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Sponsorship can be an effective strategic marketing tool yet it attracts criticism as a corporate indulgence shaped by the personal interests of senior executives. While research into the outcomes of sponsorship is extensive, the practices involved in sponsorship selections have been largely ignored. Today, sponsorship selection in large corporations is recommended to be a formal process involving evaluation criteria aligned to corporate policy and strategic priorities. Yet, in reality, corporate culture influences sponsorship selection, as do sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and motivations. The purpose of this paper is to explore sponsorship selection practices and to consider the interplay between corporate culture and sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations. The findings provide not only new interpretation of the literature but also reveal a detailed picture of sponsorship selection.

This exploratory qualitative study comprises in-depth interviews with senior sponsorship managers from eight large Australian companies that use sponsorship as a strategic marketing tactic.

This study concludes that the sponsorship selection process is strongly influenced by corporate culture as well as the sponsorship manager’s beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations.

This study contributes to the sponsorship management research stream by providing important insights into under-researched factors that influence the sponsorship selection process.

Global spending on sponsorship continues to rise and many companies now establish portfolios containing a range of sponsorships across sport, arts and cause-related activities. Yet a lack of practical methodologies for the measurement and comparison of sponsorship performance within a portfolio context remains a challenge. Sponsors often rely solely on proxy measures for brand exposure drawn from advertising. These do not capture the higher-level outcomes of sponsorship awareness and goodwill transfer, often attributed to sponsorship as a ‘halo effect’. This paper aims to present a matrix tool that combines consumer awareness of and goodwill for a sponsorship so the halo effects of sponsorships within a portfolio can be quantified and compared.

This archival analysis study is based on six years of brand tracking data (comprising some 15,500 consumer surveys) supplied by a large Australian company. A sponsorship portfolio matrix is developed to measure the halo effect.

This study demonstrates that a sponsorship’s halo effect can be measured and comparisons can be drawn across sponsorship types within a portfolio. The study shows that despite the significantly higher levels of brand awareness achieved by commercially oriented professional sports sponsorship types, community relations oriented sponsorship types achieve a greater halo effect because of their more positive impact on the sponsor’s brand attributes.

The matrix provides a valuable tool by which sponsorships can be compared, evaluated and managed to meet the longer-term brand and marketing objectives of a company.

This editorial aims to organise the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into seven ServCollab service research themes to provide a way forward for service research that improves human and planetary life.

A conceptual approach is used that draws on observations from the scholarly experience of the editors.

This editorial offers seven research themes for service researchers: services that enable the WELL-BEING of the human species; services that provide OPPORTUNITY for all humans; services that manage RESOURCES for all humans; ECONOMIC services for work and growth for all humans; services from INSTITUTIONS that offer fair and sustainable living for all humans; service ecosystems with the PLANET; and COLLABORATION services for sustainable development partnerships.

Service scholars are urged to pursue collaborative research that reduces suffering, improves well-being and enables well-becoming for the sustainability and prosperity of Planet Earth.

This editorial provides service scholars with a new framework synthesising the SDGs into research themes that help focus further service research.

Social marketing has come of age. Today, we are a legitimate discipline with a wealth of empirical evidence that manifestly demonstrates the ability to bring about behaviour changes for the greater good. As social marketers, we are rapidly expanding the horizons, with a growing interest in the labyrinth of systems that influence the chosen social causes. We have become brave and bold, but is the study now running the risk of romanticising the work and ourselves? It is time to recalibrate, to take stock and to address the elephants in the social marketing room.

Expanding on my Change 2020 Driving Systems Change panel presentation, this viewpoint article is a provocation, a think piece, centred around two observed phenomena.

The first phenomenon observed is the many identities of the contemporary social marketer – hackers, change agents, heroes, political power brokers and master puppeteers. The second phenomenon observed is the accelerated interest in systems thinking for which the author propose three preconditions are needed – an awareness of the system(s); an acknowledgement that this study is a part of the system(s) and the need to decolonise social marketing.

This article poses challenging questions but offers no solutions as to how social marketers should, could or do square up our blind spots, make peace with our paradoxes or unblinker the views. Not only would it be naïve to proffer solutions but it would also stifle the growth of you, the reader, in your journey to becoming an integrated person and woke social marketing professional.

The purpose of this paper is to assist service management academics and providers of positional services (i.e. services that provide status attainment benefits to consumers) to better understand how the envy reflex of outperformed consumers operates as an endemic emotional theme that, if properly managed, can be harnessed to improve consumer engagement outcomes.

The objectives of the research were addressed via two quantitative studies. In a preliminary descriptive study, the types of services consumers classify as “positional” were identified (n=351) and a measure of consumer perceived positional value was developed (n=179). In the main study, a 2 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design was adopted using a sample of positional service consumers (n=265) with the data analysed via SEM and two-way MANCOVA.

