International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship - Cies-uni.org

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l JULY 2011 l VOLUME TWELVE NUMBER FOUR

Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

International Journal of

www.imrpublications.com

Research Papers

The effects of hosting an international 281sports event on the host country: the 2008 summer Olympic Games

Sponsorship and CSR: Is there a link? 301A conceptual framework

Beijing Olympics 2008 impact on China’s 319image formation in international TV coverage: a media content analysis perspective

A service quality framework in the context 337of professional football in Greece

Does sponsorship pay off? An examination 352of the relationship between investment in sponsorship and business performance

Book Review

Sport Public Relations and Communication 365

SMS12.4 CoverKT2 20/7/11 21:32

l JULY 2011 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

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Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

International Journal of

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SMS12.4 Intro pp275-280 KT2 20/7/11 20:41 75

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Driving Business Through Sportby Simon Rines

Full analysis of all sponsorship types and marketingdisciplines, with an in-depth case study for each section.

Part 1: European Sports Marketing DataPart 2: Strategy & ResearchPart 3: Activation & Case Studies

Price: £295 per part. Buy all 3 parts for £650

Sports Sponsorship & the Law by Stefan Fabien

Key legal issues covered, including morality clauses,conflicting endorsements, incentive clauses, ambushmarketing and more. Price: £495

Latest reports from IMR

“A comprehensiveand enlightening guide to best practice... no seriouspractitioner or student of the industry can afford to be without it.”Greville Waterman,Managing Director,Sports Media

“The idea of the text isbrilliant: a compilation of allthe must-know informationabout sponsorship formanagers.”Alfonso Valero, Co-Editor, lawinsport.com

Twenty20 Vision: the Commercial Future of Cricketby David Smith

The rationale, business models and impact of the Twenty20format plus extensive commercial data. Price: £295

“An excellent andcomprehensive analysis of howcricket has reinvented itself...a must for anyone involved inthe business of sport.”Nigel Currie, Director, Brand Rapport

Corporate Social Responsibility andSports Sponsorship by Steve Hemsley

Analysis of the growing importance of sport to CSRprogrammes: strategies, risks and benefits. Price: £295

“A compelling and wellargued case for why businessengagement in sport shouldbe a key part of anycompany’s approach...”Mallen Baker, Founding Director,Business Respect

Order now: +44 (0) 1364 642 224 [email protected]

International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l JULY 2011 l

SMS12.4 Intro pp275-280 KT2 20/7/11 20:42 Page 276

CONTEN

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Contents

Abstracts 278l l l l l l

Editorial board 280l l l l l l

Editorial policy 366l l l l l l

Editorial

“It appears that those who show themost commitment... have become alower priority, and there is an evengreater burden on these supportersthan ever before”

Michel Desbordes, Editor 279l l l l l l

Research paper

The effects of hosting an international sports eventon the host country: the 2008 summer OlympicGames

Wonjun Chung Chang Wan Woo

Analysis of the effectiveness of hosting the Games asan international marketing strategy for country image and product image 281

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Research papers

Sponsorship and CSR: Is there a link? A conceptual framework

Carolin Plewa Pascale G. Quester

Sponsorship as a form of CSR communication and theinternal effects for the sponsoring organisation 301

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Beijing Olympics 2008 impact on China’s image formation in international TV coverage: a media content analysis perspective

Guojun Zeng Frank Go Christian Kolmer

Analysis of more than 7,000 news stories about China and their direct and indirect impacts 319

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A service quality framework in the context of profes-sional football in Greece

Nicholas D. Theodorakis Kostas Alexandris Yong Jae Ko

Research among soccer fans to test the mediatingeffects of Overall Service Quality on satisfaction 337

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Case study

Does sponsorship pay off? An examination of therelationship between investment in sponsorship andbusiness performance

Jonathan A. Jensen Anne Hsu

Analysis of more than 50 US-based corporationsinvesting a minimum of $15m a year in sponsorship 352

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Book review

Sport Public Relations and Communication

John Beech 365l l l l l l

l JULY 2011 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 277

Back issues

A limited stock of printedback issues is available from IMR. Back issues inelectronic format are alsoavailable from the Journal archive: www.imrpublications.com


278 International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l JULY 2011 l

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The effects of hosting an international sports event on the host country: the 2008 summer Olympic Games 281

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Wonjun Chung Chang Wan Woo

This study investigated whether the 2008 summerOlympic Games improved the country image of Chinaamong foreign consumers. It examined the extent towhich the changed country image contributed to itsproduct image. A quasi-experimental research designwas used, with surveys taken two months before andtwo months after the event. The results showed thathosting the Olympics significantly improved the countryimage of China but did not affect the image of itsproducts in a positive way.

Sponsorship and CSR: Is there a link? A conceptual framework 301

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Carolin Plewa Pascale G. Quester

A prolific stream of research has demonstrated theunique potential of sports sponsorship to contribute tocorporate image and to influence audiences around theworld. Meanwhile, the concept of corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) has increasingly been identified inthe literature for its potential to deliver a degree ofcompetitive advantage. This paper builds on both thesetheoretical fields to develop a conceptual frameworklinking the effectiveness of sports sponsorship with thesponsors’ CSR commitment to both employees andconsumers.

Beijing Olympics 2008 impact on China’s imageformation in international TV coverage: a mediacontent analysis perspective 319

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Guojun Zeng Frank Go Christian Kolmer

This study aims to explain the impact of the BeijingOlympic Games 2008 on China’s image in theinternational TV media. It applies agenda-setting theoryto analyse foreign TV coverage of the Olympics in ninecountries. Using Rivenburgh’s national image richness

construct, it attempts to make sense of the coveragebefore and after Beijing 2008, particularly its impact onthe image of the host country. The study concludes thatthe breadth and attribution of China’s image remainedrelatively stable, that these factors did not improveChina’s national image directly but that indirectly theyraised awareness of China in the international media andframed the host country’s image more clearly.

A service quality framework in the context ofprofessional football in Greece 337

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Nicholas D. Theodorakis Kostas Alexandris Yong Jae Ko

This study examines the mediating role of overallservice quality in the service quality-customersatisfaction relationship in the context of professionalfootball. Quantitative data were collected from a surveyof 415 spectators attending a professional football gamein Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) wasemployed to examine the validity of the scale. Multipleregression analyses was used to assess the mediationeffect of overall service quality. Results of the CFA andalpha test supported the psychometric property of thescale. Overall service quality was shown to mediate therelationship between the five dimensions of servicequality and fans’ satisfaction.

