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Sponsorship as a marketing tool is developing and growing quicker than any other marketing discipline. Increased media opportunities, in particular the Internet and Digital TV and sponsorship's unique ability to transcend borders and cultures have greatly increased its standing. The Internet and the development of WAP phone technology will enable the vital link between desire and purchase among customers to be considerably strengthened. The new technology will also improve the ability to accurately measure the results of sponsorship in terms of increased sales.

Sponsorship has seen a rapid growth in recent years in both the dollars devoted to it and its prominence as a legitimate element of a company’s promotional mix. As traditional media have become more expensive and cluttered, sponsorship is viewed as a cost‐effective alternative. As an element of the promotional mix, sponsorship has been a stepchild when it comes to a careful understanding of how it works and its effect on consumers. While the promotional element of advertising has been carefully researched, sponsorship has rarely undergone systematic study. It is usually mentioned as “war stories” of specific examples which worked well for a company. Discusses the definitional dilemma of sponsorship, and proposes a revised definition. As a step towards better understanding the effects of sponsorship on consumers, develops and empirically tests scales for three attitudinal constructs: attitude towards the event; attitude towards commercialization; and attitude towards behavioural intent. Results show that the three constructs consistently appear across three global sports events. Discusses future research agenda and managerial implications.

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.

This paper details the major results of a survey of Australian companies using sponsorship. Numerous factors relating to the perceived value of the use of sponsorship and the methodology employed in its use, are examined. The paper concludes that while some Australian companies are sophisticated users of sponsorship, there are still a number of companies which can improve their usage.

The purpose of this article is to explore the corporate brand‐web associated with the TOYOTA F1 Racing Team in order to exemplify existing theoretical discussions of the brand‐web concept and contribute to insights towards developing understanding of the structure of the corporate brand‐web and brand relationships.

A case study analysis of the TOYOTA F1 Racing Team, focusing on brand relationships associated with different levels of sponsorship is presented. The case study analysis is based on desk research.

The corporate brand‐web of the TOYOTA F1 Racing Team is presented. This portfolio of corporate brands and their relationships can be regarded as a corporate brand meta‐architecture. The study also offers taxonomy of different types of sponsorship‐based brand relationships, and identifies and discusses two key aspects of the relationships between brands, title sponsorship, and network relationships between the corporate brands in the brand‐web.

This article contributes to understanding of the corporate brand‐web and brand relationships in the sponsorship context and demonstrates the complexity of multiple brand relationships, and the need for researchers and practitioners to understand and manage their corporate brand architecture.

This study aims to identify the determining factors of perceived altruism and attitude toward an inclusive sponsorship activation, as well as the impact of these variables on the attitude toward the sponsor.

Online survey data were obtained from 1,228 respondents from France, the UK and South Africa. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results show that the cause-brand fit has a strong positive impact on the perceived altruism toward the motivations underlying inclusive activation, while skepticism toward advertising has a very weak negative impact. In return, perceived altruism positively influences the attitude toward inclusive activation and sponsor attitude. Furthermore, this attitude toward inclusive activation is positively influenced by involvement in women’s soccer and France men’s national football team identification. The attitude toward inclusive activation also positively influences the attitude toward sponsor attitude. However, contrary to what had been advanced, identification with the France women’s national football team and the nationality of the respondents (French, British or South African) had no impact on the attitude toward inclusive activation, while the perceived importance of the cause had very weak impact on attitudes toward inclusive activation.

This study highlights the potential benefits of investing in inclusive sponsorship activations, particularly with respect to their positive impact on consumer attitude toward sponsor attitude. It also highlights the importance of establishing, in advance, a strong association between the brand image and the cause supported, so that the motivations underlying the inclusive activations are perceived as more altruistic.

This study explores the motives and objectives of sports sponsorship in China, taking into account the sports, social and cultural contexts. It also adopts a comparative approach to examine the sponsorship of elite and grassroots sports events in China.

This study adopts a qualitative approach, employing semi-structured interviews with representatives of nine companies sponsoring elite and/or grassroots sports events in Western China. The data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis.

In China, sponsors are frequently driven to sponsor elite sport events by a sense of obligation and responsibility to the country, whereas their motives to sponsor grassroots sport events is primarily influenced by sincerity and goodwill. Chinese companies consider brand awareness, exposure and the relationship with the government and authorities as key factors for sponsorship, and use sponsorship to achieve market-related objectives.

Companies’ sponsorship motives and objectives have received significant attention in the literature, but mainly in Western countries. In the context of China, this study identifies how sponsors utilize social networks to shape their motives and objectives. It also reveals certain patterns common with the current literature, as well as specificities such as how the roles of the government and authorities are linked to the contingent economic and social context of the country. Furthermore, the differences between elite and grassroots sports events sponsorship are explained.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of sports sponsorship on brand equity using two managerially related outcomes: price premium and market share.

This study uses a best–worst discrete choice experiment (BWDCE) and compares the outcome with that of the purchase intention scale, an established probabilistic measure of purchase intention. The total sample consists of 409 fans of three soccer teams sponsored by three different competing brands: Nike, Adidas and Puma.

With sports sponsorship, fans were willing to pay more for the sponsor’s product, with the sponsoring brand obtaining the highest market share. Prominent brands generally performed better than less prominent brands. The best–worst scaling method was also 35% more accurate in predicting brand choice than a purchase intention scale.

Future research could use the same method to study other types of sponsors, such as title sponsors or other product categories.

Sponsorship managers can use this methodology to assess the return on investment in sponsorship engagement.

Prior sponsorship studies on brand equity tend to ignore market share or fans’ willingness to pay a price premium for a sponsor’s goods and services. However, these two measures are crucial in assessing the effectiveness of sponsorship. This study demonstrates how to conduct such an assessment using the BWDCE method. It provides a clearer picture of sponsorship in terms of its economic value, which is more managerially useful.

Public entrepreneurship is increasingly being propounded as a key means of ‘doing more with less’ during the tough times associated with successive rounds of neoliberal restructuring and austerity. The primary aim of this chapter is to provide a critical-exploratory review of sponsorship – a disruptive interjection or particular form of public entrepreneurship.

Public entrepreneurship provides a useful theoretical frame for exploring some emergent ways of delivering public services in a post-Credit Crunch global operating environment. Empirical insights are derived from a single local authority in the United Kingdom.

There is a widespread concern that straitened economic conditions can engender the prevalence of short-term financial considerations at the expense of other objectives. Sponsorship, as a discrete form of public entrepreneurship in some circumstances has the potential to achieve multiple objectives, enriching public value. However, this is contingent of specific contextual factors.

By identifying some risks associated with disruptive interjections intended to open new paths for the sponsorship of public services as well as indicating some opportunities for risk reduction, it is hoped that our analysis may benefit public authorities when they are exploring or evaluating sponsorship ‘opportunities’.

Examining sponsorship through a public entrepreneurship conceptual frame has received limited research attention. Whether sponsorship is a ‘winning solution’ is contingent on the particular form of sponsorship as well as the specific time and place.