Assessment of the Effectiveness of Sport Sponsorship as a Tool of Marketing Communications

Abstract

Sport sponsorship as a tool of marketing communication is nowadays regarded as the most significant and lucrative type of sponsorship. Even though recent decades have witnessed a continuous upsurge in the spending on corporate sponsorship, the insight into the effectiveness of this technique remains deficient. The purpose of this research is therefore to expand the existing knowledge on the subject. The study examines the effectiveness of sports sponsorship as a function of the public's attitudinal and behavioural loyalty for a football team and depending on whether the products/services offered by the sponsor require low or high consumer involvement. It tests how the awareness, attitude and buying behaviour toward sponsors are generated and by so doing, assesses to what extent sport sponsorship attains its desired goals. In order to collect data, the study used an online questionnaire, targeted at an international sample of supporters of different teams. The results confirmed that sport sponsorship is generally effective in creating brand awareness and motivating behaviour toward the sponsor. It was found that sponsor awareness depends on one's attitudinal loyalty for a team and on his purchase intentions toward the products/services of that team. Attitudinal team loyalty was also found to boost one's attitude toward the sponsor's identity, but it was behavioural team loyalty that was discovered to mediate one's attitude toward the products/services of the sponsor. Ultimately, attitudinal team loyalty was found to increase the chances of one owning a product/service from the sponsor, yet it was only the purchase intentions for the team that were found to increase the purchase intentions for the products/services of the sponsor. The level of involvement of the latter products/services was not discovered to have a considerable impact on any changes in purchase intentions ensuring from any changes in a team's sponsorship.