I. the origin of species by means of natural selection

Corporate sponsorship of events contributes significantly to marketing aims, including brand awareness as measured by recall and recognition of sponsor‐event pairings. Unfortunately, resultant advantages accrue disproportionately to brands having a natural or congruent fit with the available sponsorship properties. In three cued‐recall experiments, the effect of articulation of sponsorship fit on memory for sponsor‐event pairings is examined. While congruent sponsors have a natural memory advantage, results demonstrate that memory improvements via articulation are possible for incongruent sponsor‐event pairings. These improvements are, however, affected by the presence of competitor brands and the way in which memory is accessed.

Sponsorship-linked marketing: The role of articulation in memory

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between brand equity and financial performance and the moderation role of brand likeability retail banking sector.,The study is quantitative and employed the survey methodology to sample the views of 550 retail bank customers. Data were analyzed though the structuring equation modeling using AMOS.,The study found out that service quality, brand association, brand loyalty, and brand relevance positively and significantly predicted financial performance of the retail banks. In addition, brand likeability also moderates the relationship between brand equity and financial performance.,The study contributes to the ongoing research in examining the linkage between brand equity and financial performance. The study has also shown the value of brand likeability as a moderator of the brand equity-financial performance linkage. The strategic implication of the results are discussed in the paper.

Brand equity and financial performance: The moderating role of brand likeability

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate reputation interacts with corporate social responsibility (CSR) fit and affects stakeholders’ skeptical attribution (SA) of CSR motives, as well as their attitudes, supportive communication intent and purchase intent. This study proposes that a high-fit CSR program does not necessarily engender more favorable outcomes, nor does it stimulate SA. The study proposes the effects of CSR fit differ by corporate reputation. For bad-reputation companies, low-fit is anticipated to generate more desirable CSR outcomes than high-fit initiatives.,Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment employed a randomized 2 (CSR fit: high fit vs low fit) × 2 (good reputation vs bad reputation) × 2 (Industry: food retailing and insurance) full factorial design to examine the suggested hypotheses. The second study employed a randomized 2 (CSR fit: high fit vs low fit) × 2 (good reputation vs bad reputation) full factorial design with consumer samples to replicate the conceptual relationships among variables in the first study.,While reputation plays a dominant role in influencing stakeholders’ CSR-related responses across both CSR fit situations, a SA partially mediates the relationship between reputation and stakeholder reactions. CSR fit interacts with reputation, and influences the partial mediation process through SA; under a bad reputation condition, low-fit CSR engenders less SA and results in better stakeholder reactions. A similar tendency was found with supportive communication intent and purchase intent. High-fit CSR initiatives by a negative reputation company engendered the weakest supportive intent and purchase intent. For a reputable company, across both CSR fits, respondents displayed generally very positive attitudes toward, greater intent to support, and intent to purchase from the company.,The study findings provide useful and empirically supported logical explanations of why high-fit CSR programs sometimes cause backlash effects, despite the general consensus that such initiatives generate positive outcomes. This study offers an alternative and more relevant perspective to conceptualize the complexity of anticipating CSR outcomes.

Are high-fit CSR programs always better? The effects of corporate reputation and CSR fit on stakeholder responses

Congruence and placement in sponsorship: An eye-tracking application.

Sponsorship is a major marketing communication tool, with global spending estimated to exceed $60.2 billion (USD) in 2016, nearly double the $37.7 billion spent in 2006 (IEG, [2007][1], [2016][2]). By paying for the opportunity to be associated with a given event, marketers hope that the event's

The Hidden Factors Behind Sponsorship and Image Transfer: Considerations for Bilateral Image Transfer Among Sponsors and Events

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is playing an increasingly important role in influencing consumer behavior, and it represents another opportunity for marketers to build support for their brands This study explores how the gender of the reader influences how eWOM is perceived An experiment grounded in evolutionary psychology examines how males and females differ in their perceived trust of eWOM of positive, negative, or mixed valence The results indicate that females place greater trust than males in eWOM messages But both genders find eWOM of mixed valence more trustworthy than entirely positive or negative eWOM A follow-up phenomenological study of male and female consumers who had experienced eWOM shed more light on the experimental findings and offers additional support for their evolutionary basis Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as recommendations for further research

Aishwarya Paliwal

Papers

The Hidden Factors Behind Sponsorship and Image Transfer: Considerations for Bilateral Image Transfer Among Sponsors and Events

Trust in online recommendations: an evolutionary psychology perspective

Affect as the central mechanism of image transfer: Association alone is not enough