Based on Construal Level Theory (CLT), we propose that the level of detail contained in event announcements of corporate sponsorship as well as the timing of the announcement are each important factors influencing consumers’ responses to the sponsorship. The formal hypotheses developed in the paper are tested by conducting a series of two laboratory experiments. Collectively, the results of the two studies suggest consumers prefer sponsorship announcements that contain concrete (versus abstract) information. Interestingly, while this effect holds for temporally distant announcements, the concreteness of information contained in an announcement does not influence perceptions when the announcement is revealing a temporally near sponsorship.

1. Timing of Sponsorship Announcements
A Test of Temporal Distance and Construal Level Effects
Tobias Schaefers, EBS Business School, Germany
Joe Cobbs, Northern Kentucky University, USA
Mark D. Groza, Northern Illinois University, USA
42nd AMS Annual Conference
Monterey, CA, USA
May 15-18, 2013

2. Sponsorship-Linked Marketing
 Sponsorship = marketing communication instrument (Cornwell and Maignan 1998)
 Communication through sponsorship & communication about a sponsorship
(Cornwell 1995)
 Announcing the initiation of a sponsorship
 Communicate advance details about a sponsorship relationship
1 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

3. Sponsorship Announcements - Research
 Research on sponsorship announcements has mixed results:
 Announcements of a sponsorship enhance stock prices of sponsoring firms
(Cornwell et al. 2005)
 High-dollar, international sponsorships can depress firm value (Cobbs et al. 2012)
 Differing results among sports and deviations between new and renewed
sponsorship announcements (Clark et al. 2009)
 Research restrictions:
 Only considered at a generic level, ignoring how a sponsorship is announced
 Emphasis on investors‘ reactions to announcements, overlooking consumers
 Variety of theoretical perspectives (e.g., mere exposure, balance theory, articulation
theory) on sponsorships and consumers, but neglecting temporal effects
2 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

4. Construal Level Theory (CLT)
 Consumers judge information with different levels of abstraction
(Kim and John 2008; Trope and Liberman 2010)
 High-level construals (abstract, simple, essential features)
 Low-level construals (concrete, contextualized, unique features)
 Generally concrete interpretation of events close in time, socially, or geographically
 Abstract default interpretation of distant events
 CLT offers a theoretical framework for interpreting psychological reactions to
different forms of sponsorship announcements
3 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

5. Hypotheses
H1: Concrete (vs. abstract) sponsorship announcements…
(a) more positive attitude toward sponsoring brand,
(b) higher trust in the sponsoring brand,
(c) higher willingness to recommend sponsoring brand,
(d) higher purchase intention for the sponsoring brand.
More information about the sponsorship
relationship results in improved sponsorship
memory and evaluation
(Coppetti et al. 2009; Cornwell et al. 2006)
H2: For temporally distant events,
concrete (vs. abstract) sponsorship announcements…
(a) more positive attitude toward sponsoring brand,
(b) higher trust in sponsoring brand,
(c) higher willingness to recommend
(d) higher purchase intention
• Thinking about distant events  higher-level
(abstract) construals
• Concrete information about a distant event
 more information processing (i.e., central
route) to resolve disparity
H3: For temporally near events, construal level will have no
effect on consumers’ evaluation of the sponsoring brand.
• Abstract information about a near event 
predisposition to a concrete mindset;
communication unlikely to draw consumers
away from central route
4 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

6. Empirical Studies
Study 1
 Between-subjects experimental design
 IV: construal level of the sponsorship
announcement (abstract/concrete)
 DVs:
 Attitude toward the sponsoring brand
(α=.974) (Putrevu and Lord 1994)
 Trust in the sponsoring brand (α=.885)
(Erdem and Swait 2004)
 Willingness to recommend (α=.943)
(Maxham and Netemeyer 2003)
 Purchase intent (α=.944)
(Putrevu and Lord 1994)
 Pretesting for stimuli development
 Sample of 78 business school students
(Mage=24.9 yrs, SD 7.79; 50% female)
 Successful manipulation
Study 2
 2 x 2 between-subjects exp. design
 IVs:
 Construal level of the sponsorship
announcement (abstract/concrete)
 Temporal distance to the sponsored event
(near/far)
 DVs:
 Attitude toward the sponsoring brand
(α=.955)
 Trust in the sponsoring brand (α=.916)
 Willingness to recommend (α=.952)
 Purchase intent (α=.935)
 Sample of 225 different business school
students (Mage=22.2 yrs, SD 4.05;
48.9% female)
 Successful manipulations
5 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