Does sponsorship pay off? An examination of the relationship between investment in sponsorship and business performance 352

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Jonathan A. Jensen Anne Hsu

Do corporations who invest in sponsorship performbetter? Examining five years of sponsorship spendingdata and business performance indicators of more than50 US-based corporations, this case study analyses therelationship between a company’s investment insponsorship and its business performance. The resultsindicate that as a group corporations that consistentlyinvested in sponsorship outperformed market averagesand those who spent at an above average level outper-formed those who spent at a below average level.

Abstracts


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EDITORIAL

Editorial

Since the 1980s there has been a huge change in theway sports events are financed, and this has fuelled abig debate among sports organisers, professional clubs,federations and marketing agencies about what a ‘good balance’ should be.

In England there are regular complaints that the directspectator has become secondary to the indirect fansitting at home watching TV, and we can see why. InMarch, an FA Cup fifth round match between WestHam United and Burnley was moved from a Saturdayafternoon to a Monday evening for a pay-per-view TVchannel. For Burnley fans this meant a 560-mile roundtrip on a Monday evening for what was essentially theirbiggest game of the season.

It appears that those who show the most commitment(i.e. the fans who travel to games, buy merchandise atthe ground, buy tickets, create the atmosphere) havelower priority, and there is a greater burden on thesesupporters than ever before.

Obviously this position is not going to change soon,with TV broadcasting rights so important to thefinancing of the game. However, as both a sportsmarketing specialist and a football fan, I believe it isimportant to help these direct supporters whereverpossible to make sure that the stadium atmosphere,which contributes to making the product so appealing tothe TV companies, is not diluted.

In the German Bundesliga the price of the matchticket includes free travel on public transport to and

Revenue sources top 5 European football clubs 2009

Matchday Broadcasting Commercial

Real Madrid 25% 40% 35%FC Barcelona 26% 43% 31%Manchester United 39% 36% 25%Bayern Münich 21% 24% 55%Arsenal 45% 34% 21%Chelsea 36% 38% 26%

Source : Deloitte Football Money League, 2010

from the game. Much of the reason for this is theimportance of the direct spectator in the financing of thegame, with the German model stating that 51% of eachclub’s shares are owned by the club’s supporters. Withthe principle stakeholders in charge, events day policiesthat benefit the fans are implemented, and I believe thishelps explain why ticketing provides less revenue forBayern Munich than for other European clubs.

Most reports on merchandising in Europe show thatthe Spanish La Liga’s income through merchandisingleads (although this is skewed by the power ofBarcelona and Real Madrid), followed by the EnglishPremier League and the German Bundesliga.Comparative figures show that Europe’s top leagueshave increased their income from merchandise by 6%since 2008: it seems that the boom in Europeanfootball merchandising is ongoing.

More significantly, Sport+Markt states: “… it isprimarily the less established leagues that can lookforward to significant growth, as they are graduallyidentifying the importance of club merchandising inbrand management”1, with shirt sales now contributingover 50% of this revenue stream. It appears, therefore,that less established leagues and clubs, and possiblynational associations, need to focus on developing abrand that can generate significant finances.

I really believe that sports marketing is different fromgeneral marketing. In sports marketing, the consumerwho pays also produces the essence of the event (theatmosphere). Therefore sports organisers should payattention to any kind of evolution that affects this role.

Professor Michel Desbordes, EditorEmail: [email protected]

The ‘ideal’ way to generate club revenue

1. http://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/article/newsitem=984/title=spanish+league+usurps+europe%91s+merchandising+throne


CASE STUDY EDITORS

Professor Stephen GreyserHarvard Business School, [email protected]

Dr Frank PonsUniversité Laval, [email protected]

INTERVIEWS EDITOR

Professor David SnyderState University of New York, [email protected]

BOOKS EDITOR

Dr John BeechCoventry University, [email protected]

EDITORIAL PANEL

Dr Carlos BarrosInstituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, [email protected]

Dr Cheri BradishBrock University, [email protected]

Dr Sue BridgewaterWarwick Business School, [email protected]

Professor Simon ChadwickCoventry University, [email protected]

Dr Laurence ChalipUniversity of Texas, [email protected]

Professor Dae Ryun ChangYonsei University, South [email protected]

Professor Bettina CornwellUniversity of Oregon

Nigel CurrieChairman, European Sponsorship Association (ESA), [email protected]

Dr Geoff DicksonAuckland University of TechnologyNew [email protected]

Professor Harald DollesUniversity of Gothenburg, [email protected]

Svend ElkjaerSport Marketing Network, [email protected]

Dr Francis FarrellyMonash University, [email protected]

Nigel GeachSports Marketing Surveys, [email protected]

Dr Paolo GuenziBocconi University, [email protected]

Adrian HitchenSponsorMetrix Ltd, [email protected]

Martin HornDDB Needham, [email protected]

Professor Hooi Den HuanNanyang Technological University, [email protected]

Professor Frank GoErasmus University, [email protected]

Dr Jorg HenselerNijmegen University, [email protected]

Professor Thierry LardinoitESSEC, [email protected]

Jamie MagrawSweat the Assets, [email protected]

Dr Heath McDonaldDeakin University, [email protected]

Professor Tony MeenaghanUniversity College Dublin, [email protected]

Charles NixonCambridge Marketing Colleges/Chartered Institute of Marketing, [email protected]

Dr Francesc PujolUniversity of Navarra, [email protected]

Dr Pascale QuesterUniversity of Adelaide, [email protected]

Mike ReynoldsSportsmatch, [email protected]

Dr André RichelieuLaval University, [email protected]

Professor James SantomierSacred Heart University, [email protected]

Dr Nicola Stokburger-SauerUniversity of Mannheim, [email protected]

Professor Trevor SlackUniversity of Alberta, [email protected]

Professor Sten SödermanUniversity of Stockholm, [email protected]

Dr David StotlarUniversity of Northern Colorado, [email protected]

Professor Alan TappUniversity of the West of England, [email protected]

Dr Linda TrenberthBirkbeck College, University of London, [email protected]

Dr Des ThwaitesUniversity of Leeds, [email protected]

Ignacio Urrutia de HoyosIESE Business School, [email protected]

Professor Herbert WoratschekUniversity of Bayreuth, [email protected]

Editor Professor Michel Desbordes

ISC School of Management, Paris, France & University Paris Sud 11, FranceTel: +33 (0)1 69 15 61 57 Fax: +33 (0)1 69 15 62 37 Email: [email protected]

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281l JULY 2011 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

RESEARCHPAPER

The effects of hosting an international sportsevent on a host country: the 2008 summerOlympic Games

Keywords2008 summer Olympic GamesChina country imageproduct imagepublic relations international marketing strategy

Executive summary

Mega-events such as the Olympics or World Cupsoccer have typically been viewed by host countries asopportunities for economic growth and revenueboosting. Although the outlook for such events has notbeen as promising recently, due to the large amount ofinvestment needed, host countries still see mega-events as opportunities to convey a positive image tothe world. Studies show how image transfer occursfrom sponsorship of mega-events. However, researchabout how a country’s image is constructed, and

impacts on its product image, is still in its infancy.The purpose of this study is to look at the effects thathosting the 2008 summer Olympics, had as aninternational marketing strategy, on the country imageof China and to explore how the changed image ofChina contributed to its product image.

