Corporate sponsorship of sports, arts, and cultural events has increased dramatically over the past decade. Still, academic research on sponsorship as a promotional tool has been sparse. The authors offer a cross-disciplinary review of research conducted on sponsorship worldwide. Five research streams—nature of sponsorship, managerial aspects of sponsorship, measurement of sponsorship effects, strategic use of sponsorship, and legal/ethical considerations in sponsorship—are examined and critically assessed. On the basis of that analysis, theoretical frameworks are provided to guide future research.

An International Review of Sponsorship Research

This study examines the impact of fan identification on four distinct sponsorship outcomes: sponsor recognition, attitude toward the sponsor, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with the sponsor. In addition, consistent with the identification literature we investigate the antecedents of prestige, domain involvement, and fan associations for predicting fan identification among sports spectators. Utilizing structural equation modeling the findings support the premise that highly identified fans are more likely to exhibit the investigated sponsorship outcomes. In addition, we found that the investigated antecedents may aid in predicting fan identification. Our findings are discussed, managerial implications presented, and future research directions provided.

A model of fan identification: antecedents and sponsorship outcomes

Sponsorship of sports, arts, and causes has become a mainstream marketing communications tool. A great deal of fieldwork has attempted to gauge the relative effectiveness of sponsorship in a marketing context, but these weakly controlled field studies contribute little to our understanding of how individuals process sponsorship-linked marketing communications. By considering possible underlying information-processing mechanics, individual- and group-level factors, market factors, and management factors, together with theorized sponsorship outcomes, this paper offers a model of consumer-focused sponsorship-linked marketing communications that summarizes and extends theoretical understanding of the topic.

Sponsorship-linked marketing: opening the black box

This study explores the conditions under which product placement in an on-line game will get noticed and be remembered from a perspective of the limited-capacity model of attention. Results show that the location of brand messages in the game (referred to here as proximity), game involvement, and prior game-playing experience interact to influence brand memory. Although experienced players in the moderate-involvement condition recognize focal brands better than the peripheral brands, the recognition superiority of the focal brands over the peripheral brands disappears when experienced players' involvement is high. The interaction between proximity and game involvement does not emerge for inexperienced players, however. Findings also demonstrate that the degree of congruity between the product category of a brand and game content influences brand memory such that highly incongruent brands are better recalled than either moderately incongruent brands or highly congruent brands. Implications for researchers ...

Effects of Product Placement in On-Line Games on Brand Memory: A Perspective of the Limited-Capacity Model of Attention

Presents the results of a study of consumer reactions to various sponsorship programmes. The programmes differed in terms of four factors: the nature of the sponsorship (philanthropic versus commercial), its origin (pre‐existing versus event created by the sponsor), its frequency (continuous versus one‐shot) and the strength of the link between the entity (or the event) and the sponsor (weak versus strong). The results show that philanthropic sponsorship has a more positive impact on corporate image than commercial sponsorship. Also, the link between the sponsor and the event has a non‐linear effect on corporate image. Consumer interest in the sponsored event has a positive impact on perceptions of the sponsor′s image. In addition, it was found that the factors have interactive effects on consumer evaluations. Strategic implications for sponsorship management are derived from these results.

M. Tuan Pham

Papers

Effects of Involvement, Arousal, and Pleasure on the Recognition of Sponsorship Stimuli