has an impressive collection of contemporary art.

NetJets — the Berkshire Hathaway company that operates a fleet of private jets — is at the fair because that’s where its customers are. “This is not really a marketing tool for us. It’s about cultivating a relationship with our current customers,” a senior vice president of NetJets, Glenn Hinderstein, said. As a sponsor, it supplies VIP passes to its customers. It also held a cocktail party last night with artist Richard Prince as the guest of honor.

Afterward, several NetJets customers went on to a dinner organized by Vanity Fair, to celebrate its December Art issue. “Vanity Fair isn’t a sponsor,” Mr. Hinderstein said, noting the proliferation of other brands that organize ancillary events. Was he upset? “No, not at all,” he said. “I think it’s great. Art is a wonderful thing.”