Communication Effects in Sports Marketing

Kim, Jin Young (Dept. of Business Administration Graduate School of Chung -Ang Uninversity Academic Advisor Dr. Song, Yong Sup)

A. Background of study

Recently holding big international events such as 2002 World Cup and activating professional sports has resulted in rapid growing of sports related industries. In addition, there is little demand in market and little difference in quality of products. Therefore, corporates came to use new and reformational methods such as sports sponsorship as tools of marketing communication.

B. Purpose of study

The primary purposes of this study are ① to identify consumer's perception for sports sponsorship activities of corporates, ② to analyze consumer's attitude toward advertising and products, corporate image and buying intention, when sponsorship messages are exposed through

corporate and product advertising, ③ to find that effects of sponsorship messages are different according to dimension of product involvement and ④ to present, as the results of the study, the practical implication for establishment and execution of businesses' promotional strategies,

especially advertising strategies, related to sports marketing.

Consequently, the purpose of this study is to measure the effects of sponsorship communication multilaterally.

C. Methodology

In order to verify the established hypotheses for measuring the effects of sports sponsorship communication, 4 types of corporate and product advertising by 2 x 2 experimental design (sponsorship message(presence or not) x product involvement(high or low)) were produced and questionnaire was made for university students.

The established hypotheses were verefied by T-Test, ANOVA and MANOVA using Spss 7.0 statistic package. Reliability and validity assessments were also performed on the various measures in the study.

D. Major Research Findings

First, it was found that domestic consumers felt goodwill toward sports sponsorship activities of corporates. Therefore, it is possible to expand good image of corporates and products through sports.

Second, as a result of studying the effects of sponsorship communication on attitude toward advertising and products, corporate image and buying intention with the difference in product involvement, it was found that the effects were positive in most areas.

Third, in the difference of product involvement, no significant effects were shown in attitude toward advertising and products, and company image, so it was found that sponsorship messages had an influence regardless of high involvement products or low ones. However, in buving intention, differences were shown by product involvement, which means that in actual buying, persuasive effects by outer information were bigger in high involvement products than low ones like preceeding study.

E. Conclusions

It. was found that sports sponsorship activities of corporates were very effective as a new marketing communication tools, because characteristics and public function of sports events increased recipience of advertising by peculiar exposure to mass market, specific target or

subdivision market and had a merit to improve corporate image.