Conceptualizing the Dissolution of a Social Marketing Sponsorship

ABSTRACT

Social marketing organizations are embracing sponsorship as part of their external communications strategy. Like commercial sponsorships, these relationships may terminate early. We develop a case study of drink driving transgressions by professional footballers that underpinned the termination of their team's sponsorship with a road safety organization. The ensuing model links corporate credibility, reputational interdependence, and exchange theory to sponsorship. Accordingly, we assert these social marketing sponsorships are susceptible to player behaviors that contradict the key messages of the social marketing organization. Through an explicit analogy development and mapping process, we show this process is analogous to at least one form of ambush marketing. The validity of the model and ambush marketing analogy is confirmed by an international sample of practitioners and academics.

终止社会营销赞助的概念化

社会营销组织将赞助作为对外传播战略的一部分。与商业赞助一样༌此种赞助关系也可提前终止。我们对职业足球运动员酒后驾驶违规行为进行了个案研究༌道路安全组织依此终止了对其所在球队的赞助。笔者提出的模型将公司信誉、信誉相互依存和交换理论与赞助关系联系在一起。我们认为༌如果被赞助者的行为与社会营销赞助组织的核心理念背道而驰༌赞助关系就会受到影响。 我们详述了研究中的类比和映射过程༌结论是此过程至少与埋伏营销的一种形式相类似。我们的研究模型以及埋伏营销类比的效度得到了国际上业内人士和学术界的认可。

KEYWORDS:

• Interorganisational
• termination
• ambush marketing
• analogy
• transgressions

关键词:

• 跨组织的;终止;埋伏营销;类比;跨界

View correction statement:

Corrigendum

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geoff Dickson

Geoff Dickson (Ph.D., Griffith University) is with the Department of Management, Sport and Tourism at La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia). His research interests include sport governance, interorganisational networks and consumer behavior. His work has been published in such journals as Journal of Sport Management, Sport Management Review, and European Sport Management Quarterly.

Norm O'Reilly

Norm O'Reilly (Ph.D., Carleton University) is a Fox Professor of Business in College of Business at Ohio University. Dr O'Reilly's research interests include social marketing, sponsorship, sport finance and mega-events.

Matthew Walker

Matthew Walker (Ph.D., Florida State University) is an Associate Professor in Department of Health & Kinesiology at Texas A&M University. Dr Walker's research interests include social and environmental responsibility, citizenship behaviors, and philanthropic practices of organizations.