Brands

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing attention for sponsorship's, few studies have focused on brand image issues. This article reports findings of an experimental research in which participants assessed the degree to which an event’s image associations were transferred to a brand through event sponsorship's. Results indicated that congruent sponsorship's enhance image transfer, as opposed to incongruent sponsorship's. This interaction effect was moderated by brand preferences. Participants with weak brand preferences ranked highest on brand image transfer in the incongruent condition, whereas participants with strong brand preferences were more likely to engage in image transfer when they were exposed to congruent brand event sponsorship. The latter group ranked lowest on brand image transfer in the incongruent condition. The research utilizes a 2 x 2 factorial design where two variations of brand event congruity (congruent vs. incongruent) and two different conditions of brand preferences (low vs. high) are used to test the influence of different sponsorship's on the brand image beliefs of a new product.