Building Consumer-Based Brand Equity through Sport Sponsorship: Roles of Consumers’ Involvement, Emotions, and Attitude Towards the Sponsored Event
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Conference Track
Sport Marketing
Publication Date
2011
Abstract
The study was designed to examine consumers’ involvement, emotions, and attitude towards a sponsored event and how they would influence a sponsor’s brand equity. Eight concepts including brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand association/awareness, cognitive involvement, affective involvement, positive emotions, negative emotions, and event attitude— were considered in the proposed latent structural model and thus included in a questionnaire. Participants (N = 1,792) were university students in China, who responded to a survey involving three sporting events fictitiously sponsored by two Chinese brands. A SEM analysis revealed that the proposed overall fit the data well (e.g., CFI > 0.92, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.08). The findings revealed that the perceived brand equity of a sponsorship could be predicted by a consumer’s attitude toward the sponsored event, which was significantly (p < .05) influenced by consumer’s cognitive involvement. Positive emotions were significantly (p < .05) influenced by consumer’s affective involvement; however, it failed to predict event attitude. Comparing with positive emotions, negative emotions played a more important role in mediating the structural relationships of the model. These findings conformed with Petty and Cacioppo’s (1983) Elaboration Likelihood Model explaining attitude change. Cognitive involvement, as the central route, directly influences attitude; while the influence of emotions (in particular negative emotions) that serve as the peripheral route is often more subtle and contingent on other factors. The disparity of findings between the current study and previous studies might also imply that cultural differences possibly affected sport consumer behavior, as well as the effectiveness of sponsorship communications.
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
Digital Commons@Georgia Southern License
Recommended Citation
Mao, Luke Lunhua and Zhang, James J., "Building Consumer-Based Brand Equity through Sport Sponsorship: Roles of Consumers’ Involvement, Emotions, and Attitude Towards the Sponsored Event" (2011). Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2011. 54.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/amtp-proceedings_2011/54
