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The complementarity factor stipulates that a sponsorship leveraging strategy can lead to suboptimal consumer responses unless advertising complements, rather than reinforces, the nature of the event-sponsor relationship. Study 1 showed that the best strategy when the sponsor is an official product provider for the event is to leverage the sponsorship through advertisements that emphasise its overall image and value as opposed to its products. However, the reverse is true when the sponsor is an official event partner, where a product-oriented sponsorship leveraging yields the best outcomes. Study 2 replicated the complementarity factor effect using a different event and different set of stimulus brands. It showed that consumer attributions, with respect to the sponsor's motivations, are the key mediating psychological mechanism.

Selecting the most effective leveraging methods is crucial for national Olympic sponsors, who have limited time to achieve their sponsorship objectives. This paper presents the Optimal Leveraging Activity (OLA) model, which suggests that leveraging activities for high involvement products/services should primarily focus on enhancing brand image, knowledge and involvement, while for low involvement products/services a more sales-oriented approach is favourable. The leveraging activities of four Grand National Sponsors of the Athens Olympic Games illustrate the differences.

Sponsorship activities have become a mainstream component of the marketing mix. As such, there are attempts to make these activities more effective by leveraging them using advertising, sales promotions, or in an increasing number of cases, through cause related marketing (CRM). This paper explores the relationship between sponsorship and CRM and identifies the potential opportunities that arise from leveraging sponsorships using CRM. The paper also examines the limitations of CRM as a leveraging strategy, puts forward a typology for categorising CRM and identifies some future research issues related to CRM‐leveraging of sponsorship.

The study presented in this article aims to examine the impact of the leveraging of three distinct ambush marketing strategies that are under-researched in the literature: Promotion, Event, and Broadcast.

An experiment was conducted where the type of ambush strategy was manipulated (i.e. Promotion, Event, Broadcast, no ambush) as well as the market dominance of the sponsor (i.e. dominant or non-dominant) and the congruence level between the event and the sponsor (i.e. high or low congruence).

Ambush strategies' impacts differ widely. The Broadcast strategy is the most harmful to the identification of the actual sponsor; the Event strategy favors the identification of the pseudo-sponsor as the sponsor, while the Promotion strategy is both harmful to the actual sponsor and beneficial for the pseudo-sponsor. Furthermore, although dominant brands benefit more from their sponsorships, they are more affected by an ambush than non-dominant brands.

Only one sponsor and one pseudo-sponsor were considered at a time. In addition, digital media were not investigated as vectors of ambush marketing. Further research where multiple sponsors and pseudo-sponsors are leveraging their associations to an event, using both off and on-line media, needs to be undertaken.

Against the Promotion strategy sponsors need to create not only strong but also unique associations with the event. The Event strategy can be circumvented with preemptive smaller scale events. Exclusive access to the program broadcast for event sponsors can protect against pseudo-sponsors.

This study is the first to provide empirical evidence regarding the impact of the Promotion, Event, and Broadcast strategies. Previous studies had focused almost exclusively on another strategy: the airing of commercials by pseudo-sponsors during event broadcast against which most sponsors are now effectively protected.

Mega events offer a rich context for relationship marketing research, but no known research has investigated relationship leveraging among clients during mega events. This paper compares relationship leveraging by an Australian state government department and a private sector banking firm during Rugby World Cup 2003. A qualitative case study method highlighted a less structured approach to public sector relationship leveraging. Different timeframes for the relationship lifecycle, as well as philosophical, environmental and operational factors, impact upon event-based relationship marketing. Future comparative research is recommended.

Two studies were undertaken with the aim of determining the nature and prevalence of exposure to alcohol sponsorship communications associated with sport. Study 1 reports a content analysis of alcohol sponsors' leveraging across popular sporting events. Study 2 examines alcohol sponsors' activation in social media. A high proportion of alcohol sponsorship messages containing content appealing to young adult drinkers are revealed across multiple media. Events and policy implications are addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on sponsorship‐linked marketing and to present a set of research propositions.

The approach to the research propositions was to explore the existing literature to discover areas where opportunities for further research exist.

The authors propose that not only does sponsorship‐linked marketing influence attitudes towards the sponsor, but that the relationship is that of an S‐shaped curve where the incremental impact of sponsorship is slight for brands with very little or very strong attitudes established towards the brand. The most dramatic influence that sponsorship‐linked marketing will have is for those sponsors with a moderate amount of established brand attitude. The authors also present an argument that extreme congruity or extreme incongruity will drive brand awareness more dramatically than an expected level of sponsor‐property congruity, thus suggesting a U‐shaped relationship between awareness and congruency. Moreover, while an extremely incongruent partnership may gain widespread attention, it is unlikely to positively influence an emotional or behavioral response for either the property or sponsor.

The majority of the previous literature regarding sponsorship‐linked marketing proposed or assumed a linear relationship between current brand attitudes and the impact of a sponsorship. This paper suggests that this relationship is actually non‐linear and is, in fact, an S‐shaped relationship. Further, while congruency was believed to be linearly related to awareness, this paper proposes that the association between awareness and congruency is a U‐shaped phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to provide meaningful information about sponsorship management in state-owned enterprises.

Qualitative and quantitative data from Germany are analyzed in a case study approach using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (Fs/QCA)—an analytic method relevant for describing configurational patterns of causal factors.

The case study of sponsorships from state-owned enterprises in Germany reveals four alternative configurations of top-management support, sponsee prominence, standardized processes, and sponsorship leverage explaining sponsor satisfaction.

The paper combines two underrepresented but important aspects of sponsorship research, i.e. sponsorship management in state-owned enterprises, in an empirical study. Further, present study adds to sponsorship literature by pointing to fuzzy-set Fs/QCA as a relatively novel method that can capture the phenomenon of complex causality.

Advertising and sponsorship are both key areas of concern to management scholars. In the dynamic and sophisticated market world in which integrated marketing communication strategies play roles of increasing importance, this paper reflects on the extent to whcih sponsorship has moved away from being a philanthropic approach to communication and has taken a key role as a strategic approach to marketing (and thus corporate) strategies. The article note the problem prestented by the lack of a clear theoretical definition, considers the strategic objectives that result in sponsorship programmes, reflects on the difficulties (or downright lack) of measuring the success of sponsorship programmes (noting that organizations will judge success in different ways), reflects on the controversial aspects of some sponsorship programmes and examines groups at which sponsorship might be targeted. It concludes that sponsorship has a significant (some would say major) role to play in increasing sales, enhancing corporate image and leveraging employee morale. It concludes by suggesting significant areas that merit further research in this greatly neglected academic area.

The purpose of this study is to examine the application of sports sponsorship in China, particularly to gain some understanding of the benefits as perceived by corporate sponsors. In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 sports sponsorship experts in China. The results provide insights into how sports sponsorship works in this emerging market.