Leveraging Sports Sponsorship with Anti-Doping Commitment: Can Olympic Sponsors Mitigate the Doping Problem in Olympic Sports?

Doping in high-performance sports seems to be an inevitable risk for Olympic sports and their sponsors. The incentives for drug abuse in sports have increased with the growing commercialisation of sports in recent decades. Similarly, the number of doping scandals has also escalated, in line with improved testing methods and closer scrutiny by journalists (Stewart & Smith, 2014). Doping is perceived as unfair by the public and can erode public belief in the fairness of sporting competitions and must be seen controversial in view of the idea and values of the Olympic Games (Breivik, Hanstad & Loland, 2009; Engelberg, Moston & Skinner, 2012). Further, doping incidents can create negative publicity for the associated sponsors and can have negative consequences for the sponsorship investment. This study argues that in the light of a broaden understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) Olympic sponsors also have a responsibility to contribute pro-actively to doping-free sports. In view of this, the research question is: do Olympic sponsors benefit from leveraging sports sponsorships with an anti-doping commitment as a form of CSR initiative? Sponsors want to use the positive attributes of sports events like the Olympic Games and aim to transfer them from the sponsored entity to the corporate brand via sports sponsorships (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999). The transfer of positive images associated with sports to the corporate brand (image transfer process) placed in the sporting context is a largely subconscious process, as a consequence of which the sponsor benefits from an improved brand image (Grohs, Wagner & Vsetecka, 2004; Gwinner, 1997; Simmons & Becker-Olsen, 2006). According to Messner and Reinhard (2012) and Schnittka et al. (2013), negative associations can also be transferred to the corporate sponsor’s image where the sponsored entity is linked to a negative incident. Plewa and Quester’s study (2011) outlines the effectiveness of leveraging sports sponsorship with CSR activities on a theoretical level. A three-pronged approach of linking the sponsored entity with the corporate brand and CSR activities appears to be promising (Lacey, Close & Finney, 2010). However, the outcome of CSR-linked sponsorship effects on the sponsor’s brand image remains unclear. Uhrich, Koenigstorfer and Groeppel-Klein (2014) examined CSR-linked sponsorship on the basis of consumers’ attitudes towards the sponsoring brand and found that a positive effect is only achieved where there is little congruity between brands and sponsored entities. Transferring the attribution theory to the research question addressed in this paper, three information categories can be characterised as follows: 1) Whether the anti-doping commitment of the sponsor is positively or negatively perceived depends on whether other sports sponsors also support the anti-doping fight (high consensus information) or not (low consensus information). 2) Another relevant aspect for the perception of the sponsor’s brand image can be seen in the sponsor’s commitment to the sponsored entity. A long-time sponsorship commitment to a specific sport entity (high consistency information), as opposed to occasional support for a sport entity (low consistency information), theoretically determines the attribution process of the sponsor’s anti-doping commitment. High-consistency information has a positive influence on the attribution process and vice versa. 3) The third information category relates to the issue of whether a sponsor chooses not to support the anti-doping fight (low distinctiveness information), compared to a sponsor who has been playing a pioneering role in the fight for a clean sport for more than a decade (high distinctiveness information). Based on the theoretical considerations the developed hypotheses were tested in a scenario-based experimental online study. We recruited N=133 German undergraduate sport science students (mean age: 23.21 (±3.01) years, 67.8% males). 15 students did not complete the full questionnaire and were excluded from further analysis. The 118 remaining participants were randomly assigned to groups in a 2 (doping incident vs. no doping incident) x 2 (anti-doping commitment vs. no anti-doping commitment) between subjects design. The final sample was composed as follows: scenario 1 – doping incident and anti-doping commitment (N=31); scenario 2 – doping incident and no anti-doping commitment (N=31); scenario 3 – no doping incident and anti-doping commitment (N=26); scenario 4 – no doping incident and no anti-doping commitment (N=30). For the setting of the study, we chose a fictitious brand from the car manufacturing industry, ALTAN automobile, in order to minimise pre-existing knowledge and potential bias arising from prior exposure or familiarity. Further, we selected a track and field event because track and field sports include a number of disciplines where numerous positive doping tests have occurred in the past and a realistic scenario can therefore be assumed. To minimise bias effects due to pre-existing knowledge or familiarity, athlete names were not mentioned. The results demonstrate that consumers acknowledge sports sponsors’ anti-doping commitment in the form of improved brand image. However, in a scenario involving a fictitious brand, sports sponsors’ anti-doping commitment was not found to have a moderating effect on the sponsor’s brand image when sponsored athletes were tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Leveraging sports sponsorship with an anti-doping commitment creates a win-win situation for sponsors and high-performance sport: the former benefit from enhanced brand image, while the latter is able to draw on greater resources in the fight against doping.