Mark D. GrozaUniversity of Massachusetts – Amherst

Joe CobbsNorthern Kentucky University

A Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: A Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: Challenging Unilateral Brand Spillover EffectsChallenging Unilateral Brand Spillover Effects

Presentation OutlineResearch Motivation

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

Survey design and empirical results

Discussion and Implications

Research Motivation

“Earlier this year, BP signed on as a major USOC sponsor, saying the Olympic movement's commitment to environmental issues gave it a perfect platform to promote its own green initiatives. ….The deal puts the USOC in an awkward situation -- partners with a company involved in an environmental disaster on U.S. shores -- though CEO Scott Blackmun said Monday he sees no indication that the sponsorship could be in jeopardy.”

-- ESPN.com, May, 3, 2010

Feb. 15, 2010

Commercial Sponsorship“Provision of assistance either financial or in

kind to an activity by a commercial organization for the purpose of achieving commercial objectives” – Meenaghan, 1983

Top objectives: Build brand equity (Cliffe & Motion,

2005; Thjømøe et al., 2002); Goodwill (Meenaghan, 2001)

Sponsoring firm/brand

Popular [sports] enterprise

$ VIK

Benefits

Sports Brand ValuesSports Brand Values* (Forbes Magazine, 2010)

1. New York Yankees $328M2. Manchester United $285M3. Real Madrid $240M4. Dallas Cowboys $208M5. Barcelona $180M6. Bayern Munich $178M7. Arsenal $176M8. Boston Red Sox $163M9. New York Mets $158M10. New England Patriots $156M

*Revenues from sponsorships, naming rights, local media, tickets and merchandise that are not attributable to market demographics and league.

Brand Spillover Effects

H1) Consumer perceptions of a sponsored enterprise’s brand quality will be positively associated with the brand quality perceptions of the firms within the sponsored enterprise’s sponsorship portfolio.

Dimensions of Brand Equity

•Loyalty•Associations•Awareness

•QUALITYAaker (1991)

InvolvementElaboration Likelihood Model -- when evaluating

advertisements relevant to ones consumption interests people pay closer attention -- Petty and

Cacioppo 1981; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983

Involvement in the sponsorship domain —Gwinner and Swanson 2003

H2) A consumer’s involvement in the sponsored enterprise’s domain will positively moderate the relationship between the perceived brand quality of the sponsors within a portfolio and the perceived brand quality of the sponsored enterprise.

Perceived Prestige

Social prestige influences consumer evaluations of brand quality (Hellofs and Jacobson 1999)

H3) The level of prestige a consumer associates with a sponsored enterprise will be positively related to the perceived brand quality of the sponsored enterprise.

Reverse Image Transfer Model

Perceived Prestige of Sponsored Enterprise

Perceived Brand Quality of Sponsors

Involvement in Sponsored Enterprise’s

Domain

Perceived Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise

H1 (+)

H2 (+)

H3 (+)

Survey Design Pre Test

Ensure stimuli was realisticEnsure measures were reliableEnsure variation in domain involvement amongst

subject pool

Main Study 171 undergraduate students

Created a series of activation advertisements

NHL sponsored enterprise Sponsors from 4 product category

Four Constructs

Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise [i.e. NHL] (Yoo et al. 2000) α = 0.93

Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio (Yoo et al. 2000) α(s) > 0.88

Domain Involvement (Gwinner and Swanson 2003)

α = 0.95

Perceived Prestige (Mael and Ashforth 1992; Gwinner and Swanson 2003) α = 0.87

Hierarchal Regression Analysis

Outcome Variable: Brand Quality of Sponsored EnterpriseModel 1 2Step 1 (Constant) 4.502 4.509 Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio .277a .270a

Perceived Prestige .570a .582a

Domain Involvement .283a .265a

Step 2 Portfolio Brand Quality *Domain Involvement

.184b

F 40.00a 32.61a

Adj R-Sq .408 .426R-Sq Change .018b

Note: a = (P<0.01); b =(P<0.05)

Discussion Results indicate a relationship between quality

perceptions of sponsoring brands and sponsored enterprise (H1)

Corresponds to literature in the brand alliance domain - Samu et al. 1999

Traditional spillover effects in sponsorship limited to asymmetrical conceptions

Highly involved individuals are more likely to process quality associations in sponsorship arrangements (H2) - Gwinner and Swanson 2003; Dietz et al. 2009

Quality associations hold after controlling for perceived prestige of sport property (H3)

Implications

Managers of sponsored enterprises should be concerned with the brand quality of the firms that comprise their sponsorship portfolio

Firms acting as corporate sponsors bring more to the negotiating table than just revenue and functional trade resources

Contemporary sponsorship is best framed as a bilateral alliance – both partners engage in ongoing co-production of a promotional resource to be collectively leveraged

Next Steps

Survey sponsorship decision makers

Expand context to different domains [i.e. causes, arts, events]

Questions?