Establish key reasons why a firm may choose to use sponsorship at the heart of its marketing strategy (as per sponsorship-linked marketing)? Investigate one or two examples to help answer the topic.
...d from the Greek word “horigia”, to direct or lead a dance. In modern times this would assume the role of organising an event. The growth of sponsorship lay relatively untouched early on as it was competing with the rapid growth of main stream advertising. Originally, the role of sponsorship was to combine business and citizenship in an effort to unite the community. However, “Gone are the days of corporations providing support to sport solely as a charitable endeavour” (Irwin, & Sutton, 1994, p. 99). Of recent times, sponsorship has grown to become a market with worth of over $900 million. From this growth saw the development of sponsorship-linked marketing. Reports now show that for every dollar spent on sponsoring an event, a company will spend an average of five dollars on sponsorship-linked marketing. The growing development of sponsorship marketing has been influenced by many factors. In 1971, US legislation stopped cigarette companies from mainstream advertising. Therefore, these companies discovered another alternative through sponsorship-linked marketing (Cornwell, T.B. 1995 pg 14). More recently, the US government has legislated to ban cigarette company signage during televised sporting events. As a result of ongoing growth within sponsorship, IMG (International Management Group) was established as a means for overseeing sponsorship on a global scale. Sponsorship Sponsorship can be defined as an investment in a property, in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with the property. The investments in a sponsorship must support the overall corporate and marketing objectives of a firm. The sponsorship is an alignment of core values between the corporate sponsor and the property. A strong fit between the sponsors corporate image and the image of the property (image complementarity) is key to a successful sponsorship. A sponsorship must match the brands core values, and the association between sponsor and property needs to be built up positively in the mind of the consumer. A successful sponsorship may be defined as one in which objectives from having the sponsorship are achieved. One example of a successful sponsorship may also be characterised when the sponsor and the product become synonymous with each other – this is an example of when the sponsors core values and the property’s image have matched one another eg. The prancing horse of Ferrari and Formula One Racing. Sponsorship-Linked Marketing Sponsorship-linked marketing forms a type of sponsorship strategy and is defi...