Presented at the 2010 Academy of Marketing Science annual conference: Commonly sponsored enterprises such as sports teams, traveling shows, celebrities, charitable causes, museums, and festivals have built their own valuable brands that carry considerable equity in the marketplace. Yet, it is unclear if and how a sponsored enterprise’s brand is affected by the corporate brands that align with it. The results of this study demonstrate that the brand quality of a sponsored sports league is partially dependent on the brand quality of the league’s portfolio of sponsors.
Challenging unilateral brand spillover effects in sponsorship portfolios
1. Mark D. Groza
University of Massachusetts –Amherst
Joe Cobbs
Northern Kentucky University
A Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: ChallengingA Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: Challenging
Unilateral Brand Spillover EffectsUnilateral Brand Spillover Effects
3. Research Motivation
“Earlier this year, BP signed on as a major USOC sponsor,
saying the Olympic movement's commitment to environmental
issues gave it a perfect platform to promote its own green
initiatives. ….
The deal puts the USOC in an awkward situation -- partners
with a company involved in an environmental disaster on U.S.
shores -- though CEO Scott Blackmun said Monday he sees no
indication that the sponsorship could be in jeopardy.”
-- ESPN.com, May, 3, 2010
Feb. 15, 2010
4. Commercial Sponsorship
“Provision of assistance either financial or in kind to an
activity by a commercial organization for the purpose of
achieving commercial objectives” – Meenaghan, 1983
Top objectives: Build brand equity (Cliffe & Motion, 2005;
Thjømøe et al., 2002); Goodwill (Meenaghan, 2001)
Sponsoring
firm/brand
Popular [sports]
enterprise
$ VIK
Benefits
5. Sports Brand ValuesSports Brand Values* (Forbes Magazine,
2010)
1. New York Yankees $328M
2. Manchester United $285M
3. Real Madrid $240M
4. Dallas Cowboys $208M
5. Barcelona $180M
6. Bayern Munich $178M
7. Arsenal $176M
8. Boston Red Sox $163M
9. New York Mets $158M
10. New England Patriots $156M
*Revenues from sponsorships, naming rights, local media, tickets and merchandise that are
not attributable to market demographics and league.
6. Brand Spillover Effects
H1) Consumer perceptions of a sponsored enterprise’s brand quality
will be positively associated with the brand quality perceptions of the
firms within the sponsored enterprise’s sponsorship portfolio.
Dimensions of
Brand Equity
•Loyalty
•Associations
•Awareness
•QUALITY
Aaker (1991)
7. Involvement
Elaboration Likelihood Model -- when evaluating
advertisements relevant to ones consumption interests
people pay closer attention -- Petty and Cacioppo 1981; Petty,
Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983
Involvement in the sponsorship domain —Gwinner and Swanson
2003
H2) A consumer’s involvement in the sponsored enterprise’s domain
will positively moderate the relationship between the perceived brand
quality of the sponsors within a portfolio and the perceived brand
quality of the sponsored enterprise.
8. Perceived Prestige
Social prestige influences consumer evaluations of brand
quality (Hellofs and Jacobson 1999)
H3) The level of prestige a consumer associates with a sponsored
enterprise will be positively related to the perceived brand quality of
the sponsored enterprise.
9. Reverse Image Transfer Model
Perceived Prestige of
Sponsored Enterprise
Perceived Brand Quality
of Sponsors
Involvement in
Sponsored Enterprise’s
Domain
Perceived Brand Quality
of Sponsored Enterprise
H1 (+)
H2 (+)
H3 (+)
10. Survey Design
Pre Test
Ensure stimuli was realistic
Ensure measures were reliable
Ensure variation in domain involvement amongst subject pool
Main Study
171 undergraduate students
Created a series of activation advertisements
NHL sponsored enterprise
Sponsors from 4 product category
11. Four Constructs
Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise [i.e. NHL] (Yoo et al. 2000)
α = 0.93
Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio (Yoo et al. 2000)
α(s) > 0.88
Domain Involvement (Gwinner and Swanson 2003)
α = 0.95
Perceived Prestige (Mael and Ashforth 1992; Gwinner and Swanson 2003)
α = 0.87
12. Hierarchal Regression Analysis
Outcome Variable: Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise
Model 1 2
Step 1
(Constant) 4.502 4.509
Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio .277a
.270a
Perceived Prestige .570a
.582a
Domain Involvement .283a
.265a
Step 2
Portfolio Brand Quality *Domain
Involvement
.184b
F 40.00a
32.61a
Adj R-Sq .408 .426
R-Sq Change .018b
Note: a
= (P<0.01); b
=(P<0.05)
13. Discussion
Results indicate a relationship between quality perceptions of
sponsoring brands and sponsored enterprise (H1)
Corresponds to literature in the brand alliance domain - Samu et al.
1999
Traditional spillover effects in sponsorship limited to asymmetrical
conceptions
Highly involved individuals are more likely to process quality
associations in sponsorship arrangements (H2) - Gwinner and
Swanson 2003; Dietz et al. 2009
Quality associations hold after controlling for perceived
prestige of sport property (H3)
14. Implications
Managers of sponsored
enterprises should be
concerned with the brand
quality of the firms that
comprise their sponsorship
portfolio
Firms acting as corporate
sponsors bring more to the
negotiating table than just
revenue and functional
trade resources
Contemporary sponsorship is best framed as a
bilateral alliance – both partners engage in
ongoing co-production of a promotional resource
to be collectively leveraged
15. Next Steps
Survey sponsorship decision makers
Expand context to different domains [i.e.
causes, arts, events]
Questions?
Notas do Editor
2 Objectives : investigate the relationship between sponsoring brands and the perception of the sponsored enterprise’s brand examine the role domain involvement NBA recently allowed “Hard Spirits” to be a corporate sponsors; Bacardi signed as an sponsor; does this affect the image of the NBA brand
First 2 points me Next two mark
If you’re the USOC, should you be concerned about your ‘partner’?
Objectives: G&E, ‘99; Thjomoe and colleagues 2002; Crowley 1991; Meenaghan & Shipley (’99); O’Hagan & Harvey (‘00); Crimmins & Horne (‘05) Traditional representation Research focus on sponsoring firm This is important because… Sponsors offer more than $ and Value-in-kind Image transfer is not unidirectional Commonly sponsored enterprises have built their own valuable brands (Gladden & Milne ‘03; Forbes Magazine)
Commonly sponsored non-profit organizations also have valuable brands Susan G. Koman Foundation Life Strong March of dimes
Theoretically based on Associative Network Model (McCracken 89; Gwinner 97) G&E ‘99 make assumption that primary focus of consumer is on sports event, which is more salient and thus image transferred from sports brand to sponsor. However, research (Crimmins & Horn, ‘96; Quester & Thompson ‘01) has also emphasized the importance of sponsor activation through leverage with other marketing resources. In an leveraging situation, the consumer’s focus is likely to be on the sponsoring brand and the assumption of unidirectional image transfer may not be valid.
Theoretical grounded in ELM
Theory has shown a strong relationship between perceptions of social prestige and assessments of brand quality
Created a series of advertisement that highlighted a sport property and its portfolio of sponsors;
After a distracter task we asked for brand
We had distracter task between we asked for brand
There are important Implications for both partners in the dyad