Angeline G. Close

An IMC Approach to Event Marketing: The Effects of Sponsorship and Experience on Customer Attitudes

ABSTRACT The number of companies sponsoring events has increased over the past decade. Yet, for many firms it is unclear how the effectiveness of event marketing activities can be measured. The study examines outcomes associated with an automobile manufacturers sponsorship of a six-day charitable sporting event. Data for the study were collected from a sample of 565 spectators in five cities during the six-day event. Results provide evidence for inclusion of event marketing in the companys promotional mix and indicate that experience with the sponsors products during the event may enhance event outcomes. The role of event marketing as a form of communication is discussed, and recommendations and directions for future research are suggested.

Engaging the Consumer Through Event Marketing: Linking Attendees with the Sponsor, Community, and Brand

ABSTRACT With an on-site study at a sponsored event, we construct and test competing models to examine the relationship among event attendees, sponsorship, community involvement, and the title sponsors brand with respect to purchase intentions. We show that an attendees enthusiasm and activeness in the area of the sponsored event and knowledge of the sponsors products positively influence the attendees desire that a sponsor be involved with the community. Then, we show that attendees who are more community-minded have a more positive opinion of the sponsor as a result of their event experience; a better opinion of the sponsor contributes to increased intentions to purchase the sponsors products. Results from this framework indicate that event marketing, in conjunction with consumers who are enthusiastic, active, and knowledgeable about the sponsor and event, serves as a valuable lever to engage the consumer.

The pivotal roles of product knowledge and corporate social responsibility in event sponsorship effectiveness

The authors employ consumer theories of cognition into the event marketing context. Upon gathering field surveys from attendees (n=1,636) at an international sporting event with a multinational sponsor, the authors demonstrate the pivotal roles that attendees’ knowledge regarding the sponsor’s product and perceived corporate social responsibility play in successful event sponsorship. Specifically, structural model results show how attendees’ knowledge of the event sponsor’s products and perceptions of the sponsor as socially responsible enhance attendees’ commitment to the sponsor and intentions to purchase the sponsor’s products. These results provide scholars and managers with means of improving event marketing communications.

How Fit Connects Service Brand Sponsors with Consumers’ Passions for Sponsored Events

Despite the strong trend for service brands sponsoring events, the literature provides few theory-based and field-tested guidelines for services marketing managers who are charged with selecting events to sponsor. In response, this study provides a congruity-based framework for sponsors’ decision-making and tests the hypothesized model explaining linkages among service brand sponsors, a sporting event, and consumer attitudes. The study’s findings help clarify not only how congruent event-sponsor fit can be realised but also the potentially valuable role that event-sponsor fit serves toward strengthening key consumer relationship outcomes.Structural equation modeling is used to test the posited model using replicate samples of two distinct service brands (AT&T: n=563 and United Community Bank: n=435) operating at different levels of corporate sponsorship of the sixth annual Tour de Georgia (TDG) professional cycling race which drew an estimated 400,000 attendees. Investigation of the effectiveness of different brands at the same event is important to marketers as it reflects the plethora of brand messages typically communicated at sports events. The results do not reveal that tested individual brand sponsor congruity moderates consumers’ attitudes toward the event or sponsor. Surprisingly, AT&T did not experience any discernable advantage of sponsorship, despite its position as the title sponsor of the TDG and its high brand equity. Based on this preliminary evidence, the results offer directional evidence that sponsors may not necessarily reap results that are commensurate with their sponsorship level or brand equity position. Thus, established regional service brands may experience sponsorship effectiveness at regional or community events where their sponsorship investments can be recognised without serving as the title sponsor.The current study extends previous congruity research because it lays out contributing factors for establishing event-sponsor fit. As a form of fan involvement, activeness in the event domain (i.e., sports activity) is shown to positively influence how consumers assess the link between an individual service brand and the tested sponsored sports event. In addition, the results make it clear that consumers form more favourable event-sponsor linkages when they enjoy the event as consumer affect toward the event is shown to positively and directly influence their perceptions of event-sponsor fit. This finding is particularly relevant for service brands high in functional or utilitarian properties. In particular, sponsorship of hedonic events can convey similar values and imagery and/or offer a logical connection with the service brand. In addition, the hypothesized path between consumers’ brand knowledge and their assessments of the sponsor’s fit with the event finds multi-contextual support. The study further demonstrates how desirable relational outcomes are positively influenced by event-sponsor fit. Specifically, congruency positively and directly influences consumer’s favourable brand commitment to the sponsor’s brands, which in turn, benefits the sponsor by consumers’ intentions to purchase the sponsor’s services. Overall, the findings show how events and service brand sponsorships synergistically facilitate and deepen consumer relationships by connecting service brands with consumers’ passions for the sponsored event and its activities.

How Information Quality and Market Turbulence Impact Convention and Visitors Bureaus Use of Marketing Information: Insights for Destination and Event Marketing

Information is an essential component of convention and visitors bureaus for their marketing purposes in order to make their destinations and events more attractive to visitors. During the information gathering process, tourism and event marketing directors must select relevant and credible data for successful decision-making. Based on the lack of academic research in the area of online marketing information use by convention and visitors bureaus, this study investigates what factors influence convention and visitors bureaus’ online information use for their market research. In particular, this study examines the relationships among technology change, customer change, information quality, and marketing information use with convention and visitors bureaus in the United States. Utilizing an online survey to convention and visitors bureau managers, findings from this study identify the use of Internet-based information as positively associated with the quality of Internet-based information followed by customer change and technology change. Implications for destination marketers and event marketers are included.

