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The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive model of high‐level sponsorship effects that works well in both sports and cultural sponsorship contexts.

The sponsorship model is tested using survey data from target market representative samples in two professional sports contexts and two cultural contexts.

The model works almost equally well in both contexts. Furthermore, a more parsimonious mediated effects model provides virtually the same results as the full model. Improving attitude towards the sponsorship and object equity are found to be the most important factors for improving sponsor equity. The model also confirms earlier research on the importance of sponsor sincerity and sponsor‐object fit in determining sponsorship effects.

The explained variance of the sincerity and object equity constructs was not as high as for other constructs in the model.

Sponsorship managers should pre‐test potential objects and sponsorship communications to make sure that constructs in the model such as fit, sincerity, sponsorship attitudes, and object equity are maximised to provide optimal sponsor equity.

The model combines constructs from various literatures into a comprehensive model of high‐level sponsorship effects. Furthermore, while most previous sponsorship research has used convenience samples and/or fictional and/or single sponsorship contexts, the comprehensive model tested here is shown to have high external validity by its consistently good performance in predicting sponsorship effects using four real sponsorships and representative samples.

Sponsorship has become an important marketing activity. However, research on the topic treats the sponsorship context, characterized according to the type of sponsored property and the social role of these properties, as a stable characteristic or as a dichotomous characteristic within empirical studies. Therefore, the authors outline a multi-level typology of the different types of sponsorship contexts to account for traditional types of sponsorship as well as emerging themes such as online sponsorship. The authors then propose an agenda for future research.

The authors conduct a general review of the sponsorship literature to synthesize established sponsorship types with newly emerging themes to develop a multi-level typology of sponsorship contexts and a research agenda.

The authors’ conceptual analysis revealed a typology of sponsorship contexts that captures both general and specific types of sports sponsorship, prosocial cause sponsorship, culture and community sponsorship, and media and programming content sponsorship.

The authors’ typology provides an organizing framework for future research focussing on different sponsorship contexts. However, the emergent categories still require further empirical testing. Therefore, the authors develop a set of questions to guide future research on the topic.

The authors’ typology outlines the different sponsorship contexts that should be considered by organizations that engage in sponsorship-linked marketing.

This paper provides a multi-level categorization of sponsorship contexts that integrates both traditional categories and newly emerging categories to better inform future research on situational differences in sponsorship.

The purpose of this study is to understand the occurrence, formation and magnitude of negative effects for sponsors of rival sports teams and to identify means to counteract negative sponsorship effects.

Surveys measure fans’ identification with their team as well as attitudes toward rival teams and their sponsors in a soccer context. An experiment introduces sponsorship communication activities that aim at mitigating negative sponsorship effects by shifting the focus of the sponsorship.

Results from surveys and experiments demonstrate that identification with a sports team negatively affects perceptions of a rival team, negative perceptions of a rival team negatively affect perceptions of its sponsors, this effect is stronger for fans with higher levels of team identification, companies can improve perceptions of rival team sponsors by shifting the focus of sponsorship-linked communication activities, but attenuating negative sponsorship effects is more difficult to achieve for fans with higher levels of identification with their team.

Further studies need to disentangle mitigating effects of framing sponsorship communication and investigate in greater depth conditions under which sponsorship leverage can emphasize specific social identities of sports fans and enhance the inclusiveness of fans’ self-categorization.

Companies can learn from this study how they can frame, design and use sponsorship communication activities to mitigate negative sponsorship effects in the context of rival-team sponsorship.

The study is one of the few studies addressing negative effects of sponsorship. In particular, the study provides first insights into how social identity theory, social categorization theory and framing theory work together with theories of image transfer in both the formation and the attenuation of negative sponsorship outcomes.

Sponsorships involving foreign brands are ubiquitous, but those involving a company from an animosity-evoking country can adversely affect rather than enhance domestic consumers' attitude towards the brand. This paper explains the mechanisms by which brand denigration occurs, introducing and validating a model of the animosity transfer process as well as considering if various framing and timing strategies attenuate or lead to adverse consumer responses.

