Building brand image through event sponsorship: The role of image transfer

Past sponsorship research has primarily focused on awareness building strategies, and has virtually ignored brand image issues. As a result, little guidance is available for firms that seek to use sponsorship opportunities to aid in brand positioning. This study reports the results of an experiment using undergraduate student subjects, who assessed the degree to which a sporting event's image was transferred to a brand through event sponsorship activity. Subjects in the sponsorship pairing treatment were more likely to report similarities on brand-event personality components than subjects who were not exposed to the event-brand sponsorship link, thus supporting the notion that sponsorship results in image transfer. Further, we found that when event and brand are matched on either an image or functional basis the transfer process is enhanced. Management implications for sporting event sponsorship and future research directions are discussed.