How the Anticipation Can Be as Great as the Experience: Explaining Event Sponsorship Exhibit Outcomes Via Affective Forecasting

Via field surveys of attendees at a multiday professional sporting event (n = 1,089), the authors contribute an interesting finding—that the anticipation of participating in an event sponsors exhibit area is just as great as the experience itself when it comes to evaluating the sponsor. The studys results suggest that the mere presence of event marketing activities (in addition to sponsorship communications) improves sponsorship outcomes. Affective forecasting theory is introduced to the advertising/event marketing literature here, and is used to explain the studys findings and provide implications for advertisers who engage in sponsored event marketing.

Purse Parties: The Social Implications of Fake Luxury Parties

When designer products become pervasive in the marketplace, sometimes the original products are compromised and sold as counterfeit goods. Consequently, the global counterfeit luxury industry has grown to be a lucrative market. Counterfeit goods are replicated inauthentic designer brands (e.g., Prada, Louis Vuitton) that are sold through various channels across the globe. Counterfeit goods generate nearly

Sponsors Courting Tennis Fans: Visual Processing and Need for Cognition in Evaluating Event Sponsorship

200 billion annually in losses for global manufacturers (Chiu et al. 2009).

Celebrity Endorsement in the Airline Sector

Given that sporting events are heavily tied to sponsorship, it is crucial to understand how sponsorship works from visual processing and cognition perspectives. In itself, sponsorship is not necessarily a visual tool; it is the on-site leveraging of sponsorship that is often visual for event attendees and what the authors investigate at a professional tennis event. Leveraging title sponsorships with the sponsor’s logo and product displays at the event are industry practice at professional sporting events. Visual reinforcement is important in visual processing because an event attendee actively or passively sees who the sponsor is without necessarily thinking about the event sponsorship. Need for cognition is a personality variable in psychology that reflects the extent and the effort in which consumers engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities. Attendees may interpret a sponsorship according to its “shallow meaning” without relative effort, unless they have reason to elaborate further and consider other inputs to judgment. The authors take a multi-method approach to examine the posited relationships of their model. First, for a consumer perspective, the hypotheses are tested with consumer survey data of 185 attendees drawn from a weeklong women’s professional tennis event. A luxury automobile brand served as the event’s title sponsor and used visual placement throughout the context of the event, including at the heart of action (e.g., logo in the net, product display at the event). Empirical support for the hypothesized model demonstrates that individual differences in visual processing and need for cognition play significant roles in how an attendee perceives the title sponsor’s products. Overall findings also show how attendees who rate the event as a high quality event have a more positive attitude toward the title sponsor’s featured products. That relationship is moderated by visual processing style; that is, visual processors show an especially strong link from event quality to enhanced attitude. Further, attendees who are high in need for cognition are more likely evaluate a non-endemic title sponsor as fitting with the event, plausibly because they tend to elaborate, or think about how the two fit more so than attendees who are lower in need for cognition. After testing the model with consumer data drawn at the tennis event, the authors then conducted a qualitative study to better understand how the findings resonate with practitioners, and to gain additional managerial insights. Thus, the authors interviewed a dozen managers, who worked with venues or sponsors to leverage the visual communication and create an engaging consumer experience for attendees, collectively representing marketing expertise in tennis, baseball, hockey, running and basketball. The managers discussed the findings in terms of how they do or will implement them in their respective professional sport. The results provide managers with new insights for understanding the role of individual differences in visual processing and need for cognition play in effective sponsorship and sports marketing. The findings reveal how the manner in which event attendees visualize and think relates to their assessment of a sporting event and sponsor. Individuals who tend to be more visual and think things through fully will positively influence their level of appreciation for the sporting event’s sponsors. Thus, given that many people are visual processors, event venues and sponsors alike should incorporate strategically placed visual elements such as logos at the epicenter of action in sporting events, such as near goals, backboards, bases, nets and other places where spectators tend to look in order to improve the likelihood that they visually process the event sponsor.

Event Marketing and Sponsorship: Lessons Learned from the Tour De Georgia Cycling Races

As the demand for air transport services has risen much faster than that of other goods and services in the world economy, it is extremely important that airlines retain their passengers to remain profitable (Wang 2014a) by differentiating themselves to increase their perceived value (Woodruff 1997). Among various marketing strategies, celebrity-themed aircraft campaigns (Budd 2012; Wang and Ngamsiriudom 2014a, b) and celebrity endorsements are arguably very effective ones. Celebrity endorsement in airlines is not a new phenomenon (Basusta 2009; Virgin Atlantic 2013; Air New Zealand 2013; Emirates 2014; China Airlines 2006a, b; Ricki 2013). Through these campaigns, airlines hope to gain more brand awareness, model a better corporate image, expand the market share, and increase its profit margin.