Sport event sponsorship: How to step up your game

Sammanfattning: Purpose - The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of event sponsorship and how it adds value to a brand. It aims to discuss various forms of sponsorship and outline how they differ from one another. The objective is to discover why a brand should choose to create an event instead of only sponsoring an existing event. Methodology - An explorative research approach was used for this paper, focussing on qualitative data. The research is based on an extensive literature review, which enlightens previous research. The qualitative data was analysed based on cases to understand the phenomenon and the complex value- adding process. Findings - The research explores why a company that acts as an anchor sponsor should choose to step up the ladder to create an event. The framework should be a reference for companies to understand the importance of the value-adding process in relation to the different levels of sponsorship. According to our framework, if a company chooses to step up, they will gain more control and involvement. Research limitations/ implications - The conducted research is solely based on secondary data and on two cases, expanding the number of events analysed or conducting research for primary data would be beneficial for future work. Additional research could focus on the proposed framework since we believe that it may evolve over time. Original/Value - Existing literature has discussed the role of sponsorship, its benefits, and the types of sponsorship, however creating an event has not been researched in this context. The present research aims to see if there is an impact when creating an event and whether a company should opt to create instead of just sponsor. Keywords - Sponsorship, Event Sponsorship, Event Organization Sponsorship, Measuring sponsorship effectiveness, Brand awareness, Brand image, Brand Value Paper type - Research paper