This article offers a framework for understanding the effects of commercial sponsorship on consumers. It defines and explores certain tenets essential to understanding sponsorship effects, namely, goodwill, image transfer, and the concept of fan involvement, and relates these tenets to the achievement of a consumer response, building to a proposed model of how sponsorship “works” in relation to consumers. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Various elements of brand identity contribute to brand image development; however, the role of marketing communications is particularly important in achieving brand image effects. In the case of advertising, two separate elements of communications, a message and a medium, combine to deliver particular brand image values. In the case of sponsorship both the message and media elements are not separate, but are inextricably linked and imagery is delivered by association with particular activities and events. Presents the result of focus group research which sought to examine the images transferred by different categories of sponsorship, i.e. sports and arts. The results show that goodwill, which is generated amongst consumers as a result of corporate sponsorship involvement, varies by sponsorship category. The results have important implications for sponsorship managers in terms of the choice of sponsorship category and the manner in which sponsorship investments are leveraged.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, greater emphasis is being placed on brand image development as the basis for consumer discrimination. Advertising has a central role to play in developing brand image, whether at the corporate, retail or product level. It informs consumers of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously imbuing the brand with symbolic values and meanings relevant to the consumer. These two functions of advertising closely parallel the informational and transformational schools of advertising effects and theories on the central and peripheral routes to consumer persuasion. Such dichotomous approaches to explanation are unlikely to represent the reality of consumer choice in that brand image is likely to be formed by the simultaneous absorption of advertising messages based on both the functional and expressive capabilities of brands.

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