Sponsorship investments: do they deliver brand awareness for all sponsors?

Catherine Mpolokeng Sephapo

doi:10.1515/mmcks-2017-0007

Abstract

AbstractSponsorship as a marketing communications tool is well adopted in South Africa across various areas such as sports and entertainment. Although world markets have experienced economic turmoil in the last few years, the sponsorship market may be considered to be thriving as companies use this marketing communication tool as a vehicle to create and maintain relationships. The purpose of this study was to explore which sponsors of the South African National Rugby team are sports consumers aware of as a result of the sponsorship. Literature states that awareness also influences the judgments about brands in the consideration set, even without any brand associations in the consumer’s mind. In low involvement decision; where consumers do not need to search extensively for information in order to make a decision; minimal brand awareness levels may be enough to convince the consumer to make their final choice. The study is exploratory in nature however provides a South African perspective on how effective the sponsorship of the Springbok is with regards to creating awareness of the sponsors among sports consumers. The study made use of a qualitative approach whereby primary data was collected by means of focus groups and naïve sketches. Data collected was analyzed by means of content analysis. The findings suggest that participants were predominantly aware of the key sponsors of the Springboks; these were sponsors who had their branding on the Springbok jersey worn during rugby matches. The factors that participants mentioned to contribute to their awareness of the sponsors were the branding on the Springbok playing jersey as well as television adverts along with other promotional tools. This study urges sponsors to not only rely on the sponsorship initiative to create awareness but rather leverage the sponsorship with tools that are relevant to their target audience. This study contributes to sponsorship literature relating to the effectiveness of sponsorship; particularly from a South African perspective.

Highlights

In an environment where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages, organizations are challenged with the task of effectively reaching their target markets
This study contributes to sponsorship literature relating to the effectiveness of sponsorship; from a South African perspective
The study found that sponsorship created awareness of sponsors among sports consumers

Summary

Introduction

In an environment where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages, organizations are challenged with the task of effectively reaching their target markets Marketing communication tools, such as sponsorship, are leveraged to yield a return on investment. In 2011, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) lost their main sponsor (Sasol) but received financial provision from South Africa’s largest financial service provider, Absa. This sponsorship was estimated to be worth R50 million a year (Mufumba Consulting, 2009). In 2016, the South African Breweries (SAB) announced the renewal of their sponsorship of the SA rugby brand (SARU, 2016). The monetary value of this sponsorship was not disclosed, one can deduce that the extended loyalty to the SA rugby brand has proved to be beneficial for SAB over the years

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