To measure the impact of hosting the OlympicGames on the image of China, a quasi-experimentalresearch method was used – i.e. a non-equivalentcontrol group with a pre- and a post-test. In June

Abstract

This study investigated whether the 2008 summerOlympic Games improved the country image of Chinaamong foreign consumers. It examined the extent towhich the changed country image contributed to itsproduct image. A quasi-experimental research designwas used, with surveys taken two months before andtwo months after the event. The results showed thathosting the Olympics significantly improved the countryimage of China but did not affect the image of itsproducts in a positive way.

Wonjun ChungAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Communication, University of Louisiana at LafayetteLafayette, LA 70504-3650, USAEmail: [email protected]

Chang Wan WooAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Communication, University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point Email: [email protected]

Peer reviewed

SMS12.4 paper 1 Olympics pp281-300KT2 20/7/11 20:50 Page 281


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2008, two months prior to the beginning of theGames, 279 students were randomly selected fromtwo public universities in the United States of Americato participate in the pre-test. These students weresurveyed for their perceived country image of Chinaand its products. In October 2008, two months afterthe Games, a post-test survey was administered to adifferent random sample of 180 people drawn fromthe same schools.

Both survey questions included/incorporated:

the 12 General Country Attributes (GCAs)developed by Parameswaran and Pisharodi (1994)

the 13 General Product Attributes (GPA) developedby Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987)

measurement of Olympic Games exposure: i.e.whether participants had known the OlympicGames were being held in China and how muchthey had watched the Games on television. Extentof exposure was measured by the amount of timeparticipants reported watching the Games.

Major survey findings

Most variables of GCAs were statistically significantat either p<.01 or p<.05. In particular, there wassignificant improvement in the overall countryimage of China (overall GCA) after the OlympicGames (t=4.32, df=454, p<.01).

There was a statistically significant difference inthe overall image of China (overall GCA) betweenhigh-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups (t=11.9, df=178, p<.01).

There was no significant change in the overallimage of Chinese products (overall GPA) after theOlympic Games (t=-.49, df=447, p > .05).

There was no significant change in the overallimage of Chinese products (overall GPA) betweenhigh-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups(t=-1.93, df=177, p>.05).

Based on these findings, this study concludes thathosting the Olympic Games did significantly improveChina’s country image, but that it did not createpositive changes in China’s product image. Thesefindings suggest that hosting a mega-event shouldbenefit a host country’s marketing, public relationsand related industries.

Introduction

Previous research has shown that hosting a mega-event affects a host country in terms of consumerawareness and attracting visitors to the country (orcity) during the event (Green et al, 2003). Inparticular, hosting a summer Olympics plays animportant role in promoting a host country throughincreased tourism, sales of event-related merchandiseand event-related employment (Kasimati, 2003). Forexample, China Daily (2009) reported that overallearnings from the Beijing Olympics were $146 million, which was slightly lower than the $155 million generated by the 2004 AthensOlympics. The 2008 Beijing Olympics also generatedrevenue of $1 billion from sponsorship andbroadcasting right fees.

Country of origin (COO) scholars have argued thatcreating a positive country image is just as importantas other marketing strategies. This is because countryimage plays an important role in international publicrelations and marketing (Chalip et al, 2003; Hiller,2000; Nenenzahl & Jaffe, 1991; Ryan, 2008). Thus,the public image of a country has been suggested asone of the key macro-level variables in influencinginternational consumers’ attitudes and purchaseintentions toward a country’s products or brands (Kang & Yang, 2010). Furthermore, hosting a mega-event has been highly correlated with elevating a

Hosting the Olympic Games



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country’s destination image (Florek et al, 2008; Gibsonet al, 2008). Smolen and Pawlak (2006) state thatcorporate image creates a competitive position for anyorganisation in any kind of market and that publicrelations can play a part in creating a positive corporateimage. Considering that a country’s hosting of a mega-event could be an effort to create an image orreputation, it is necessary to understand how a countryimage is constructed and how it relates to its productsin the context of international marketing (Kang & Yang,2010; Kitchen & Laurence, 2003; Kumara & Canhua,2009).

The impact of hosting mega-events has been studied under the theme of sponsorship (Chavanat etal, 2009; Darnell & Sparks, 2007; Grohs & Reisinger,2005; Koo et al, 2006). Sports event sponsorship hasbeen observed to establish brand awareness andimage, and thereby engender customer-based brandequity. When the image of an event and brand imageare a good fit, the effect of sponsorship can beparticularly maximised (Grohs & Reisinger, 2005; Kooet al, 2006). However, there have been few studies inwhich image has been examined in a broader setting –i.e. the effects of hosting an international sports eventon a country’s image and its product image (Florek etal, 2008; Jaffe et al, 1994). In addition, there havebeen no clear explanations of how a country’s imagecan be constructed and further changed. Amongstrategic variables (e.g. price and product quality), itmight be expected that proper use of sponsorshippromotion would change a country’s image and itsproduct image.

This study examines the effects that hosting the2008 summer Olympic Games, as a promotionalpractice of international marketing and publicrelations, had on the country image of China. It alsoassesses how the changed (improved) image of thecountry contributed to its product image.

Literature review

Country image as a brandThe growing global sensitivity and perceptiveness ofcurrent consumers have made product manufacturersface more intense international competition in homeand foreign markets. Consequently, consumer attitudestoward foreign products are among the most importantconsiderations for foreign countries. This is particularlythe case for developing countries, as their productmanufacturers extend their businesses in thecompetitive international market (Agbonifoh &Elimimian, 1999; Hiller, 2000; Nenenzahl & Jaffe,1991). In this context, a country’s image plays animportant role in forming perceptions of its products.For example, a reputation for producing poor, cheapgoods can create invisible barriers to internationalmarketing (Chalip et al, 2003; Ryan, 2008).

