Stadium Naming Rights : A case study of the objectives for sponsoring a stadium and the impact on brand awareness

Stadium naming rights are a rapidly growing type of sponsorship, to direct market your company name and generate company goodwill from the society. It is getting more and more popular in Sweden, and it has been proven very cost efficient and evolving for the company and it´s brand. Companies line up to sponsor different sports, events and arenas, to have their brand shown in media and in the stadiums. The use of word of mouth further markets the brand, both in direct communication and in social media. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of sponsorship through the use of a company named stadium or arena in Sweden, and how this can impact on a company´s brand awareness. For this, two research question were proposed:RQ1: What are the objectives for sponsoring a stadium?RQ2: How does the sponsorship impact brand awareness?The thesis is exploratory and descriptive, and uses a qualitative approach. The strategy chosen is a case-study that uses Luleå Hockey and Coop Norrbotten as the objectives for the study, and the data was collected through interviews. The sales manager from Luleå Hockey in one interview, the CEO and the HR- and Information responsible in the second interview. The data collected suggests that the stadium naming right sponsorship deal was made to fund the new arena, and at the same time market Coop Norrbotten as a brand. It also suggested a good cooperation between the companies, and objectives as getting involved in the community, building relations with new companies and sponsors, raise brand awareness, and market the local brands and skills, as being the main goals of the sponsorship deal.Unlike some research considers, the sponsorship deal was not made to increase sales and market share, but rather to build the companies image and brand. The outcome of the stadium naming right deal proved to be even more successful than the companies had expected, with the word of mouth communication being one of the major positive effects. Since the arena is used for many different events and sports beside hockey, the stadium name is used in every day conversations as well as in media.Validerat; 20140926 (global_studentproject_submitter