Study 1 tests the animosity transfer model, utilizing a scenario in which English consumers respond to a German brand sponsoring the England soccer team. Study 2 assesses the generalizability of the model in the context of Indian consumers' responses to sponsorship of their cricket team by a Chinese company, and the extent to which an honest framing of the sponsorship choice through the announcement affects outcomes. Study 3 returns to an England–Germany country dyad, testing whether priming consumers with information about the sponsorship prior to a full announcement, attenuates or intensifies the impact of animosity on the studied outcomes.

The three studies demonstrate that when consumers learn of a sponsorship, it triggers an evaluation process in which the agonistic emotion (anger) they feel plays a pivotal role. More intense emotional appraisals weaken perceptions of sponsor-sponsee congruence, which together act as consecutive process variables mediating the relationship between animosity and sponsorship outcomes. Framing the sponsorship announcement with an honest justification for the partnership can improve outcomes but not amongst those with the highest animosity. Providing consumers with an advanced warning (preannouncement) of the sponsorship also amplifies consumers' unfavorable evaluations showcasing how difficult animosity is to manage in this context.

The animosity transfer model aids understanding of the mechanisms by which animosity affects brand attitude for foreign (out-group) sponsors. It identifies how animosity generates agonistic emotions and in turn weakens perceived fit between the sponsor and sponsee, leading to adverse consumer responses.

This paper aims to examine the common situation where the sponsor of an event is replaced and the impact of this situation on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward the new sponsor.

An original conceptual framework was developed to account for consumers’ reactions toward a new sponsor in the context of a sponsorship change, depending on whether the former and new sponsors are competitors, the duration of the relationship between the former sponsor and the event (tenure length), and the level of congruence between the new and the former sponsor and the event. This framework, based on consumer motive attributions, was tested by means of three completely randomized experiments.

The results of the first experiment show that if the former and new sponsors are competitors, consumers’ behavioral intentions toward the new sponsor are more positive if the former sponsor’s tenure duration was short. When the former and the new sponsors are not competitors, the former sponsor’s tenure duration does not impact behavioral intentions. The second experiment demonstrates that consumers’ altruistic motive attributions are the underlying mechanism that explains these effects. Finally, the third experiment identifies a boundary condition, that is, these effects occur only if the new and the former sponsor are congruent with the sponsored property.

This research has not considered the situation where the former and new sponsors have different levels of congruence with the event (e.g. when the former sponsor is congruent but the new sponsor is incongruent with the event) and has examined only sponsorship tenure durations of one versus 15 years.

Sponsorship managers learn that replacing a sponsor that was supporting the event for a short rather than a long period of time is more beneficial, but only if replacing a competitor that is congruent with the sponsored property. The reason is that such a replacement triggers more altruistic motive attributions compared with contexts where the former sponsor is not a competitor or incongruent with the sponsored property. Suggestions of sponsorship activation strategies known to increase perceptions of altruism are provided to enhance sponsorship effectiveness for new sponsors.

This study is the first to look at how consumer responses to a new sponsor vary depending on the former sponsor’s tenure length, competitor status and event congruency.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of event design principles in the creation and execution of effective experiential sponsorship activations (ESAs) by B2B brands and examine the challenges posed by the sponsorship context to sponsors seeking to create ESAs, with proposed potential solutions.

A case study of Cisco’s ESA activities as part of its London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games sponsorship activation is developed, drawing on interviews with key Cisco employees and secondary sources of data, both internal and external to Cisco.

Blending the event design principles typically associated with B2B events with those more commonly found in corporate hospitality or B2C events enables sponsors to address the cognitive needs of attendees as business representatives, while also satisfying their needs as individuals seeking more sensorial experiences. Effective use of event design principles, creative marketing and promotion, and collaboration with other sponsors allow brands to overcome constraints placed on them by the unpredictable nature of sponsorship, sponsorship rights agreements and the increased clutter in the sponsorship environment.

Existing knowledge on sponsorship activation is extended, drawing on principles of event design to offer a sponsor-focused perspective on the creation and execution of effective ESAs for B2B brands. Existing thinking around B2B event design is challenged and augmented when considering its application to ESA design.

Inter-sponsor collaboration and the blending of cognitive and sensorial elements of event design are important for sponsors seeking to create and deliver effective ESAs.

The paper draws on the event design literature to appraise the execution of ESA by B2B brands within the context of event sponsorship.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the following relationships in the Asian sports sponsorship context: first, the influence of self-congruity and perceived congruence on sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility, respectively; second, the influence of sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility on sponsor brand equity; and third, the mediating effect of sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility on the relationship that self-congruity and perceived congruence each have with sponsor brand equity.

