Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Does Similarity Between Sponsor and Sponsee Predict a Successful Sponsorship? : A Study Based on External Congruence and Women’s Sports

Abstract: Sponsorship is an essential part of marketing communications within sports (Biscaia et al., 2014). Congruence, or the degree to which a sponsor and an event mesh, is one of the main factors influencing sponsorship memory accuracy (Evans, 2019). It is found that, within women’s sports, demand for research on how to maximize the efficiency of sponsorships exists.The research aims to find if sponsors and sponsees could look towards sponsorships with more external congruence to increase the value of the sponsorship to both the sponsor and sponsee. The study uses a survey to find correlations between the amount of external congruence and the degree to which sponsorship objectives are reached. The External Sponsorship Congruence Scale (ESCS), developed by Evans (2019), is used as a basis for measurement of external congruence. The key finding is that the perceived quality of a brand seems to correlate with having a sponsorship that is high in external congruence. Furthermore, both areas of brand awareness and brand image could possibly see some correlation to external congruence. However, those areas were not found to be statistically significant in this study. These findings are important to develop the concept of external congruence and find possible ways of measuring external congruence. For instance, it is found that the ESCS and its constructs seem to be useable in the field of women’s and niche sports. On a theoretical level, changes to the ESCS’s geographical congruence are proposed and a revised ESCS is presented. Moreover, managers within women’s and niche sports, as well as sponsors of those, can use the findings of this study to improve the chances of finding successful sponsorships.