Sports sponsorship : Brand awareness, brand image and purchase intention of sport audience towards linked and unlinked sponsors

Abstract: purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to research in the two different types of sponsors i.e. linked and unlinked sponsors. An investigation of whether a difference between these two types of sponsors exists. This difference is measured in terms of brand awareness and brand image and how these two affect the purchase intention. Background: Sponsorship is today used by companies as a major marketing tool. A long existence of sponsorship has throughout the years followed the same philosophy, invest for a return. As the rapid growth of sponsorship during the past decades has contributed to a complex measure of its results, this issue has been highlighted by various researchers. A new phenomena of distinguishing between linked and unlinked sponsors has shown to contribute to different result whereas others argue for no difference between these two types of sponsors. Factors have shown to affect the sponsorship deals which are critical to be aware of in order to maximize the effectiveness of sponsorship deals. Method: JIK and four of its sponsors are selected as a case study of this investigation. Therefore, both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are applied. Qualitative methodology is used in the form of interviews with the sports club to get a deeper understanding of JIK and its sponsors. Contrary, quantitative methodology is applied in the form of questionnaire to measure the brand awareness, brand image and purchase intention of the audience. Conclusion: It is found that the brand awareness and brand image influence the purchase intention positively for both types of sponsors, linked and linked. Interestingly, a difference is proven to be present between the linked and unlinked sponsors. Concluding, the linked sponsors are more effective than unlinked.