Does Your Sponsor Affect My Perception of the Event ? The Role of Event Sponsors as Signals

Abstract

Sponsorship activity has increased dramatically over the last two decades, as has customer knowledge of this promotional activity associated with experiential consumption. While a number of studies have measured consumers' understanding of how event marketing affects their evaluation of a brand, scant empirical attention has been paid to how consumers use sponsorships as signals of event quality. In a between-subjects experimental design, main effects were found for the sponsor's functional similarity and regression analyses suggest that the strength of the sponsors' influence predicted attendance intent, perceived event quality, and advocacy behaviors. Implications of these findings are discussed in practical parlance.