Assessing inter-brand effects in concurrent event sponsorship

Projekt-Details

Forschungsziel

In contrast to traditional marketing communication, brand exposure in the context of sports or entertainment is often not exclusive, but in close proximity to other brands. In sport sponsorship, for instance, several brands are visible simultaneously and next to each other on a perimeter board during a televised sport event. Such brand communication environments bear some important issues to be considered by managers and researchers.
The effectiveness of sponsorship communication is likely to be affected by the characteristics of concurrent sponsors. Concurrent visibility of multiple sponsor brands may decrease viewers’ attention for each sponsor, whereas brand images may benefit from spillover effects in such concurrent sponsorship situations. Scientific knowledge on this notion however is limited. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge as it investigates the following two research questions:
1. Do colors of flanking concurrent sponsor signage influence sport viewers’ attention for the focal sponsor?
2. Does the image of the concurrent sponsor brand affect the image of the focal sponsor?

Forschungsmethodik

Sponsor signage was systematically manipulated in 30 sport press pictures from the context of winter sports, placing a focal sponsor next to concurrent sponsors with different brand logo colors and varying levels of brand equity. For this research, data was collected from a sample of 100 participants recruiting via an ad in a local newspaper. In the recruitment phase, participants were told that the research was related to viewers’ reactions to sports images in general and they were offered a financial incentive of 10 € for taking part in the experiment. Each participant was randomly assigned to one out of four treatment versions. Each treatment comprised 30 pictures which were presented as a slideshow in a randomized order and were identical across treatments in terms of sport scenes. During the experiment, eye-tracking was employed to measure participants’ attention for sponsor signage in the pictures.

KurztitelViessmann Sponsoring-Engagem.
StatusAbgeschlossen
Tatsächlicher Beginn/ -es Ende01.12.1431.05.15