How Corporate Sport Sponsorship Impacts Consumer Behavior

Corporate sport sponsorship is one of the many tools marketers have at their disposal to try and reach consumers and influence them to buy their products and yet one of the least discussed forms of marketing communications addressed in the marketing literature. A key to effective sponsorship is the understanding of how consumer attitudes are formed and change. It is the purpose of this conceptual piece to examine the relationship between sponsorship and attitudes. Attitudes are comprised of enduring cognitive (beliefs), affective (evaluative emotional attachments), and behavior tendencies towards an object. As such, attitudes have a strong impact on consumer behavior. Attitudes can then be changed by altering one or more of the three components. Sponsorship seems to affect the affective component of an attitude by creating a positive association between the consumer’s sport team and the company’s product. However sponsorship can also affect the attitudinal cognitive component by altering brand beliefs/perceptions. It should be noted though that leveraging activities are helpful when dealing with cognitive changes. Regardless, the ultimate goal of corporate sponsorship is to change the entire attitude resulting in positive behaviors (e.g., shopping and purchases). Marketers strive to make positive connections with consumers via numerous “tools” such as advertising, public relations, promotional tie-ins, and sponsorship. At present corporate sport sponsorship is becoming a very prominent marketing vehicle. Sponsorship occurs when a corporation funds a program (e.g., television or radio) or event whereby the sponsoring corporation has promotional material included into the program or event. Originally, advertising for radio and T.V. programs occurred in the form of corporate sponsorship (Harvey, 2001). Over the years, corporate sponsorship has grown to become a huge promotional tool. For example, in the United Kingdom, sponsorship expenditures increased from 4 million dollars in 1970 to 107.5 million dollars in 1997. Likewise, sponsorship expenditures in the United States increased from 850 million dollars in 1985 to 8.7 billion dollars in 2000. In 1994, 4500 companies spent around 4.2 billion dollars on sponsorship rights in North America and 67 percent of the rights purchased were sport related (McDaniel, 1999). Anheuser-Busch and Phillip Morris are some of the more active companies involved with corporate sponsorship with each spending in excess of 135 million dollars on sponsorship in 1998. In particular, corporate sporting event sponsorship has become increasingly popular. For example, Coca Cola spent at least 650 million dollars on the Atlanta Olympic Games. MasterCard spent around 100 million dollars on the World Cup. North American corporations in 1999 invested 7.6 billion dollars in sponsorship with 67 percent of the money going on sports (Meenaghan, 2001; Madrigal, 2000)