One attribute that is particularly important tointernational marketing is the significant influence thatthe image of a country of origin (or believed country oforigin) has on consumer perception of a product.Anholt (2000) notes that the knowledge that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nike are from America is fundamentalto their success, because there is little doubt that theUnited States is the world’s most powerful countrybrand. This may well be connected with the fact that‘Brand USA’ is the world’s most advanced (Kitchen &Laurence, 2003; Kohut and Wike, 2009) and thereason why US advertising messages often emphasisetheir product’s sheer ‘Americanness’ (Anholt, 2000).Anholt (2005) surveyed 10,000 consumers in 10countries using the Anholt Nation Brands Index andfound that ‘Brand USA’ was ranked the highest onexports, investment, immigration and tourism.Similarly, car brands are often strongly linked in theconsumer’s mind to their country of origin; forinstance, it is hard to think of a Mercedes except inthe context of its being German (Anholt, 2000).

Similar to company image, a country’s image evokescertain values, qualifications, and emotional triggers inconsumers’ minds about the likely values of any




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product that it produces. In addition, just as withcommercial brand image, country image includeslong-established identities and functions as anindicator of product quality (Anholt, 2000, 2005;Hong & Wyer, 1989; Parameswaran & Pisharodi,1994; Ryan, 2008). Therefore, hosting a mega sportsevent such as the Olympics Games should beconsidered carefully by a country, as doing so servesas a key tool to strengthen country image.

Country image and its constructionCountry image is defined as a generic constructconsisting of generalised images. These images arecreated by representative products and are influencedby historical events and relationships, culture andtraditions and the degree of economic and politicalmaturity, technological virtuosity and industrialisationa nation possesses (Auruskeviciene et al, 2010; Roth& Diamantopoulos, 2009). All of these factors refer tocognitive beliefs about a particular country. Based onthis conception, Martin and Eroglu (1993) definecountry image as “the total of all descriptive,inferential and informational beliefs one has about aparticular country” (p.193). Askegaard and Ger(1997) and Verlegh (2007) also mention an affectivecomponent of country image which entails capturingemotions and feelings about a particular country.Image theory assumes that country images have botha cognitive and an affective structure (Auruskevicieneet al, 2010; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009).

Could the image of a country and its productstherefore be constructed? To attempt to answer thisquestion, previous researchers have identified that theimage of a country is formed in several ways.Consumers rate products from different countriesunequally, primarily due to the perceptions of thedegree of industrialisation and technological virtuosityheld by their country of origin (Auruskeviciene et al,2010). Some researchers have suggested that imageof a country and its products is created by variablessuch as consumers’ personal experiences,consumption of products from the country, exposure tomedia and knowledge regarding the country

(Kumara & Canhua, 2009; Papadopoulos & Heslop,1993).

Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987) point out thatperceptions of a country’s image are constructed andaffected by cognitive and affective responses to thecountry itself and its people. They call theseperceptions General Country Attributes (GCAs) andconsider them a constructor of country image. Theseperceptions can be enhanced by encouraging positivefeelings about a country and its people – particularlyabout the inhabitants’ education, skills, likability andother positive traits (Parameswaran & Pisharodi,1994; Parameswaran & Yaprak, 1987).

Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987) further reportthat a country’s image is also related more frequentlyto perceptions about its product offering. According toRoth and Romeo (1992), a country’s product image is“the overall perception consumers form of productsfrom a particular country, based on their priorperceptions of the country’s production and marketingstrengths and weaknesses” (p.480). Thus, a country’sproduct image has gradually evolved from the ideathat people simply attach stereotypical ‘made-in’perceptions to products from a country.

In recent years, the notion of country image hasbeen conceived as multifaceted. Papadopoulos andHeslop (1993, 2002) note that a consumer’s imageof the people of an unfamiliar country may be basedon knowledge about their capacity for producingquality products in general, and that this perceptionaffects the consumer’s evaluation of specific productsfrom that country. Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987)call these perceptions General Product Attributes(GPAs) and identify them as a second constructor ofcountry image.

Sports public relations: hosting a sports event and itsimpact on a host country’s imageFrom a public relations perspective, hosting a sportingevent boosts country image. When deciding whetherto host a large-scale event, country officials usuallyconsider whether the event will have a positive effecton their country’s image before they consider its




RESEARCHPAPER

potential economic benefit (Chalip et al, 2003; Floreket al, 2008; Hiller, 2000). Hiller (2000) argues that amega sports event, such as the Olympics Games orsoccer World Cup, can aid in urban transformation.Hiller’s (2000) study on the 2004 Olympic bid byCape Town, South Africa, reveals that, even thoughthe bid was not successful, it impacted the country interms of effective transition from the old era to thenew era by creating new workplaces and communityconstructs. Therefore, a mega-event can be consideredto have an influence on the host country or city farbeyond the event itself. Chalip et al (2003) also findsupport for the notion that hosting a sporting eventcan attract people simply through the act of hosting.In addition, hosting draws attention because of mediaexposure through advertising and, particularly, newsmedia. Oh (2004) points out that the 2002Korea/Japan World Cup Games drew more than 6 billion television viewers from 190 countries. Kimand Morrison (2005) report that the event boosted thecountry image of Korea and Japan and attracted morepeople to the host cities. These studies emphasise thata major advantage of hosting a sporting event is thereinforcement of the favoured image of the host nationor city. Grunig (2006) observes that “public relationsas a buffering activity fits the common view that itsrole is to use messages and symbolism to createimages and reputations that justify the organisation asit is” (p.171). Therefore, hosting a mega sports eventhas an essential meaning in public relations because itcreates messages and symbolism and provides aneffective tool for public relations practitioners andmarketers, who should avoid sports myopia.

Hypotheses

Since the Olympic Games are considered to be thebiggest sports event in the world and every game isbroadcast throughout the world, hosting them (as astrategic international public relations promotion) mayprovide the host country with an excellent opportunityto improve its image. China’s bid for the 2008

summer Olympic Games was intended, in large part,to improve its image as a developed, stable countrycapable of hosting the international event. Forexample, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao noted, “TheBeijing Olympics present an opportunity for China toshow the world how democratic, open, civilised,friendly and harmonious it is” (Sands, 2008). Thus,the following hypothesis was made to measurewhether the image of China was changed by theOlympic Games:

H1: There was significant positive change in theimage of China following the 2008 summerOlympic Games.

In addition, because respondents of this study aredivided into two subgroups on the basis of frequencyof exposure to the Games, another hypothesis wasformed:

H1a: People who were highly exposed to theOlympic Games were more likely to have a morefavourable image of China than those who werenot exposed, or who were less exposed, to theOlympic Games.

Learning effect bias might have occurred if theadministration of the same sets of survey questionsabout only one country (China) had producedrespondents’ awareness of the country image issue(Ahamad, 2010). Therefore, in order to avoid this, twocountries (South Korea and Japan) were selected ascontrols. Because the Olympic event was held inChina, we hypothesise that there were no effects ofthe sports event on the images of other Asiancountries close to China. Thus:

H1b: There were no significant positive changesin the image of South Korea and Japan followingthe Olympic Games.

