How Branding Influence Sponsorship

This article discusses how branding influences sponsorship and the concept of fit in sponsorship. It provides examples of good and poor fit sponsorships and suggests ways to fix poor fit examples. The article also highlights the importance of fit in sponsorship performance and brand awareness.

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Sports Marketing and Media
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Table of Contents
How Branding Influence Sponsorship.............................................................................................2
Concept of Fit and Its Importance in Context of Sponsorship........................................................2
Two Good Examples of Sponsorship Fit and Two Poor Example of Sponsorship Fit...................3
Good Examples:...............................................................................................................................3
Poor Examples:................................................................................................................................3
Why the Examples were Chosen and How to Fix Examples of Poor Fit........................................4

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How Branding Influence Sponsorship
The brand sponsorship refers to the marketing strategy where the particular brand
supports an activity, event, person or organization (Tsiotsou, Alexandris & Bettina, 2014).
Anywhere a person goes, he or she is able to observe sponsorship investment like festival, music,
football games and the beneficial events. Sponsorship allow the small, medium and the big
brands in partnering with the other companies as well as the event agencies for generating a
relationship that aims at economically gratifying both the sponsee and the sponsor.
Linking the brand with the event through sponsorship enables the firms in gaining the
interest and the attention of the customers through association of the events. There has been an
increased use of the sponsorship in reaching the segments of the market.
Concept of Fit and Its Importance in Context of Sponsorship
Fit refers to the relatedness or the congruence that represents the perceived pertinence in
the consumer’s mind between the sponsee and the sponsor (Koronios etal., 2016). For better
understanding of the concept, it is to be noted that there exist a natural fit between the Adidas
and World Cup and the involvement of Shell with Ferrari. This particular natural association is
known as functional fit that determines the usefulness of the service or product towards the
property. There can be multiple degrees of the fit.
Fit between sponsor and property represents a clear driver of the sponsorship
performance (Gwinner, 2013). In fact, the appropriate fit will help in improving the brand
awareness substantially. This particular awareness is required for obtaining positive return on the
sponsorship investment and also achieving the elaborate goals that include the transfer of the

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brand image, developing affinity with the target market, develops better attitude towards brand
and the rise of the purchase intents. A higher fit will help in increasing the acceptance of the
brand by public and the presence would be considered as altruistic.
Two Good Examples of Sponsorship Fit and Two Poor Example of Sponsorship Fit
Good Examples:
Example 1: Red Bull moves away from the mainstream sports through using extreme
sports that involved speaking to the audiences looking for higher adrenaline and energy. In
recent times the brand took its slogan to newer heights transforming the space trouble into sport,
reinforcing the positioning and creation of distinction in its way.
Example 2: Coco Cola represented a good example through the using of sponsorship as
one of the effective communication tool of marketing (Meenaghan, McLoughlin & McCormack,
2013). They sponsored some of the renowned sporting events across the world like the Olympic
Games, FIFA World Cup. They also have links with the exhibitions and fairs of the world. Some
of the renowned sponsorship that the brand hosts includes Apple iTunes, BET Network,
American Idol, NBA, NCAA and NASCAR.
Poor Examples:
Example 1: The sponsorship of KFC Yum Centre in Arena/ Stadium. Although KFC is
owned by the Yum brand but the ‘Yum’ part in the brand makes it a poor fit since KFC is fine as
the standalone brand.

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Example 2: The attempt of creation sponsorship fit by Jobin.com Arena has begun the
awful trend of the .com Arena and it simply did not flow.
Why the Examples were Chosen and How to Fix Examples of Poor Fit
The reason for choosing the names of the arena/stadium has been due to the fact that they
are relatively permanent.
The First example of the poor fit can be fixed by removing the ‘Yum’ part from the KFC
brand since there is no need add the aspect of ‘Yum’ to the brand as KFC to a layman has always
been a yummy option.
The Second example of poor fit can be fixed by replacing the Jobing.com arena with the
trend of inserting a name as it simply did not flow.

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References:
Gwinner, K. (2013). Brand-event fit in sport sponsorship. Leveraging Brands in Sport
Business, 157.
Koronios, K., Psiloutsikou, M., Kriemadis, A., Zervoulakos, P., & Leivaditi, E. (2016). Sport
sponsorship: The impact of sponsor image on purchase intention of fans. Journal of
Promotion Management, 22(2), 238-250.
Meenaghan, T., McLoughlin, D., & McCormack, A. (2013). New challenges in sponsorship
evaluation actors, new media, and the context of praxis. Psychology & Marketing, 30(5),
444-460.
Tsiotsou, R. H., Alexandris, K., & Bettina Cornwell, T. (2014). Using evaluative conditioning to
explain corporate co-branding in the context of sport sponsorship. International Journal
of Advertising, 33(2), 295-327.