Recently, sports sponsorship has been identified as a new effective marketing tool both in the academic world and the market. Increased number of people dedicated to sports and the developing media have played a significant role in spreading the power...
Recently, sports sponsorship has been identified as a new effective marketing tool both in the academic world and the market. Increased number of people dedicated to sports and the developing media have played a significant role in spreading the power of sports. Sports sponsorship has become the new and indirect promotional tool to attract modern day customers who have been overexposed to a flood of information and consequently have developed a low level of perception and acceptance of advertisements. Sports clothing brands in particular have been intensely competing to get an opportunity to prove their new technology and products through sports sponsorship. At this point in time, when the sports market is expanding and consumer‘s interest in sports increasing, information and further research on the effect of sports sponsorship in the market is beginning to be seen as a useful means to promote sports brands.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sports involvement, sponsor identification and sport sponsorship and the resulting sports clothing brand equity and purchase intention.
In this study sports involvement and sponsor identification were set as the effective variables to cognize sports sponsorship. Using these variables the influence of sports sponsorship on brand equity and their influence on purchase intention were examined.
Four factors were deduced from sports sponsorship theory: communication, consumer's attitude to sponsor, comsumer's attitude to sports events and sports events and sports brand correspondence. Brand equity consists of brand cognition, brand image, brand attitude, and lastly brand loyalty. Based on the brand power report that K-BPI of the Korea Productivity Center has filed, I selected four sports brands, Nike, Addidas, Puma, and Fila, and examined what kind of an effect the sponsorship effect had on brand equity and purchase intention in each case.
Therefore this study has two different focus points. First, the research hypothesis about the influence of sports sponsorship on brand equity and purchase intention was examined. Secondly, the consumer cognition of the four different sports brands (Nike, Addidas, Puma and Fila) was explored through multi group analysis, keeping in mind that these four brands have had different strategies of sports sponsorship in the past.
The Questionnaire consisted of forty nine items in total, broken down into five items regarding sports involvement, five regarding sponsor identification, fifteen regarding sports sponsorship, fifteen regarding brand equity, and lastly four regarding demography. The pilot survey was carried out in July 2007 to examine the reliability and the validity of the research model.
The research subjects of this study were females and males in their twenties and there were twice as many males than females among the survey correspondents. A total of 1002 samples were collected (Nike 251 samples, Addidas 249, Puma 249 and Fila 251) and SPSS 12.0 and AMOS-5.0 were used for data analysis. At first, to examine how reliable the questionnaire model was, are liability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were carried out for content validity. Correlation analysis, means and standard deviation were also analyzed for discriminate validity, and lastly path analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM) and the multi-group analysis were conducted in order to respectively verify the research hypothesis and compare the different groups.
Having followed the above mentioned research methods and process, the results are as follows:
First, sports involvement and sponsor identification are significant in cognizing the factors of sports sponsorship: communication, consumer's attitude to sponsor , consumer's attitude to sports events and sports events and sponsor brand correspondence. However, after a close examination of each sports brand, it was evident that sports involvement had a significant influence on all the sports sponsorship factors except for the events and sponsor brand correspondence factor in Fila. Because sponsor identification showed deviation followed by each brand, sports involvement became a more effective variance to cognize the sports sponsorship factors.
Secondly, the factor of communication in sports sponsorship was shown to influence brand perception, brand image and brand attitude, but not necessarily brand loyalty. Communication factor could establish a certain image or form a good impression, but could not effectively create brand loyalty. Therefore it was revealed that communication factor of sports sponsorship does not really have an impact on the consumer’s brand loyalty for all four brands, Nike, Addidas, Puma and Fila.
Thirdly, consumer's attitude to sports events revealed itself to be a significant factor in determining all of the other factors of brand equity. Especially Nike, Addidas and Fila showed that this factor had a great impact on brand equity, in the case of Puma this was as true.
Fourthly, consumer's attitude to sports events of sports sponsorship influenced brand image and brand loyalty but not brand cognition and brand attitude. In Puma brand attitude research hypothesis was shown to be correct, but not in Fila. This result revealed that consumers closely connect sports events with sports brand and classify characteristics of each sports brand differently
Fifthly, sports events and sponsor brand correspondence factor of sports sponsorship was a significant factor in brand equity factors. Brand?sponsorship correspondence factors in Nike, Addidas, Puma and Fila were all accepted. Thus it was deducible that all four brands were able to effectively apply their sports sponsorship strategy.
Sixthly, brand cognition, brand image, brand attitude and brand loyalty were significant in determining purchase intention. In Fila, all factors of brand equation were significant in relation to purchase intention, but in Nike, Addidas and Puma, brand attitude and loyalty were especially significant in influencing purchase intention.
Lastly, a multi-group analysis was carried out in order to examine significantly different paths, but almost no specific difference was found except for the consumer's attitude to sports events path of Puma compared to other groups.
Therefore, it can be concluded from the results of this study that sports sponsorship is an effective promotional strategy for brand equity and purchase intention. In summary, it was shown that sports brand could establish brand equity through effective and strategic sports sponsorship and brand equity could promote purchase intention while establishing brand loyalty.