Papadopoulos and Heslop (1993) report a logical linkbetween consumers’ beliefs about a country’s GCAs




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and their assessment of its GPAs. A country’s productimage is a form of image variable that influencesconsumers’ perceptions of the quality of foreign-madeproducts. Accordingly, the ‘Made in’ concept has beenbroadly defined as the positive or negative influencethat a product’s country of manufacture may have on aconsumer’s decision processes, such as purchaseintention (Kang & Yang, 2010). Of all the informationalcues available to consumers to evaluate or judge theoverall quality of foreign products in the marketplace,the image they have formed of the foreign country hasthe greatest impact (Kumara & Canhua, 2009). Itwould appear, therefore, that hosting the OlympicGames could help to improve not only the countryimage of China, but also the image of its products.Thus, we hypothesised that there was a morefavourable attitude about Chinese products after theGames.

H2: There was significant, positive change in theimage of Chinese products (GPAs) following theOlympic Games.

At the same time, we predicted that there would be adifference between the attitudes of people who hadhigh and low exposure to the Olympic Games.Therefore, a fourth hypothesis was created:

H2a: People who were highly exposed to theOlympic Games were more likely to have a morefavourable image toward Chinese products (GPAs)than others who were less exposed to theOlympic Games.

Finally, we expected that there were no significantchanges in the attitude toward products made inSouth Korea and Japan over the two time periods.

H2b: There were no significant, positive changesin the image of products of South Korea andJapan following the Olympic Games.

Methodology

Sampling, data collection and research designIn order to determine whether the image of China andits products changed as a result of consumers’exposure to sports public relations communicationsbefore and during the 2008 Olympic Games, twosurveys were used. Because previous researchers(Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; Lepp & Gibson, 2003)found that nationality, age and education level caninfluence perception of foreign countries and theirimages, this study was designed to control for thesethree variables by focusing on a homogeneouspopulation – i.e. US college students.

Although the Olympic Games are an internationalevent, we focused study on the United States becauseit is the biggest market for China (Sull, 2005). Inaddition, we used college students as the samplebecause they are major consumers for ‘Made in China’products because of their cheap price and ease ofaccessibility at stores such as Wal-Mart (Sull, 2005).The data were gathered from two large universitieslocated in two south-eastern cities.

Fixed factors used in this study were the time periodbefore or after a sports event, the amount of timespent exposed to the event and the level of sportsinterest. This was because previous research indicatesthat the image of a country hosting a sports event isclosely related to time (Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1991) andsports interest (Auruskeviciene et al, 2010).Specifically, this study focuses on two different timeperiods – two months before and two months after theGames. The reason for selecting two months was toassess the more lasting long-term effects of the eventpromotion because there would be a strong correlationbetween forgetting and the passage of time(Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1991). In fact, when respondentswere asked, during the pre-test, to indicate whetherthey knew the Olympic Games were going to be heldin China, less than 40% (n=95 of 249) said they did.However, when the same question was asked post-test, more than 85% (n=156 of 180) said they hadknown. This data shows that the majority of the




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respondents of the study did not fully know about thecoming event (exactly when and where it was beingheld, etc.) even two months before the event, althoughChina had been known to be the host country of the2008 Olympics since 2001. Therefore, it could beimplied that the impact of announcing the candidacy(i.e. ‘we want to host’) before 2001 and awarding thehosting right (i.e. ‘we will host’) in 2001 wereminimal in terms of awareness about the event amongrespondents.

To measure the effectiveness of hosting theOlympics on the image of China, we used a quasi-experimental research design called ‘non-equivalentcontrol group’ with a pre-test and a post-test. In June2008, two months prior to the beginning of theGames, 279 randomly selected people (170 malesand 109 females, with the average age of 21.8 years)were surveyed for their perceived country image ofChina and its products.

In October 2008, two months after the end of theevent, a post-test survey was administered. During thepost-test, another random sample was drawn from thesame universities, consisting of a total of 180 people(103 males and 77 females with an average age of20.2). The respondents of the post-test data were alsoasked for their perceived images of China and itsproducts and their answers were compared with theanswers gathered in the pre-test. The post-Olympicsample also measured frequency and length of timethat respondents were exposed to the Games on allmajor media, especially television programmes andnewspapers. The amount of time respondents watchedthe event indicated that different people in the samplewere exposed to different levels of the experimentaltreatment. While some ignored the sporting event,others watched the Games for hours, late at nightwhen the Games were live-broadcast from China. Weconsidered these voluntarily differing levels of gameviewing as a treatment (or manipulation) in thisexperimental design. In other words, the differencebetween country images in the sub-samples of post-test data was naturally set according to the amount oftime each participant spent watching the event.

A second treatment was provided by the changebetween the pre-test and the post-test, which wasassumed to have been caused by the Olympic event.As a control, respondents’ perceptions of two otherAsian countries, South Korea and Japan, and theirproducts were measured in both pre- and post-testsurveys. This was to determine if any changesoccurred in the images of these control countries overthe two time periods. In order to ensure the validity ofresults, the pre-test and post-test were conducted withthe two treatments and one control.

Although ‘Made in China’ products had beenentering the US market prior to the Olympic Games,no specific events or advertising campaigns promotingChina’s image or its products had been conducted inthe US during the Olympic time period observed.These facts enabled pre-Olympic period questioning ofrespondents who had little familiarity with China andits products. The absence of events or promotionsduring the period of the surveys means that the effectsof hosting the Olympic Games on China’s country andproduct images were not likely to be influenced by anyother types of promotions. Since respondents were notsubjected to any additional promotion of Chineseproducts between the two surveys, additional learningeffects should have been minimal.

It should also be noted that both sampledistributions were similar. While a total of 279 peopleparticipated in the pre-test and a total of 180 peopleresponded to the post-test. a chi-square test showedthat there were no significant differences between thedemographic categories of the two samples (p>.05).Therefore, the differences did not account for theobserved results.

Operationalisation for dependent variablesTo measure the change in China’s country image asthe dependent variable of this study we employed amultidimensional scale using two facets of countryimage – GCA and GPA – developed by Parameswaranand Pisharodi (1994) and Parameswaran and Yaprak(1987). GCA consisted of 12 attributes formulated tomeasure the Chinese image: six cognitive attributes




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(development of politics, development of economy,advances of culture, technical education, technicalskills, engagement in international affairs); and sixemotional attributes (friendly, artistic and creative,hardworking, better educated, living standards,country similarity to the US). To assess the reliabilityof these scales, Cronbach’s alpha (α) was computed.The figures were .80 (pre-test) and .77 (post-test) forthe cognitive attributes and .89 (pre-test) and .82(post-test) for the emotional attributes. Section A ofboth pre- and post- questionnaires also requested thatrespondents indicate their attitude toward GCAs ofthree countries – South Korea, Japan and China.

