Prof. Eric Olson gave us four articles to read concerning sponsoring, and it touches upon something I have written about before, namely here.
Here’s my question that I asked for the class, with some-what of an answer. I will come back to this later, since this will be part of my master thesis.
By introducing two forms of sponsorships, one time or ongoing, could companies receive maximum out of sponsoring?
Question will be answered by using all four articles, plus an additional doctorial thesis by Fredrik Törn, How established brands can enhance their strength, interestingness, and vitality”. In his report, he conclude that incongruence in sponsoring might work better than if there is a connection between the brands, however, this only works once since the person who views the commercial a second time then has had the time to make a connection, thus won’t react the same once again. This is a slight opposite finding than the Cornwell et. al. article.
This lead me to think that an event could have two different kind of contracts, depending on how the actual sponsors that are plausibly related to the sponsored property, are more likely to be correctly identified an recognized. Fredrik Törn uses the example of Red Bull, the energy drink, sponsoring a Shakespeare play. Though there is no connection between the formats, nor would an avid Shakespearian viewer bring a Red Bull to the play, this would work as an eye-opener for a viewer, thus earn Red Bull more brand recognition, than if they were to sponsor another sport event.
Thus, at a sport event, sign a contract with a company that will give them mayor exposure at one particular time, but make it clear enough that people will recognize it. At a Baseball game, put a sign for ballet classes, at the ballet, why not for a WWE match on pay-per-view? Then, as mentioned in the Johar et. al. the more a person watches the commercial/ad the more likely is it that the person will recognize the company as a true sponsor. Therefore, one should have another contract that companies can sign if they wish to get a lot of exposure but for a longer time, in case of sports an entire season, etc. Ad this to the Olson et. al. 2009 about different spots to have the company logo and the connection to the event.
