Implicit and explicit attitudes to sponsors and ambushers

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that unconscious processing of sponsorship messages predominates over conscious processing. Ambushers may profit from this because sport spectators are often not aware that brands associate themselves with events without purchasing sponsorship rights. This research aims to assess differences in implicit and explicit measures of the success of a sponsorship strategy compared with ambushing. Study 1 uses the Implicit Association Test to show that the implicit brand-event linkage, measured via behavioral reaction times that cannot be cognitively controlled, is closer for sponsors (versus ambushers) of global sporting events. Study 2 shows that sponsors (versus ambushers) generate higher long-term brand awareness. Spectators' attitude to the protection of sponsorship rights is determined by both attitude to commercialization in sports and attitude to event organizers; however, it does not negatively affect explicit brand attitudes to ambushers. The study derives theoretical and practical implications for both sponsorship and ambush marketing strategies.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• Implicit Association Test
• ambush marketing
• sponsorship

Notes

1. An example for a somatic marker that may have influenced older German consumers’ implicit memory is the role of Adidas in the FIFA World Cup 1954, where Germany unexpectedly won the final against Hungary with the help of Adolf Dassler's (the company‘s founder) football shoes. This reward is stored in the internal memory, related to the brand, and may still today – Adidas is a partner sponsor of this event – explain consumers’ buying behavior and their reaction to sponsorship messages.

2. Joga Bonito means ‘play beautifully’ in Portuguese. It was implemented as a social network service and created by Nike and Google. Burger King engaged the German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and offered a special King Kahn menu, showed commercials on TV, and launched various online advertising campaigns during the events in 2004 and 2006. How You Football is the name of Pepsi's ambush marketing campaign with various famous players as celebrity endorsers (David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Cesc Fabregas, and Lionel Messi).

3. Shani and Sandler (1998) and Johar et al. (2006) provide evidence that ambushers’ campaigns trigger some confusion for consumers about the sponsorship. Long-term engagements in sponsorships may prevent this. FIFA, for example, classifies their sponsors into three categories: FIFA partners, FIFA World Cup sponsors, and national supporters. FIFA aims to develop long-term relationships with brands – especially with their partners who own rights to a wide range of activities and exclusivity in marketing communication tools (FIFA, 2009b). An examination of the brands that sponsored the FIFA World Cups in 2002, 2006, and 2010 reveals that 15 brands sponsored either two or all three events; only 7 brands sponsored only one event (this mainly includes brands that have historical roots in the host countries such as NTT, Deutsche Telekom, or MTN). These figures indicate that the brands seek continuity in their sponsorship engagement.

4. It should be noted that the goal of the studies was not to compare long-term sponsorships with short-term sponsorships. However, empirical evidence would be needed to substantiate the claim that implicit attitudes are more favorable for long-term (versus short-term) sponsorships. Previous research shows that explicit evaluations of brands differ between highly and lowly committed sponsors (Menon & Kahn, 2003).

5. The means of the three variables under consideration are M=2.27 (±1.13) for the item ‘It is exaggerated how well the official sponsors are protected in the context of the World and European Championships’ (reversely coded), M=2.95 (±1.12) for the item ‘Protection of the official sponsors of the World and European Championships is highly necessary to finance the events’ and M=3.02 (±1.10) for the item ‘I think it is right that the sponsorship rights of official sponsors are well protected’ (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree). This suggests that reactance to the use of ambush marketing is low to moderate in consumers.