Are brands wasting money on sport sponsorships? A new look at brand personality, brand equity, and official sponsorship effects

Marketers pour millions of dollars into sport sponsorship and need a better understanding of its effects.
Wakefield, Wakefield, Keller, and Rivers

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • Personality matters. Fans categorize brands as having fun–friendly–social and traditional–reliable–straightforward personalities, so where your brand stands within and across categories matters.
  • Strong personalities overspend. Brands with strong brand personalities mostly waste money on sponsorships. Official sponsorships do little for strong brands with well-defined personalities, as they typically already hold dominant market and brand equity positions.
  • Boring is not all bad. Sponsorship spending and official sponsorship gains are greatest among brands with low fun–friendly–social and traditional–reliable–straightforward personality ratings.
  • More can be less in marketing spend. Big spenders in...

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