An investigation of match-up effects in sport sponsorship advertising: The implications of consumer advertising schemas

Abstract

Statistics show that sponsorship of sports and other events is one of the fastest growing areas of promotion (Ukman, 1995), but the importance of this persuasion strategy is not reflected in the amount of attention it has received in the marketing literature. Although some research has been done in this area, the majority of work has not employed the same theoretical and methodological rigor given other areas of consumer behavior (Cunningham & Taylor, 1995). Some scholars (e.g., Gwinner, 1997; Keller, 1993) have suggested that sponsorship functions like celebrity endorser advertising, where the perceived match (or mismatch) of brand attributes with the endorser's attributes influences consumer response to such marketing communications. One of the theoretical rationales used to explain matchup effects in endorser advertising is a schema-based information processing paradigm (Lynch & Schuler, 1994; Misra & Beatty, 1990). The purpose of the current study was to examine the notion that consumers possess schemas that influence their reactions to advertising leveraging sport sponsorships. The research utilizes a 3 × 2 × 2 factorial design, where three variations of sport sponsorship print ads and two different magazine covers (sport and nonsport) are used to test the influence of brand/event matchups and advertising placement on intermediate measures of advertising effectiveness. In addition to matchup and media vehicle effects, differential response by gender is also examined. Three hypotheses are tested based on research from the literature on sponsorship, matchup effects, and advertising schemas. MANOVA results provide partial support for all three hypotheses, as matchup and media vehicle manipulations were found to significantly impact Aad. Moreover, females are found to report significantly higher Aad and Pi than did males in this study. The advertising schema framework is used to discuss the research findings. This discussion deals with the work's applied and theoretical implications and its limitations, as well as directions for future studies on sponsorship. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.