Exploring children’s reactions to sponsorship transition: a study of interpersonal and pro-social demands

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate children’s perceptions and attitudes towards sponsorship transition, specifically the change from Nike to PUMA as kit sponsors for Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) in July 2019. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 368 children, between 7 and 16 years of age were recruited for the study. Using electronic diaries, 1,577 diary entries were captured between February 2019 and March 2020. Findings Data reveals that children conceptualise sponsorship as a social exchange, with sponsoring brands seen as human entities and interaction with them reflecting the dynamism of social and familial relationships. Consequently, children in this study demanded prosocial and interpersonal behaviours from sponsors and sponsee during the transition period. Research limitations/implications The research has an immediate and direct application for brand managers and the sponsee when considering terminating long-term sponsorship. Both the departing and incoming sponsors can maximise their relationships with these younger fans through an orchestrated departure, arrival and dedicated handover. Practical implications The findings enable marketing brand managers to effectively evaluate sponsor transition to maximise opportunities to maintain, and indeed start, brand relationships with younger fans. Originality/value This is the first study that has examined sponsorship children’s responses to sponsorship transition.

Exploring the motivations to participate in an online brand community: a study of 7–11-year-old children

“…However, and despite the above, investigations into children's engagement with BCs and specifically OBCs, is limited despite the proposition that children are centrally important as current and future consumers (Jones and Glynn, 2019;Thomas et al, 2020). What we do know has been explored using adolescent participant groups.…”

“…Brand engagement is, therefore, considered to be a part of everyday life for a child (de Chernatony et al, 2008;Jones and Glynn, 2019;Moses and Baldwin, 2005;Roper and Shah, 2007). This enables the child's ability to recognise, interact, recall and engage with the brand and is considered a normative occurrence (Achenreiner and Roedder John, 2003;Ji, 2002Ji, , 2008Lopez and Rodriguez, 2018;Thomas et al, 2020). Children develop clear brand knowledge (Thomas, 2020), know what they like and dislike (Daems et al, 2019) and are said to have the same levels of awareness of brands as adults (Jones and Glynn, 2019;Martensen, 2007).…”

What are the social and personal drivers to engage in co-creation? A study of UK 7–13-year-olds

“…They are an intrinsic part of an individual’s consumption journey and are bound in social exchange (Eng and Jarvis, 2020); engagement with them offers individuals a myriad of opportunities for social exchange (Sarkar and Banerjee, 2020). Brand managers have been keen to capitalise on the information that stems from these social exchanges (Thomas et al , 2020; Xiao et al , 2020) and one pertinent area in this context is co-creation (Sarkar and Banerjee, 2019; Sharma et al ,2020). Co-creation “involves [customer] participation in the creation of the core offering itself […] through shared inventiveness, co-design or shared production of related goods” (Lusch and Vargo, 2006, p. 284).…”

“…That is the key orientation of this work and the gap that it attempts to fill. We state this as children are deemed to have notable value as consumers (Thomas et al , 2020), have their own intrinsic views on brands and are increasingly influential when it comes to brand engagement (Flurry et al , 2014). As early as the age of 7, children have well-developed perceptions and attitudes towards brands with these relationships built, using technology (Nairn et al , 2008).…”

“…Furthermore, brand engagement for children is said to be a staple of their sociocultural development and part of their everyday life (Jones and Glynn, 2019), with new media expediting brand relationships (Helme-Guizon and Magnoni, 2019), ensuring that children are able to recognise and recall brands and engage with them through this critical developmental period (Barcelos and Rossi, 2014). More importantly, children are said to actively seek out brand interactions (Thomas et al , 2020) and develop brand relationships (Agante and Pascoal, 2019). Nevertheless, despite children’s empirically proven interaction with brands, no research has yet been undertaken to explore the drivers of co-creation in children.…”