The main study found a significant mediation effect of the envy reflex on the relationship between consumer perceived positional value and the overall likelihood of an engagement intention for outperformed positional service consumers. In addition, specific engagement intentions were predicted for outperformed consumers with a high envy reflex after considering how deserving they perceived a superior performer to be.

This research contributes to the burgeoning scholarly interest in the envy reflex as a consumption emotion by demonstrating its influence on consumer engagement outcomes. The research also demonstrates how tactics informed by appraisal theories of emotion can be used to manage endemic emotional themes in service environments to improve engagement outcomes.

This paper is part of the Special Issue series Improving Life on Planet Earth – A Call to Action for Service Research to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This paper aims to provide the groundwork for Service Research Theme 2 – services that provide OPPORTUNITY for all humans. Service Research Theme 2 comprises SDG4, quality education; SDG5, gender equality; and SDG10, reduced inequalities and seeks to mobilize ServCollab’s aspirations to reduce human suffering, improve human well-being and enable well-becoming.

A scoping review appraising existing service research related to SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 was conducted, establishing interlinkages, identifying patterns within each SDG and then assembling a research agenda for service researchers.

The scoping review identifies 18 patterns in service research (six patterns per SDG) pertaining to Service Research Theme 2. Common patterns among the SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 included underrepresentation, consumer-centricity, the absence of explicit SDG linkages, the predominance of one theoretical anchor and the preference for quantitative studies, particularly surveys. Overall, the scoping review found that service research related to Service Research Theme 2 is patchy in that it is overdeveloped in some topics, methodologies and methods yet underdeveloped or silent in others.

The high-level research problem of Service Research Theme 2 is as follows: How have services provided OPPORTUNITY for all humans? This paper analyzes patterns in service research and, from these patterns, assembles a research agenda that sparks and guides further research.

The research question addressed is whether an event portfolio analysis rooted in financial portfolio theory can yield meaningful insights to complement two approaches to event portfolios. The first approach is extrinsic and rooted in economic impact analysis where events need to demonstrate a financial return on investment. In the second approach events are valued ally, with every event having inherent value and the entire portfolio being valued for its synergistic effects and contribution to social and cultural goals. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Data from visitors to four events in the Sunshine Coast region of Australia are analyzed to illustrate key points, including the notion of “efficient frontier.”

Conceptual development includes an examination of extrinsic and intrinsic perspectives on portfolios, ways to define and measure value, returns, risk, and portfolio management strategies. In the conclusions a number of research questions are raised, and it is argued that the two approaches to value event portfolios can be combined.

Only four events were studied, in one Australian local authority. The sample of residents who responded to a questionnaire was biased in terms of age, education and gender.

Authorities funding events and developing event portfolios for multiple reasons can benefit from more rigorous analysis of the value created.

This analysis and conceptual development advances the discourse on portfolio theory applied to event management and event tourism.

Building and maintaining strong customer relationships has been suggested as a means for gaining a competitive advantage. Despite this, few studies have examined the link between written communication and relationship perceptions. Yet understanding the establishment of this link is a necessary precursor for the development of concrete relationship management strategies. This paper aims to test the effectiveness of well‐known and cited written communication elements in enhancing relationship perceptions. The paper specifically seeks to identify which elements of written communication are relationally conducive by examining the impact of these elements on customers' perceptions of the relationship they have with their service provider.

The paper reports the results of an empirical survey of 422 distance education customers in which customers were asked to assess relationally conducive written communication elements and the importance of these elements on relationship development.

It was found that four components of written communication – message clarity, aesthetics, accuracy and physical features – were perceived by customers as relational cues that influence their relationship with the service organisation.

These findings are of value to service managers developing written communication that is conducive to relationship development. The contribution of the paper is that it empirically establishes a link between written communication and service relationships; an untested link that has been presumed in the literature. This basic empirical foundation is a necessary first step in the development of this research area.

Country‐of‐origin (COO) effects are concerned with buyers' opinions regarding the relative qualities of goods and services produced in various countries. It is the aim of this study to test a framework for investigating the match/mismatch between consumers' product category and country image perceptions. Specifically, the paper seeks to examine whether consumers perceive all products emanating from a particular country favourably simply because consumers associate favourable attributes with that country or whether this effect is specific to particular product categories.

The study employed a structured survey administered through mall intercepts. Data were collected from a sample of 188 Australian consumers. While Australian consumers were the focal country of study, countries selected for evaluation included Japan, Korea, the USA, Canada, China and New Zealand. The products selected included beer, automobiles, watches, leather shoes and stereos.

The findings suggest that when a strong favourable match exists between country and product image then COO will positively influence product evaluation and willingness to buy. Conversely, when an unfavourable mismatch is evident COO would negatively influence consumers' product evaluations and willingness to buy.

Given that most products originating in foreign countries are subject to country stereotyping or image effects, it is important for marketers and retailers to understand and manage the potential impact of COO effects. This study tests a framework that can be applied by marketers to determine the effect of product and country matches in relevant domestic or international markets.