GPA consisted of 13 attributes, includinginnovativeness, design, prestige and workmanship. Asin previous studies that showed a reliable scale of GPA(Hong & Wyer, 1989; Kumara & Canhua, 2010;Parameswaran & Yaprak, 1987), the computedCronbach’s alpha (α) for the pre-test (.75) and thepost-test (.79) determined satisfactory reliability of theGPA items used in this study. Section B of thequestionnaires required respondents to rate GPAs ofthree countries (South Korea, Japan and China). Ineach case, the task of the respondents was to indicatetheir beliefs regarding the durability, value-for-money,reliability, functionality, and fashionable quality ofproducts made in each of the respective countries. Forthe GCA and GPA measurements a nine-point Likert-type scale was used, ranging from 1 (stronglydisagree) to 9 (strongly agree); that is, the morefavourable the attitude, the higher the score.

Exposure to the OlympicsPeople in the US had various opportunities to view the2008 Olympic Games via broadcast media. Theycould watch live broadcasts of the Games, and severalminutes of the one-hour nightly sports newsprogrammes were devoted to coverage (e.g. NBCOlympics Tonight). More extensive coverage was alsogiven on regularly scheduled Olympic programmes

several times a day. In addition, special programmingwas run in the early evenings and then again from lateat night to early morning (after midnight). Olympiccoverage is not usually restricted to the Games alone,but typically also includes background stories relatedto the sites of the event as well as the hostingcountry’s economic, social, cultural and political sites(Zhong et al, 2009). This means that extensive mediacoverage may influence attitudes towards the countrywhere the event takes place. Ultimately, the test ofwhether hosting the Olympics has any effect iswhether changes in exports, tourism, foreign directinvestment and so forth are taking place(Auruskeviciene et al, 2010).

More than half of respondents in the second surveywatched the Games to a significant extent. Theaverage time spent watching the Games on TV wastwo hours a day. Respondents were asked to indicatewhether they had known that the Olympic Gameswould be held in China and how interested they hadbeen in watching the Games on television. Extent ofexposure was measured by the amount of time theyreported watching the Games. Accordingly,respondents were divided into two groups: high-exposure; and no- or low-exposure. Considering thatthe average time spent watching the Games on TVwas two hours a day, high-exposure respondents weredefined as those who spent more than two hours perday watching the Games on live broadcast, regularnews broadcasts and regularly scheduled sports newsprogrammes. No- or low- exposure respondents weredefined as those who did not know the event wasbeing held in China, were not very interested in theevent or who were exposed to only small parts of theGames (e.g. scores) or for just small amounts of time(less than two hours a day) via news, sports news,cable programmes or newspapers. Of 180respondents to the second survey, 95 respondentswere placed in the high- exposure group, while 85were placed in the no- or low-exposure group.




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GROUPS

BEFORE AFTER (N=180)(N=279) COMBINED NO HIGH

EXPOSURE EXPOSURE(N=85) (N=95)

MEAN (X) (X) t (X) (X) t

GCAs

FRIENDLY LIKABLE 4.47 5.47 -5.35** 4.48 6.35 -7.82**

ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE 5.96 6.46 -2.40* 5.29 7.51 -9.43**

WELL EDUCATED 6.38 6.87 -2.29* 5.54 8.06 -11.18**

HARD WORKING 6.84 7.11 -1.29 5.88 8.21 -9.78**

TECHNICAL EDUCATION 6.32 6.82 -2.26* 5.54 7.97 -10.14**

ACHIEVING HIGH STANDARD 4.83 6.51 -7.07** 5.27 7.62 -9.24**

RAISED STANDARDS OF LIVING 4.52 5.34 -3.75** 4.62 5.99 -4.67**

TECHNICAL SKILLS 5.92 6.59 -3.21** 5.45 7.62 -9.29**

SIMILAR POLITICAL VIEWS 2.85 3.19 -2.04* 2.91 3.45 -1.99**

ECONOMICALLY SIMILAR 3.75 3.78 -.14 3.04 4.44 -4.62**

CULTURALLY SIMILAR 2.64 2.82 -.98 2.38 3.21 -3.23**

PARTICIPATES IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 5.27 5.69 -1.87 4.99 6.33 -4.10**

OVERALL (MEAN OF GCAs) 4.97 5.56 -4.32** 4.62 6.38 -11.9**

GPAs

LUXURY PRODUCTS 4.93 4.95 -.11 4.34 5.49 -3.67**

METICULOUS WORKMANSHIP 5.66 5.73 -.35 5.18 6.23 -3.49**

KNOWN FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS 6.19 6.06 .69 5.79 6.29 -1.74

SOLD IN MANY COUNTRIES 7.79 7.82 -.73 7.49 8.11 -2.73**

INTENSELY ADVERTISED 5.38 5.53 -.75 5.46 5.60 -.47

FREQUENT REPAIRS 5.34 5.33 -.01 5.29 5.37 -.27

WIDE RANGE OF MODELS 5.90 5.92 -.08 5.91 5.93 -.07

LONG LASTING 5.46 5.29 .81 5.04 5.50 -1.48

ADVERTISING INFORMATIVE 5.40 5.29 .57 5.18 5.40 -.78

HIGH TECHNOLOGY 6.38 6.19 .99 5.81 6.53 -2.54*

GOOD VALUE 5.88 5.92 -.15 5.68 6.11 -1.54

EASILY AVAILABLE 7.03 7.07 -.25 7.02 7.11 -.28

PRESTIGIOUS PRODUCT 5.61 5.49 .66 5.14 5.80 -1.31

OVERALL (MEAN OF GPAs) 5.68 5.64 .49 5.52 5.76 -1.93

TABLE 1 Changes in country image of China before and after exposure to the 2008 summer Olympic Games

Notes: Possible range score is 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree). *p<.05 **p<.01.



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MeasurementTo test the hypotheses of this study, severalindependent t-tests were used to determine thedifferences between pre-test and post-test scores andbetween high-exposure respondents and low-exposurerespondents in their images of China, South Korea,and Japan and for each country’s products.

Results

Olympics exposure and changes in China’s imageHypothesis 1 addresses the changes in China’s GCAsover the periods before and after the Olympic Games.For H1, a t-test was conducted to examine thedifferences between the ‘before’ group and the ‘after’samples in mean scale values for all 12 GCAattributes. The calculated t-test showed that allvariables of GCAs were statistically significant at eitherp<.01 or p<.05 except for ‘hard working’,‘economical similarity’, ‘cultural similarity’ and‘international participation’. In addition, after theGames, there was positive change in all scalevariables of GCA and also significant improvement inChina’s overall GCA (t=4.32, df=454, p<.01).Therefore, these results statistically supported H1 –i.e. hosting the Olympic Games helped China toimprove its image internationally (see Table 1).

