Measuring Sponsorship Performance: Challenge and Direction

Abstract

Corporate investment in sponsorship represents one of marketing's more dramatic investment stories of recent decades with global sponsorship expenditure forecast to reach US $53.3 billion in 2013. The scale of this investment, as well as the scrutiny to which sponsorship activity has been subjected during the "Financial Crisis" has added significant momentum to the demand for improved methodologies for evaluating the returns resulting from sponsorship investment. Indeed a range of recent sponsorship studies clearly indicate the pressure, not just for greater accountability, but a demand for new and improved methodologies for measuring sponsorship performance. Against this backdrop this special issue of Psychology and Marketing is timely. It seeks to bring together a selected series of papers from leading edge practitioners and academics which critically review certain current approaches to evaluation, explores important research methodology issues, and outlines recently developed models which quantify the value generated by sponsorship investment. It is hoped that this special issue will lead to increased levels of understanding and interaction between the academic community concerned with researching sponsorship and the practitioner community charged with managing sponsorship and will, in future, serve as a key reference source for these communities in their quest for improved methodologies to measure sponsorship performance. C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Determinants of Regional Sport Network Television Ratings in MLB, NBA, and NHL

“…In this context, we drew on multiple literatures including professional sports marketing (e.g., O'Shea, 2011), sport media (Hutchins, 2011;Turner, 2012), and previous research on similar topics . Future research will benefit from ongoing efforts to develop more refined variables (Meenaghan, 2013), the growth in more systematic data covering a broader set of clubs, and from the ongoing availability of new categories of variables. For example, we used the Club Ownership variable from ESPN The Magazine that is available for each MLB, NBA, and NHL (and NFL) club.…”

Conceptual Foundations of Sponsorship Research

“…Additionally, scholars have reviewed specific topics in depth around: (1) sponsorship's strategic role and problems associated with measuring sponsorship outcomes (e.g., Cornwell, 2008;Meenaghan, 2013); (2) changing patterns of sponsorship expenditure and marketing management practices (e.g., Cornwell, 1995;Meenaghan, 1991Meenaghan, , 1998Meenaghan, , 2013Ryan & Fahy, 2012);…”

How Does Sponsorship Marketing in Korean Dramas Bring in Lucrative Business?

“…Flashback to year 1987, it is estimated around US$ 5.6 billion were spent on global sponsorship and by 2007, the value has heighten to US$ 37.9 billion as stated by Meenaghan (2013). In the year 2013, the global sponsorship spending is estimate to reach US$ 53.3 billion as the growth in corporate investment over the years has been phenomenal (Meenaghan, 2013).…”

“…In the year 2013, the global sponsorship spending is estimate to reach US$ 53.3 billion as the growth in corporate investment over the years has been phenomenal (Meenaghan, 2013). Zdravkovic and D. Till (2012) state that the spending on traditional media, consumer-based and business-business promotions has dropped; instead, there is a rise in spending for sponsorship.…”

“…Nonetheless, with the intervention and evolution of technology, today, the recognition of sponsorship is as a complex and inherently relational phenomenon characterized by multiple stakeholders (sponsor, sponsored activity, audience, media, government funders, etc) acting within a network (Olkkonen et al, 2000), comprising of multiple objectives (awareness, image, sales, resource sharing and development), as well as differing concepts as to what constitutes sponsorship value within the network itself (Farrelly & Quester, 2005b; as cited in Ryan & Fahy, 2012). In the eyes of sponsors, sponsorship provides a flexible platform for the communication and interaction between the numerous stakeholder groups as it is more strategic as a whole and often it is being compared with media advertising (Hastings, 1984;Hoek et al, 1997;McDonald, 1991;Meenaghan, 2001; as cited in Meenaghan, 2013). Hence, in short, sponsorship is a global phenomenon that is regarded as commercial activity and over the years it has evolved with added values; but then again, it should not be compared and be confused with advertising marketing.…”