Revisiting Determinants of Sports Sponsorship Response: A Schema Theory Perspective

Abstract

Consumer attitudes towards marketing communications efforts in the context of out of home experiences and entertainment, such as sporting events is an important consideration given the heightened proportion of investments in sponsorship and events (IEG, 2011). The average consumer attends various sponsored events, especially in the context of sports; however, the consumer may not be aware of the sponsor (Bennett, 1999) or consider the sponsorship in other brand-based considerations (Pham and Johar, 2001). In 2000, Speed and Thompson contributed a valuable framework of the determinants of sport sponsorship response to provide insights on how sponsorship works. Their framework was tested with individual regression analyses with hypothetical sponsorship scenarios and a student sample. Here, the authors employ a schema theory lens and reexamine the sponsor-based constructs tested with structural equation modeling with a real-world sponsorship and event attendee sample. A conceptual difference here is that an outcome variable is how enhanced purchase intent towards the title sponsor enhances interest in the sponsor’s future marketing communications. As sponsorship is often an ancillary marketing communications tool (Close, Finney, Lacey, and Sneath, 2006), it is important to examine what determines a sponsorship’s ability to spark a consumer to notice, pay attention, and recall the sponsoring brand’s advertising and promotions in other occasions.