A field study was conducted in Taiwan, where 410 questionnaires were collected from baseball fans of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (the local professional baseball league).

The findings support all of the hypotheses and reveal that self-congruity and perceived congruence leverage sponsor brand equity through sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility, respectively. Both sponsor brand identification and sponsor credibility partially mediate the relationship that self-congruity and perceived congruence each have with sponsor brand equity.

The findings of this study can assist sponsorship managers in realising how to leverage a sponsor brand equity.

The conceptual model investigated both direct and indirect (i.e. mediated) effects by providing different theoretical explanations to explore how self-congruity and perceived congruence leverage sponsor brand equity in the Asian sports sponsorship context.

This study explores the relationship between brand image and brand equity in the context of sports sponsorship. Keller's (1993, 2003) customer-based brand equity models are the conceptual inspiration for the research, with Faircloth, Capella, and Alford's (2001) conceptual model – adapted from the work of Aaker (1991) and Keller (1993) – the primary conceptual model. The study focuses on the sponsorship relationship between the New Zealand All Blacks and their major sponsor and co-branding partner, adidas. The sporting context for the study was the 2003 Rugby World Cup held in Australia. Data were collected from two independent samples of 200 respondents, utilizing simple random sampling procedures. A bivariate correlation analysis was undertaken to test whether there was any correlation between changes in adidas' brand image and adidas' brand equity as a result of the All Blacks' performance in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Results support the view that Keller (1993, 2003) proposes that brand image is antecedent to the brand equity construct. Results are also consistent with the findings of Faircloth et al. (2001) that brand image directly impacts brand equity.

The purpose of this study is to contrast athlete endorsement vs athlete sponsorship from a power imbalance perspective when a scandal strikes the athlete.

A first study was conducted with a probabilistic sample of 252 adult consumers where the type of brand–athlete relationship (endorsement or sponsorship) and the level of congruence between the two entities (low or high) were manipulated in a mixed experimental design. A second study with a probabilistic sample of 118 adult consumers was conducted to demonstrate that consumers perceive that the balance of power between the brand and the athlete is not the same in endorsement and sponsorship situations.

The results of the first study showed that when an athlete is in the midst of a scandal, the negative impact on the associated brand is stronger in the case of an endorsement than in the case of a sponsorship. However, this occurs only when the brand–athlete relationship is congruent. The results of the second study showed that the athlete’s power relative to the brand is greater in an endorsement than in a sponsorship context.

The findings suggest that a company that worries about the possibility that the athlete with whom it wants to build a relationship be eventually associated with some negative event (e.g. a scandal) should consider sponsorship rather than endorsement as a strategy.

This study is the first to compare the athlete endorsement and sponsorship strategies in general and the first to put forward the notion of power imbalance in brand–athlete partnerships, its impact on how the two entities are represented in consumers’ memory networks and the consequences on brand attitude when the athlete is associated with a negative event.

A sponsorship performance cycle of business-to-business (B2B) exchange is conceptualized, where distinct types of resources are invested by sponsoring firms into sponsored properties and the competitive success of those properties enhances returns to sponsors. While the latter return channel in this cycle is well-documented, the former investment channel has remained opaque. Recognizing this empirical missing link, this paper aims to illuminate the investment channel through a longitudinal analysis.

Based on 50 years of Formula One (F1) team and sponsor alliances, this study models the effects of three different sponsorship categories on team performance in the annual F1 constructors’ championship.

The results demonstrate that each incremental sponsor offering performance-based resources is associated with four additional team points in the championship, controlling for factors such as past success and team experience. Conversely, sponsors offering access to financial or operational resources have no competitive impact. This performance-based sponsor effect is illustrated in models of the current and following seasons.

In combination with related literature, this study substantiates a complete sponsorship performance cycle in the motorsports context.

The findings contribute an empirically-based strategy for sustainable sponsorship support that emphasizes acquisition of performance resources in the business-to-business exchange over operational or strictly financial alternatives.

While scholars have discerned that sponsors invest heterogeneous resources into sponsored properties, and the competitive success of those properties can enhance returns to sponsors, this study demonstrates that particular resources invested by sponsors are related to the property’s competitive success.