Presented at the 2010 American Marketing Association Winter Educators' Conference.

1. The Spillover of Brand
Equity within a Corporate
Sponsorship Portfolio
Joe Cobbs
Northern Kentucky University
Mark Groza
University of Massachusetts - Amherst

2. Outline
 Research Motivation
 Theoretical Background
 Hypotheses
 Experimental Study
 Discussion and Implications

3. Research Motivation

4. Corporate Sponsorship
 “Provision of assistance either financial or in kind
to an activity by a commercial organization for
the purpose of achieving commercial objectives”
– Meenaghan ’83
 Top objective: Brand awareness & image
enhancement through association (Thjømøe et
al. 2002; Meenaghan & Shipley 1999)
 Do not exist in isolation (Farrelly & Quester 2003; Ruth
& Simonin 2003)

5. Literature & Theory
 Brand Associations
 Image transfer (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; McCracken, 1989;
Meenaghan 2001)
◦ Celebrity Endorser  Endorsed firm
◦ Sponsored event  Sponsoring firm
◦ Sponsored organization  Sponsoring firm
 Brand Alliances
(Lebar et al. 2005; Rao et al. 1999)

6. Associative Network Model
?

7. Hypotheses
 H1: Perceptions of BE of particular
sponsor are positively influenced by BE of
other brands within common portfolio
 H2: Consumers’ purchase intentions (PI)
for a particular sponsoring brand are
positively influenced by BE of other
brands within common portfolio

8. Experimental Design
 160 subjects at two universities
 2 sponsorship portfolio conditions
◦ HIGH brand equity
◦ LOW brand equity
 4 product categories
Low High
Lodging: Marriott Marriott
Auto: Dodge Toyota
Discount Retailer: K-Mart Target
Credit Card: Discover Visa

9. Experimental Stimuli

10. Results
 Validated Likert scale questionnaire
◦ Brand equity
◦ Purchase intentions
◦ Identification
 Manipulation checks
 No main effect of sport league
 ANOVA compared Marriott’s BE/PI
between HIGH and LOW conditions

11. Results
AVOVA Results
H1: Brand Equity
α = .891
H2: Purchase Intent
α = .941
High Brand Equity
Portfolio Condition
31.64
(5.52)
15.19
(3.59)
Low Brand Equity
Portfolio Condition
29.51
(5.63)
14.37
(3.65)
F(1,159)=5.87
P=.017
F(1,159)=2.04
P=.155

12. Limitations & Future Research
 Context specific
 Field experiments
 Holistic perspective of
sponsorship portfolio
◦ Map primary and secondary
associations
◦ Potential network effects