Lingering effects of sponsor transgression against a national fan base: the importance of respect in relationship management

ABSTRACT

Research on sport sponsorship–fan relationships rarely explores the duration of fans’ feelings towards a sponsor, even though research demonstrates that management of this relationship is crucial. In addition, little research in management, sponsorship, marketing, or public relations explores contexts in which sponsorship involves a national sports team that attracts significant patriotic sentiment. The purpose of this study was to address these absences by exploring the longevity of public responses to a sponsor transgression crisis. The results identify the central role played by perceptions of respect and disrespect in New Zealanders’ responses to a jersey-pricing crisis and the sponsor’s response to public criticisms. The results indicate that national team sponsors who explicitly galvanize intense feelings of patriotism need to understand and respect the national public’s emotional stake in their national team rather than narrowly pursuing sales or the bottom line. The study also highlights the importance of implementing respectful crisis management strategies during a crisis involving patriotic feelings.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Respect is an important but undervalued concept for sponsors of sports teams Foreign sponsors of national teams must respect fans’ national identity feelings.

• Fan perceptions of disrespect can cause damage to a sponsor’s reputation.

• Damage caused by a sponsor’s disrespectful transgression has enduring effects.

• Sponsors must understand they can only borrow, not own, national sport icons.

KEYWORDS:

• Respect
• sponsor behaviour
• relationship management
• crisis communication
• national identity
• rugby union

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ It is not the purpose of this paper to review the various elements or stages of the crisis. To better understand the extent of the crisis and the nature of the tensions between the various New Zealand publics and Adidas at the time of the crisis, see Desmarais and Wallace (2018).

² These pages included: https://www.facebook.com/groups/boycott.adidas.nz/(1,032 members) and https://www.facebook.com/Boycott-Adidas-196745527054060/(72 members).

³ This commercial was “designed to articulate Adidas’s understanding and respect for the historical legacy of the All Blacks” (Scherer & Jackson, 2007, p. 269). It showed former All Blacks captains pulling on (chronological versions of) previous All Blacks jerseys, finishing with the latest team captain wearing the brand new All Blacks jersey. The ad concluded with the tag line “The legacy is more intimidating than any opposition” as a way of reinforcing the brand value of respect for the jersey and promising to the New Zealand public that they were respecting the All Blacks tradition (Jackson et al., 2001; Motion et al., 2003).

⁴ Some research showed that contempt, anger, and disgust share commonalities and can be clustered together in a basic emotional category labelled “anger” (Hwang et al., 2008; Shaver et al., 1987). This study uses the combined term “anger”.

⁵ Fan identification is the level of psychological attachment felt by sports fans towards their favourite team (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003; Hunt et al., 1999; Kim & Kim, 2009; Wann, 1997). Thus, fans are individuals who use a sports team in order to maintain their self-concept; the more the team constitutes a part of their self-concept, the more they protect their relationship with the team and work to maintain it by, for instance, attending or watching matches in order to support their team and purchasing sponsored team products (Cornwell & Coote, 2005; Gwinner & Swanson, 2003; Hunt et al., 1999; Madrigal, 2000; Sutton et al., 1997).

⁶ The text read: In August of 2011, selected retailers released for sale the All Blacks Rugby World Cup supporter’s jersey for $220.00NZD. This price was $100.00NZD more than the same jersey on international websites. Adidas temporarily prevented these websites from selling the new All Blacks jerseys to customers in New Zealand. It was only after public outcry that Adidas lifted this restriction. Some local retailers then also reduced the price.