7. Results Study 1
Attitude Trust
Willingness to
recommend
Intention to
purchase
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
6.00
5.60
5.20
4.80
4.40
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
5.60
5.20
4.80
4.40
4.00
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
4.80
4.40
4.00
3.60
3.20
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
p < .001 p = .028 p = .001 p = .003
6.20
5.80
5.40
5.00
4.60
6 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

8. Results Study 2
5.80
5.40
5.00
4.60
Attitude Trust
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
5,60
5.60
5,40
5.20
5,20
5,00
4.80
4,80
4.40
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
Willingness to
recommend
4.80
4.40
4.00
3.60
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
Intention to
purchase
4.60
4.20
3.80
3.40
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
4,60
4,40
p = .035 p = .061 p = .016 p = .192
Abstract
announcement
concrete
announcement
Temporally distant Temporally near
7 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

9. Discussion
H1: Concrete (vs. abstract) sponsorship announcements will lead to
(a) more positive attitude,
(b) higher trust,
(c) higher willingness to recommend, and
(d) higher purchase intention
…for the sponsoring brand.
H2: For temporally distant events, concrete (vs. abstract) sponsorship
announcements will lead to
(a) a more positive attitude,
(b) a higher trust,
(c) a higher willingness to recommend, and
(d) a higher purchase intention
for the sponsoring brand.
H3: For temporally near events, the construal level of the sponsorship
announcement will not affect consumers’ evaluation of the
sponsoring brand.





willingness to
recommend
( )
8 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

10. Discussion
Intention to
purchase
4.60
4.20
3.80
3.40
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
 No significant increase for
concrete announcement
about a temporally distant
event (p = .343)
 However, similar pattern
lends mild support to H2d
Willingness to
recommend
4.80
4.40
4.00
3.60
CLA
abstract
CLA
concrete
 Significant decrease for
concrete announcement
about a temporally near
event (p = .093)
 Similar pattern for purchase
intent intriguing
 Too much concrete
information interferes with
subjects‘ concrete
construals?
9 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

11. Implications
 CLT explains aspects of consumers‘ reactions to sponsorship
announcements
 Relevance of CLT in sponsorship-linked communication
 Presentation of content at low construal level preferable to abstract
 Temporal distance to event important consideration:
 Concrete information even about temporally distant events
 When concrete information is not feasible to privide publicly  low temporal distance
10 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

12. Limitations & Outlook
 Limitations:
 Student samples
 Self-report scales for DVs
 Outlook:
 Additional dimensions of CLT (social & geographical distance)
 Evaluation of sponsored event
 Individual difference variables (e.g., temporal orientation)
11 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

13. Timing of Sponsorship Announcements
A Test of Temporal Distance and Construal Level Effects
Tobias Schaefers, EBS Business School, Germany
Joe Cobbs, Northern Kentucky University, USA
Mark D. Groza, Northern Illinois University, USA
42nd AMS Annual Conference
Monterey, CA, USA
May 15-18, 2013

14. Backup
13 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

15. Backup
Table 1. Univariate between-subjects effects on sponsoring brand
F p Partial ²
Construal level of
announcement
(CLA)
Attitude toward… 3.478 .064 .015
Trust in… .988 .321 .004
Willingness to recommend .009 .927 .000
Purchase intention .005 .941 .000
Temporal distance
to the event
Attitude toward… .235 .629 .001
Trust in… .988 .321 .004
Willingness to recommend 2.619 .107 .012
Purchase intention .079 .779 .000
CLA  Temporal
distance
Attitude toward… 4.514 .035 .020
Trust in… 3.545 .061 .016
Willingness to recommend 5.877 .016 .026
Purchase intention 1.715 .192 .008
14 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013

16. Backup
To ensure the manipulation of abstract/concrete sponsorship announcements worked as
intended, a semantic differential scale asking respondents to assess the newspaper article
based on four word pairs (e.g., “abstract/concrete”) was employed ( = .873/.803). In both
studies, results indicated that respondents in the abstract conditions perceived the
announcement to be significantly less concrete than respondents in the concrete conditions
(Study 1: Mabstract = 4.43; Mconcrete = 5.12; T = -2.254, p = .027; Study 2: Mabstract = 3.95;
Mconcrete = 4.95; T = -6.575, p < .001). A similar semantic differential scale was used in the
second study to ensure the manipulation of temporal distance for the sponsored event
(e.g., “about future events/about current events”;  = .840). Results also indicated proper
manipulation (Mnear = 5.05; Mfar = 3.76; T = -7.596, p < .001).
15 Schaefers / Cobbs / Groza | Timing of Sponsorship Announcements | AMS Annual Conference, Monterey, CA | May 15-18, 2013