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This study aims to examine the outcomes of consumer perceptions of event social responsibility (ESR) for a sponsored community event and its sponsor portfolio (i.e. group of sponsoring companies). It integrates a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR with extant findings to provide a comprehensive model that is theoretically grounded in social identity theory, congruency theory and image and affect transfer.

The authors test the theoretical framework via a field study of attendees (n = 879) at a sponsored, large-scale sporting event that provided ESR through health and wellness education and activities. A field study is especially appropriate because of the experiential nature of sponsored events and ESR.

Fan identification with the sport is an antecedent of ESR, and motivation to attend the event’s supporting activities moderates the relationship between fan identification and ESR. High event-sponsor fit strengthens the relationship between ESR and word-of-mouth and between ESR and sponsor patronage.

This study illuminates the role of ESR as a key driver of outcomes for events and for their sponsor portfolio. Future research should investigate ESR in contexts other than sport and use longitudinal data that include actual purchases. It should further examine the construct of sponsor portfolio because so many events have multiple sponsors

Event sponsorship offers an attractive platform for brands to demonstrate good corporate citizenship; therefore, marketers should consider ESR as a key criterion when selecting events to sponsor. Marketers should sponsor events with high event-sponsor portfolio fit to enhance the outcomes related to ESR for both sponsors and events. This research generally underscores the importance of creating auxiliary, interactive experiences for event attendees.

ESR entails that events should contribute or give back to the local communities and organizations in a charitable way to both help give back socially and to maximize success as measured by electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and sponsor patronage toward brands sponsoring the event.

This research identifies a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR and integrates them with extant findings to create a comprehensive, theoretically grounded model. It investigates outcomes for both the event and its sponsor portfolio, in contrast to the scholarship that tends to focus on the (title) sponsor.

Given the strong interest among services marketing practitioners in sponsoring events, this study illustrates how events and sponsorships synergistically facilitate and deepen consumer relationships by connecting service brands with consumers' passions. Structural equation modeling is used to test a congruity theory-based framework via a field study conducted at a professional cycling event. The tested model holds for two service brands operating at different levels of sponsorship. The results demonstrate how the combination of consumers' attitudes toward the event, knowledge of the sponsor brand and their level of activity in the event domain influence their assessments of event-sponsor fit. Interestingly, the findings indicate that, in the context of a community-based sports event, the title sponsor did not experience any discernable advantage of sponsorship, despite its elevated position as a sponsor and higher brand equity.

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.

This paper identifies factors that support and hinder image transfer in sports sponsorships. It develops a framework of drivers of image transfer and tests the proposed hypotheses empirically at a large sporting event with a number of different sponsors. The results suggest that event-sponsor fit has a positive impact and is the main driver of the strength of image transfer. Event involvement also positively affects image transfer, but the magnitude of this effect is lower. Sponsorship exposure does not have a significant influence. However, there is an interaction between event-sponsor fit and sponsorship exposure, indicating that higher exposure leads to an increased image transfer if the fit between event and sponsor is high. Implications of results for the choice and design of sport sponsorships are discussed and further areas of research identified.

The purpose of this study is to explore how event volunteers, athletes and onsite spectators perceive the impact of sport event sponsorship on future purchase intentions of the event sponsor brand.

The research problem was based on propositions by Novais and Arcodia (2013) and proposes relationships between sponsor–event fit, brand attitude, perceived brand quality and sponsor brand purchase intentions. Data were collected from 352 Greek sport event consumers from the 2013 Classic Marathon event, in Athens, Greece, using onsite surveys targeting non-sponsor brand consumer spectators, volunteers and athletes.

The results reveal that sponsor–event fit indirectly influenced sponsor brand purchase intentions via brand attitude and brand quality across all three groups. However, the fit did not directly influence perceived brand quality of the sponsor across all three groups and directly influenced purchase intentions of the athlete group.

Because of the duration of the event (one day), the sample sizes were not very large. In addition, the study was delimited on one sponsor from a single sport event. Therefore, the findings need to be tested with larger samples and additional sponsors and events to arrive to more robust conclusion about the purchase intention formation and its antecedents across multiple sport event consumer groups.

This study explores the power of sponsor–event fit among non-consumers of the sponsor brand and how the “interface” of event consumption through the lenses of three groups, namely, volunteer, spectator and athlete, influences brand attitude, perceived brand quality and sponsor brand purchase intentions.

This study aims to examines how renaming music festivals with brand names affect festivalgoers' purchase intention in a Southwestern European country.

This study uses 291 festivalgoers' responses attending five music festivals in a Southwestern European country with structural equation modeling.

The study shows that the brand experience at the music festival directly influences brand attitude, which in turn positively influences purchase intention. The results also show the direct impact of event-sponsor fit on brand image transfer (BIT), positively affecting purchase intention.

The study examined only five music festivals in a Southwestern European country. Further studies can investigate multiple music festivals in different geographic regions. Four of the five sponsoring brands of the music festivals are telecommunication operators. Also, this study did not explore the differences in the effect of destination image, artist image and festivalgoers' attachment to music festivals.

The brand sponsorship of music festivals should ensure the event-sponsor fit to impact BIT and purchase intention positively. A synergy between events and sponsors must be created to involve consumers with the brands.

This study uses congruity theory in a music festival setting. The investigation is unique as it is conducted at five music festivals in a Southwestern European country.

Sporting events usually attract corporate sponsors because of the promise of easy, wide-reaching promotion of their brands through association with the event. This study investigates the brand recall and brand preferences of Portuguese citizens in relation to the sponsors of the UEFA Football Championship finals, Euro 2004. A questionnaire was carried out immediately after the event. A structural equation model with latent variables is estimated and managerial policy implications are derived.

The main aim of this study is to develop a framework of brand knowledge transfer through sponsorship for sponsors within an insurance industry in South Korea. To this end, this study explores: how pre-event brand knowledge and perceived sponsor–event fit contribute to post-event brand knowledge and if and how consumers’ attitudes toward insurance agents play a role as a moderator in the model. Brand knowledge is examined in terms of brand awareness and corporate image.

Using a paper-and-pencil survey method, data were gathered from consumers (n = 330) who participated in a parenting education program in which an insurance company partnered with a baby food manufacturer in South Korea. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results confirm the occurrence of brand knowledge transfer for sponsors via sponsorship. Pre-event brand awareness and corporate image affect post-event brand awareness and corporate image, respectively, while perceived event–sponsor fit affects both attributes of post-event brand knowledge. Further, consumer attitude toward sales agents partially moderates brand knowledge transfer.

Because the data focused on a single segment of sponsorship events in the financial service industry in South Korea, the results must be carefully applied to other forms of sponsorship, industries and cultures.

This study highlights the effectiveness of sponsorship in the financial services industry. By aligning sponsorship events with sponsors’ characteristics and managing their brand knowledge, companies can maximize brand knowledge transfer contributing to brand equity.

This study identifies consumers’ pre-extant attitudes toward sales agents as a moderator that controls brand knowledge transfer, the pre-event and post-event corporate image relationship, specifically.

This study examines the impact of sport-induced emotions on spectators' purchase intentions towards event sponsors. Spectators who experience positive emotions evoked by a home team victory are found to exhibit stronger purchase intentions towards sponsors regardless of the sponsor's ability to improve spectator emotions. Those who experience negative emotions following home team defeat show heightened purchase intentions towards sponsors perceived capable of improving their negative feelings. Purchase intention decreases when sponsors cannot assist in upwardly managing the negative feelings of spectators. Theoretical and managerial implications for sponsors of spectator sports are provided.

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.