Presented at the 2010 Academy of Marketing Science annual conference: Commonly sponsored enterprises such as sports teams, traveling shows, celebrities, charitable causes, museums, and festivals have built their own valuable brands that carry considerable equity in the marketplace. Yet, it is unclear if and how a sponsored enterprise’s brand is affected by the corporate brands that align with it. The results of this study demonstrate that the brand quality of a sponsored sports league is partially dependent on the brand quality of the league’s portfolio of sponsors.

1. Mark D. Groza
University of Massachusetts –Amherst
Joe Cobbs
Northern Kentucky University
A Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: ChallengingA Portfolio Approach to Sponsorship Alliances: Challenging
Unilateral Brand Spillover EffectsUnilateral Brand Spillover Effects

2. Presentation Outline
Research Motivation
Theoretical Background and Hypotheses
Survey design and empirical results
Discussion and Implications

3. Research Motivation
“Earlier this year, BP signed on as a major USOC sponsor,
saying the Olympic movement's commitment to environmental
issues gave it a perfect platform to promote its own green
initiatives. ….
The deal puts the USOC in an awkward situation -- partners
with a company involved in an environmental disaster on U.S.
shores -- though CEO Scott Blackmun said Monday he sees no
indication that the sponsorship could be in jeopardy.”
-- ESPN.com, May, 3, 2010
Feb. 15, 2010

4. Commercial Sponsorship
“Provision of assistance either financial or in kind to an
activity by a commercial organization for the purpose of
achieving commercial objectives” – Meenaghan, 1983
Top objectives: Build brand equity (Cliffe & Motion, 2005;
Thjømøe et al., 2002); Goodwill (Meenaghan, 2001)
Sponsoring
firm/brand
Popular [sports]
enterprise
$ VIK
Benefits

5. Sports Brand ValuesSports Brand Values* (Forbes Magazine,
2010)
1. New York Yankees $328M
2. Manchester United $285M
3. Real Madrid $240M
4. Dallas Cowboys $208M
5. Barcelona $180M
6. Bayern Munich $178M
7. Arsenal $176M
8. Boston Red Sox $163M
9. New York Mets $158M
10. New England Patriots $156M
*Revenues from sponsorships, naming rights, local media, tickets and merchandise that are
not attributable to market demographics and league.

6. Brand Spillover Effects
H1) Consumer perceptions of a sponsored enterprise’s brand quality
will be positively associated with the brand quality perceptions of the
firms within the sponsored enterprise’s sponsorship portfolio.
Dimensions of
Brand Equity
•Loyalty
•Associations
•Awareness
•QUALITY
Aaker (1991)

7. Involvement
Elaboration Likelihood Model -- when evaluating
advertisements relevant to ones consumption interests
people pay closer attention -- Petty and Cacioppo 1981; Petty,
Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983
Involvement in the sponsorship domain —Gwinner and Swanson
2003
H2) A consumer’s involvement in the sponsored enterprise’s domain
will positively moderate the relationship between the perceived brand
quality of the sponsors within a portfolio and the perceived brand
quality of the sponsored enterprise.

8. Perceived Prestige
Social prestige influences consumer evaluations of brand
quality (Hellofs and Jacobson 1999)
H3) The level of prestige a consumer associates with a sponsored
enterprise will be positively related to the perceived brand quality of
the sponsored enterprise.

9. Reverse Image Transfer Model
Perceived Prestige of
Sponsored Enterprise
Perceived Brand Quality
of Sponsors
Involvement in
Sponsored Enterprise’s
Domain
Perceived Brand Quality
of Sponsored Enterprise
H1 (+)
H2 (+)
H3 (+)

10. Survey Design
Pre Test
Ensure stimuli was realistic
Ensure measures were reliable
Ensure variation in domain involvement amongst subject pool
Main Study
171 undergraduate students
Created a series of activation advertisements
NHL sponsored enterprise
Sponsors from 4 product category

11. Four Constructs
Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise [i.e. NHL] (Yoo et al. 2000)
α = 0.93
Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio (Yoo et al. 2000)
α(s) > 0.88
Domain Involvement (Gwinner and Swanson 2003)
α = 0.95
Perceived Prestige (Mael and Ashforth 1992; Gwinner and Swanson 2003)
α = 0.87

12. Hierarchal Regression Analysis
Outcome Variable: Brand Quality of Sponsored Enterprise
Model 1 2
Step 1
(Constant) 4.502 4.509
Brand Quality of Sponsorship Portfolio .277a
.270a
Perceived Prestige .570a
.582a
Domain Involvement .283a
.265a
Step 2
Portfolio Brand Quality *Domain
Involvement
.184b
F 40.00a
32.61a
Adj R-Sq .408 .426
R-Sq Change .018b
Note: a
= (P<0.01); b
=(P<0.05)

13. Discussion
Results indicate a relationship between quality perceptions of
sponsoring brands and sponsored enterprise (H1)
 Corresponds to literature in the brand alliance domain - Samu et al.
1999
 Traditional spillover effects in sponsorship limited to asymmetrical
conceptions
Highly involved individuals are more likely to process quality
associations in sponsorship arrangements (H2) - Gwinner and
Swanson 2003; Dietz et al. 2009
Quality associations hold after controlling for perceived
prestige of sport property (H3)

14. Implications
Managers of sponsored
enterprises should be
concerned with the brand
quality of the firms that
comprise their sponsorship
portfolio
Firms acting as corporate
sponsors bring more to the
negotiating table than just
revenue and functional
trade resources
Contemporary sponsorship is best framed as a
bilateral alliance – both partners engage in
ongoing co-production of a promotional resource
to be collectively leveraged

15. Next Steps
Survey sponsorship decision makers
Expand context to different domains [i.e.
causes, arts, events]
Questions?