Är det tanken som räknas? - En kvantitativ studie om hur sponsorskapsmotiv och kongruensnivå påverkar sponsorskapsutfall inom e-sport

Sammanfattning: The e-sport industry has experienced enormous growth the recent years and is not showing any signs of stopping. This has led to the emergence of incongruent companies looking to reap the benefits of an emerging market. With this in mind, a skeptically characterized target group could induce a stronger need for marketing efforts to be perceived as authentic. Within e-sports, sponsorship is the dominant form of marketing. Thus, this study aims to investigate how the perceived motives of a sponsor affect the sponsorship outcome, and what influence different levels of congruency have. Attribution theory is used as a framework to hypothesize the effects of authentic sponsorship motives and congruency. An experiment was conducted where four different press releases were designed. These were conveyed by either a congruent sponsor or an incongruent sponsor with authentic or less authentic motives. The sponsorship outcome was measured and compared between the four groups. The results are inconclusive, but the study indicates that an incongruent sponsor to establish congruency rather than solely signaling authentic sponsorship motives, to increase sponsorship outcome. Furthermore, the study supports previous research regarding sponsorship motives, and establishes that a congruent sponsor is naturally perceived as having more authentic motives.