To further measure the effect of Olympics exposureon China’s country image change, the ‘after’ groupwas split into two subgroups (high-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups) according to the extent towhich they had viewed the Games. To test H1a,which addresses the differences between no- or low-exposure and high-exposure subgroups in mean scalevalues for all 12 GCA attributes, an independent t-testwas also calculated. The t-test indicated that therewere significant positive changes in all 12 GCAs inhigh-exposure respondents. As assumed, there was astatistically significant difference in the overall imageof China (overall GCA) between high-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups (t=11.9, df=178,

p<.01). These findings confirm that, as exposure tothe Olympic Games became more extensive,respondents’ attitudes toward the host countrybecame more favourable. These results significantlysupported H1a.

In order to control for chance, similar t-tests wererun for the country images of South Korea and Japan(H1b). In the case of South Korea, all GCA variableswere not significantly changed either before or afterthe Olympic Games (t=-.22, df=441, n.s.). Inaddition, this lack of change was maintained in theoverall country image of South Korea. In thecomparison of high-exposure and no- or low-exposuregroups, the change was also insignificant (t=-1.1, df=172, n.s.), except for three variables:‘artistic and creative’ (t=-2.92, df=178, p<.05),‘technical skills’ (t=-2.64, df=176, p<.05) and‘cultural similarity) (t=2.34, df=178, p<.05).

In the case of Japan, all GCA variables were notsignificantly different in the comparison of the before and after groups, as shown in Table 3 (t=-.361, df=451, n.s.). However, in the comparisonof high-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups,there was a significant change in overall countryimage of Japan (t=-2.89, df=176, p<.05). This significant image change was influencedby changes in GCA variables such as ‘friendly andlikable’ (t=-2.74, df=178, p<.05), ‘artistic andcreative’ (t=-3.48, df=178, p<.05), ‘well educated’(t=-3.1, df=178, p<.05), ‘technical education’ (t=-3.6, df=178, p<.01), ‘technical skills’ (t=-2.58, df=178, p<.05) and ‘international affairparticipation’ (t=-2.24, df=176, p<.05). Thesefindings indicate that there was no relationshipbetween the Olympic Games and the country image of South Korea and Japan over time. However, wefound a minor relationship between exposure to theGame broadcasts and changes in respondents’ country image of Japan. These findings partiallysupported H1b.

Overall, the verification of these three experimentaland control hypotheses suggests a strong positive




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GROUPS

BEFORE AFTER (n=180)(n=279) COMBINED NO HIGH

EXPOSURE EXPOSURE(n=85) (n=95)


GCAs

FRIENDLY AND LIKABLE 5.01 5.39 -1.76 5.26 5.51 -0.90

ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE 5.86 5.96 -.59 5.58 6.29 -2.92*

WELL EDUCATED 6.25 6.34 -.15 6.08 6.58 -1.84

HARD WORKING 6.89 6.89 .22 6.79 6.98 -.78

TECHNICAL EDUCATION 6.39 6.37 .13 6.14 6.58 -1.74

ACHIEVING HIGH STANDARD 6.04 6.02 .08 5.74 6.27 -1.97

RAISED STANDARDS OF LIVING 5.32 5.28 .21 5.08 5.45 -1.34

TECHNICAL SKILLS 5.96 6.15 -1.13 5.81 6.45 -2.64**

SIMILAR POLITICAL VIEWS 4.54 4.42 .56 4.51 4.35 .52

ECONOMICALLY SIMILAR 4.27 4.20 .43 4.21 4.18 .12

CULTURALLY SIMILAR 3.30 3.07 1.29 3.41 2.77 2.34*

PARTICIPATES IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 5.08 5.13 -.31 4.92 5.33 .86

OVERALL (MEAN OF GCAs) 5.37 5.40 -.23 5.30 5.48 -1.10

GPAs

LUXURY PRODUCTS 4.84 5.13 -1.61 4.92 5.32 -1.43

METICULOUS WORKMANSHIP 5.53 5.67 -.83 5.21 6.07 -3.40**

KNOWN FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS 5.33 5.37 -.26 5.39 5.35 .18

SOLD IN MANY COUNTRIES 6.18 6.31 -.72 6.40 6.22 .69

INTENSELY ADVERTISED 4.45 4.77 -1.76 5.07 4.49 2.18*

FREQUENT REPAIRS 4.98 4.83 .93 4.67 4.98 -1.32

WIDE RANGE OF MODELS 5.16 5.46 -1.78 5.62 5.32 1.23

LONG LASTING 5.22 5.38 -1.04 5.18 5.57 -1.63

ADVERTISING INFORMATIVE 4.91 4.98 -.44 5.00 4.97 .12

HIGH TECHNOLOGY 5.59 6.11 -2.96* 5.93 6.27 -1.35

GOOD VALUE 5.76 5.91 -.89 5.76 6.03 -1.09

EASILY AVAILABLE 5.91 6.07 -.89 6.16 5.99 .67

PRESTIGIOUS PRODUCT 5.07 4.99 .45 5.08 4.92 .67

OVERALL (MEAN OF GPAs) 5.20 5.27 -.99 5.26 5.29 -.26

TABLE 2 Changes in country image of South Korea before and after exposure to the 2008 summer Olympic Games

Notes: Possible range score is 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree). *p<.05 **p<.01.



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GROUPS

BEFORE AFTER (n=180)(n=279) COMBINED NO HIGH

EXPOSURE EXPOSURE(n=85) (n=95)


GCAs

FRIENDLY AND LIKABLE 5.98 6.07 -.51 5.69 6.41 -2.74*

ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE 7.14 7.12 .15 6.71 7.48 -3.48*

WELL EDUCATED 7.54 7.68 -.97 7.35 7.98 -3.10*

HARD WORKING 7.51 7.56 -.38 7.22 7.86 -3.15*

TECHNICAL EDUCATION 7.61 7.69 -.51 7.26 8.07 -3.60**

ACHIEVING HIGH STANDARD 7.47 7.55 -.48 7.28 7.79 -2.07*

RAISED STANDARDS OF LIVING 6.58 6.58 -.04 6.47 6.68 -.80

TECHNICAL SKILLS 7.35 7.45 -.63 7.14 7.73 -2.58*

SIMILAR POLITICAL VIEWS 5.16 4.92 1.22 5.07 4.78 .98

ECONOMICALLY SIMILAR 5.27 5.33 -.28 5.15 5.48 -1.06

CULTURALLY SIMILAR 3.74 3.58 .80 3.78 3.41 1.20

PARTICIPATES IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 5.91 6.22 -1.56 5.88 6.53 -2.24*

