Brand association and memory decay effects of sponsorship:. the case of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610429810244693 |
| Pages | 539-556 |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Author | Pascale Quester,Francis Farrelly |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Introduction
While the importance of branding as a marketing tool is undisputed, there
has been some debate over the meaning of brand equity and the particular
ways in which marketers can expect to generate goodwill for the brand over
time (Bello and Holbrook, 1995; Feldwick, 1996).
Rossiter and Percy (1997) emphasise that the best promotions in which
marketers can engage are those that reinforce a positive attitude toward the
brand. They describe these activities as consumer franchise building
promotions. One method they suggest to achieve this is to focus on
communication values considered intrinsic to the brand. Values of this type
may be linked with product benefits such as risk reduction, status or group
identification. Researchers investigating these aspects of consumer behavior
have taken a range of different paths, linking the concept of the brand with,
for instance, that of familiarity and involvement (Alba and Hutchinson,
1987; Laurent and Kapferer, 1985) or that of moods and social group
membership (de Chernatony and McWilliam, 1990).
Studies of brand effects have focussed on the concept of brand associations,
which encompasses the meaning(s) evoked by the brand name to consumers.
While it is difficult to say whether corporate strategy reflects the academic
research conducted on brand associations (Aaker, 1996; Keller, 1993), it is a
fact that companies continue to invest heavily in the process of “building” or
“maintaining” brands, by adapting the strategy and the methods used to
implement this strategy, to the real or perceived changes in the environments
in which they compete.
More recently, a new means of building brand equity, sponsorship, has
received the attention of academic researchers, as well as of corporations
directing increasingly large sums of money toward this medium. According
to research conducted in 1992 in Australia, sponsors pursue one of two
broad categories of objectives: corporate or brand/product related
(Ackerman, 1993). In the case of sport sponsorship, firms generally attempt
to associate the brand with highly publicised sports individuals and/or
events. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of such sponsorships
on consumer association with sponsors’ brands and to explore, within this
context, the potential of events as communication vehicles.
Sponsorship emerged as an important brand building tool as tobacco and
liquor companies became excluded from conventional broadcast media and
were forced into exploring alternative ways to instil positive associations for
their brands in the minds of their target market. The staggering growth of
JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT, VOL. 7 NO. 6 1998, pp. 539-556 © MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1061-0421 539
Brand association and memory
decay effects of sponsorship:
the case of the Australian
Formula One Grand Prix
Pascale Quester
Senior Lecturer, School of Commerce, The University of Adelaide,
Adelaide, Australia
Francis Farrelly
Lecturer, Department of Marketing, Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia
Brand equity
Sponsorship
this medium in terms of worldwide investment seemingly motivated many
other companies to emulate those first innovative sponsors.
Worldwide sponsorship expenditures were to exceed US$15 billion at the end
of 1997 (IEG, 1996). In Australia, the sponsorship market has been estimated
at $874 million with sports sponsorship attracting the lion’s share of this
investment – $824 million or 94 percent. The annual growth of sport
sponsorship in Australia in 1996 was estimated at 18 percent (CEASA, 1996).
Australian firms have embraced this new tool with enthusiasm, perhaps
because of the fervent love of sport that grips the population of this country.
On the eve of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, annual sponsorship expenditures by
Australian firms are expected to rise even more dramatically. This is
exemplified by the sharp rise in the dollars required to become a sponsor of
the Sydney 2000 compared to the Atlanta Games. According to Fox (1996),
official Olympic sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and Eastman Kodak, each paid
US$40 million to sponsor the Atlanta Games. The Sydney 2000 Games
sponsorship program began with IBM and Telstra paying $A100 million (Fox,
1996) and Westpac Bank A$50 million (B&T Weekly, 1997).
In the last decade or so, many Australian companies have been eager to
establish long-term relationships with particular sports or events, based on
the belief that what is good for sport will also be good for their brands. For
others, such opportunities were seized for fear that a competitor could do
well by becoming associated with a popular event or sport.
Sponsorship has its own idiosyncratic characteristics which contribute to
making it commercially attractive to corporations aiming to build favorable
associations and identities for their brands. One benefit particular to
sponsorship is that it can be used to transfer positive image connotations
inherent to the event or individual athlete to the sponsor’s corporate or brand
image. Other potential benefits relate to how sponsorship communication is
processed by consumers.
Sponsorship communication may cast a persuasive influence if consumers
perceive that marketing through a particular event or athlete is a “softer” or
less commercially biased approach than the more traditional one-way
advertising from seller to buyer, even in situations where the sponsorship
association is advertised through mainstream media.
Similarly, a sponsor’s message may be more readily accepted by consumers
if it is regarded as involving an element of patronage. Because it is believed
to assist athletes to improve their performance, or thought to enable sports in
general to prosper, sponsorship is deemed preferable to “straight”
advertising (Parker, 1991). Indeed, a recent Australian study reported
overwhelming agreement with the statement that sport would be “in a worse
position without sponsorship” (Shoebridge, 1998).
On an international level, sport sponsorship provides a medium which has a
substantial nonverbal component: Universal messages of hope, pain or
victory can transcend languages and, hence, national boundaries. As a result,
sponsorship may facilitate the building of trans- or multi-national brands, a
notoriously expensive and difficult process. Marshall and Cook (1992) noted
that sponsorship can be a catalyst for building corporate image and brand
prominence on a global scale.
Sponsorship is nevertheless not without drawbacks. Increasing costs as well as
the growing incidence of ambush marketing – the attempt by some firms to
540 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT, VOL. 7 NO. 6 1998
Love of sport
Idiosyncratic
characteristics
Substantial nonverbal
component
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