Important Objectives and Important Considerations in Objective Setting for Sport Sponsorship by Indian Companies

We now commonly see that sports sponsorship is used by companies as part of their marketing efforts. The question that comes to mind is: why should the companies be interested in sponsorship? One view is that if sports sponsorship is done properly, it can provide good opportunities for distinct marketing and competitive advantages, and also showing support for the event. It is also considered as one of the communication vehicles available, which is capable of helping to form a long-term relationship with the consumers. Brand building is another objective for using sports sponsorship. It is natural that different companies will not have similar objectives for sports sponsorship. Academic research in a number of countries has tried to understand the various reasons and objectives for sports sponsorship. However, in India, academic research on sports sponsorship is hard to come by. Therefore, for this paper, various objectives for sports sponsorship and related aspects were primarily identified on the basis of review of available literature from other counties. A questionnaire was designed containing Likert-type statements about sport sponsorship management while setting the objectives as well as importance attached to various identified objectives. Responses received from 248 respondents were analyzed and described using means and standard deviation. Statements about ‘strengthening/altering the company image as an objective’ and ‘likely benefits to be derived from sponsorship’ have been found to be more important. The statements on ‘monetary profit due to sponsorship’ and ‘utility of objective setting to measure sponsorship effectiveness’ are surprisingly lower down the order. Sponsorship objectives which turned out to be most important belong to three categories namely, media coverage, objectives related to product/service/brand, and general corporate objectives.