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The use of sport celebrities for product endorsements in marketing communications vehicles is not new but there is limited literature on the increasing use by contemporary corporations of athletes with questionable or “negative” reputations. This paper raises questions about a seemingly cyclical trend and suggests marketers may continue this activity despite consumer and journalistic criticism. An explanation of the behavioral response to a 'controversial' endorsers' image (relative to the perceptions held by a particular demographic segment) and the opportunity for that relationship to translate favorably for the associated brand, is also discussed.

While sports sponsorship has attracted strong interest and increasing investment from marketing professionals, the literature seldom investigates empirically the process by which sports sponsorship decisions are made. Using a survey of sponsorship decision makers in North America and Australia, presents a number of interesting differences with respect to the sponsorship practices of the two samples. Examines the manner in which corporations integrate sponsorship into the broader marketing function at different levels of the organizational structure, and their inclination to do so. Considers managerial implications and the directions which future research in this area should take.

The increasingly important role played by sponsorship in the marketing mix has given rise to the view that it should be considered a strategic activity with the potential to generate a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. This paper extends that line of argument through the development of a conceptual model of the sponsorship – competitive advantage relationship. In particular, it argues that two levels of competitive advantage need to be considered, namely the competitive advantage of the sponsorship and competitive advantage in the market. Critical to attaining an advantage in the competitive world of sponsorship is the deployment of a range of organisational resources to support the sponsorship investment. A series of research propositions are advanced showing the relative importance of different organisational resources. Effectively resourced sponsorships generate a competitive advantage in the “market” for sponsorships, which in turns leads to competitive advantage and superior performance in product markets. The implications for research and practice are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

Viral marketing draws heavily on the success of a few mythic campaigns. However, the viral metaphor limits previous perspectives as to why consumers engage with content and importantly, why they pass it on. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The authors explore why consumers engaged with Kraft’s “How do you love your Vegemite?” campaign using multiple sources of evidence including interviews, blog post comments, and firm market research.

The choice to engage with content is driven by consumers’ desire for self-authentication, in particular the desire to express one’s identity through an authenticating act, and express membership of a collective via an authoritative performance. In so doing, the authors identify the limits of adopting an epidemiological metaphor for campaigns reliant on consumer agency.

This study is unique because it proposes an alternative focus to a fundamental metaphor and has both conceptual and practical value.

There is little empirical research that examines the effects of marketing orientation on the two most important relationship marketing concepts, namely trust and commitment. In this paper, the sponsorship relationship is the focus of an empirical investigation aimed at uncovering the potential effect of market orientation, exhibited by both parties of the sponsorship dyad, upon trust and commitment. By selecting the leading sponsorship property in Australia, the Australian Football League, the majority of key Australian sponsors were included in this study, allowing the authors to draw managerial implications of direct relevance to other sponsors and properties aiming to secure long lasting sponsorship relationships.

This paper examines the lobbying behaviour of UK managers who commented on Accounting Standard Board proposals to re‐introduce full provision deferred taxation accounting. Although there were no direct cash‐flow implications associated with these proposals, they had the potential to affect a company’s reported net income and revenue reserves. Using published comments and financial statements data, the paper tests: (a) the conventional positive accounting theory gearing hypothesis, using debt/equity ratios and (b) a new dividend hypothesis that is presented in the paper. The findings did not provide support for the gearing hypothesis and are therefore consistent with recent work of various other authors. However, the new dividend hypothesis was supported and the paper therefore suggests that the potential impact that an accounting treatment has on the revenue reserves of a company, and thus its dividend paying capacity, is a plausible reason for observed lobbying behaviour in the UK.

Corporate managers often invest in sponsorship as a means of associating a firm, its name or its brands, with a particular sport or event. The strength of that association should therefore be a measure of sponsorship success. In this study, four consecutive years of data collected at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix were used to examine the issue, based on brand recall/association and memory decay as a surrogate indicator of the strength of association. From the literature, several factors were hypothesised to influence positively the strength of brand association and three out of four were confirmed as determinants of this performance indicator. The implications of these findings are considered in the light of sponsorship management practices.

Using an ecological model of child participation and drawing on newsletter data from schools across the United States of America (USA), this chapter statistically explores five state factors linked with school protests against gun violence: (1) children’s neighbourhood opportunity; (2) race/ethnicity; (3) voter preference for either a Republican or a Democratic president; (4) child participation policies; and (5) gun laws/violence/ownership. The chapter explores factors linked to both student participation in protests and student nonparticipation in protests that take place at their schools. Three factors were found to be associated with participation and nonparticipation: children’s neighbourhood opportunity, voters’ preference, and participation policies. Findings suggest that Democratic-voting states, mediated by education opportunity, predict the frequency of student protests against gun violence. In Republican-voting states, where education opportunity does not mediate the frequency of school protests, students still organised and participated in protests but to a lesser extent. In addition, states with high overall children’s neighbourhood opportunity and voting student education board members are highly likely to have non-protesting students in schools with protests. The chapter presents five conclusions from these results for the positive and negative exercise of child participation rights and considers what further multilevel explorations can be done to further test the framework employed for this analysis.