Brand Images Causal Relationships in a Multiple Sport Event Sponsorship Context: Developing Brand Value through Association with Sponsees

ABSTRACT

Sport sponsorship represents a significant marketing tool contributing to the development of involved stakeholders' brand value. Although single sponsorship continues to be the focus of research attention and ongoing improvement in understanding, the phenomenon of multiple sponsorship is, by contrast, poorly understood. This study attempts to examine consumers' perceptions of brand images in this system. It analyses causal relations between those sponsored and a given sponsor within the framework of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany. The sample included French students: 188 men and 101 women. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to validate the empirical research and revealed that sponsor brand image dimensions can significantly influence sponsees' (the sponsored entities') brand image dimensions. Moreover, our model demonstrated causal relationships between the sponsored entity's brand image dimensions in a multiple sponsorship context. This study has both academic and managerial implications, thus sport managers and marketers should consider sponsorship as a stakeholders' interactive system which constitutes the complex reality of multiple sponsorship.

Notes

1. Preliminary balance, unpublished document given by M. San Pietro, Finance & Legal Managing Director, TOROC; interviewed by Piervincenzo Bondonio and Nadia Campaniello OMERO.

2. He was injured but he figured on Adidas' advertising campaign regarding the 2006 World Cup Germany (see the section on Contextual Setting).