OVERALL (MEAN OF GCAs) 6.44 6.47 -.36 6.25 6.67 -2.89*

GPAs

LUXURY PRODUCTS 5.89 5.65 1.35 5.34 5.93 -1.92

METICULOUS WORKMANSHIP 5.98 6.07 1.17 5.67 6.43 -2.93**

KNOWN FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS 5.99 5.87 .67 5.41 6.27 -3.14**

SOLD IN MANY COUNTRIES 7.39 6.93 2.75 6.73 7.11 -1.37

INTENSELY ADVERTISED 5.63 5.35 1.4 5.51 5.21 .97

FREQUENT REPAIRS 4.50 4.58 -.44 4.62 4.54 .36

WIDE RANGE OF MODELS 6.07 5.93 .76 5.99 5.87 .43

LONG LASTING 6.06 5.97 .52 5.75 6.16 -1.43

ADVERTISING INFORMATIVE 5.75 5.50 1.53 5.41 5.58 .66

HIGH TECHNOLOGY 7.20 6.88 1.76 6.54 7.19 -2.45*

GOOD VALUE 6.24 6.21 .19 6.00 6.40 -1.62

EASILY AVAILABLE 6.70 6.44 1.4 6.41 6.47 -.22

PRESTIGIOUS PRODUCT 5.89 5.78 .60 5.51 6.02 -1.78

OVERALL (MEAN OF GPAs) 5.74 5.63 1.43 5.51 5.73 -1.79

TABLE 3 Changes in country image of Japan before and after exposure to the 2008 summer Olympic Games

Notes: Possible range score is 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree) *p<.05 **p<.01.



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effect of hosting the Olympic Games on China’scountry image, while there were no or small effects forneighbouring countries.

Olympics exposure and image changes of Chinese products Hypothesis 2 addresses any changes in the image ofChinese products (GPAs) for periods before and afterthe Olympic Games (see Table 1). Independent t-testswere calculated to see the differences between thebefore and after groups in mean scale values for all13 GPA attributes. The calculated t-tests showed thatno variable of the GPAs was statistically significant. Inaddition, there was no significant change in the overallimage of Chinese products (overall GPA) after theOlympic Games (t=-.49, df=447, n.s.). Therefore,these results did not support H2; that is, the OlympicGames did not improve the image of Chinese products(GPAs).

To further measure the effect of Olympic Gamesexposure on image change of Chinese products (H2a),the differences between no- or low-exposure and high-exposure subgroups in mean scale values for all 13GPA attributes were examined. As shown in Table 1,while there were slightly positive changes in all 13GPAs in high-exposure respondents, four variables,‘luxury products’ (t=-3.67, df=178, p<.01),‘meticulous workmanship’ (t=-3.49, df=178, p<.01), ‘sold in many countries’ (t=-2.73, df=178, p<.01) and ‘high technology’ (t=-2.54,df=178, p<.05) were statistically significant.However, more importantly, there was no significantchange in the overall image of Chinese products(overall GPA) between high-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups (t=-1.93, df=177, n.s.). These findings suggest that, although exposure to theOlympic Games was more extensive, respondents’attitudes toward Chinese products were notsignificantly changed in a favourable way. Therefore,these results did not support H2a.

In order to control for chance, similar t-tests wereperformed for South Korean and Japanese products(see Table 2). In the case of South Korea, only one

variable, ‘high technology’, was statistically differentafter the Olympic Games (t=-2.96, df=452, p<.05).Between the high-exposure and no- or low-exposuregroups, ‘meticulous workmanship’ (t=-3.4, df=178,p<.01) and ‘intensively advertised’ (t=2.18, df=178,p<.05) were the only two GPA variables to show astatistical difference. There were also no significantchanges in the overall image of South Korean products(overall GPA) in the before and after samples (t=-.99, df=448, n.s.) and in the high-exposure andno- or low-exposure groups (t=-.26, df=177, n.s.).

In the case of Japan, no single GPA variable wassignificantly different in the comparison of before andafter the Olympic Games, as shown in Table 3 (t=-1.43, df=449, n.s.). However, there weredifferences between the high-exposure and no- or low-exposure groups in the four variables ‘meticulousworkmanship’ (t=-2.93, df=178, p<.01), ‘imitation’(t=-2.47, df=177, p<.05), ‘known for industrialproducts’ (t=-3.14, df=178, p<.01) and ‘hightechnology’ (t=-2.45, df=178, p<.05). This insignificance of image change ofJapanese products was maintained in overall GPAs (t=-1.79, df=177, n.s.). These findings, once again,showed that there was little or no relationship betweenthe Olympic Games and the images of products ofSouth Korea and Japan over time, clearly supportinghypothesis H2b.

Discussion and implications

Theoretical implicationsThis study’s findings may contribute in several ways tounderstanding the effects that hosting an internationalsports event can have on a host country’s image andproduct image. Firstly, we found that hosting the 2008Olympic Games significantly improved the countryimage of China, especially among consumers who hada high exposure to media reporting of the event. Thissupports the findings of previous studies that indicatethat country image is improved through internationalsports events (Gilmore, 2002; Kim & Morrison, 2005;




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Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1991). For example, hosting the1988 Seoul Olympics (Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1991) andthe 2002 FIFA World Cup (Kim & Morrison, 2005)improved the image of Korea; and hosting the 1992Barcelona Olympics, along with other nationalpromotional programme events, improved Spain’simage (Gilmore, 2002).

In the case of the 2008 Olympics, several factorsmight have contributed to the improved country imageof China. One factor may have been the high level ofpositive coverage China received in the US pressconcerning the logistics of the event (aside fromnegative coverage of lip-syncing during the openingceremony, a torch relay scandal, Tibet protests andother human rights issues). Furthermore, when theU.S. was a front runner for the total medal count, U.S.consumers would have enjoyed viewing the Games,which in turn boosted the general image of China(Zhong et al, 2009). This explanation matchesfindings from a recent survey of 500 Americanscommissioned by Advertising Age. According to thesurvey, 76% of the respondents were either somewhator very familiar with the human rights concernssurrounding China’s actions concerning Darfur andTibet. However, large majorities of the respondents(85%) did not think politics has any place in the2008 Olympics and many (82%) did not think thesponsors of the Games ought to be boycotted(Mullman, 2008). In addition, while attending theopening ceremony of the Olympics, U.S. PresidentBush seemed eager to play the role of the apoliticalsports fan instead of publicly pressing China’s leaderson political issues. (Weyrich, 2008). This may implythat consumers think politics and sport do not mixand that they do not want to be bothered by heavytopics such as politics and human rights issues whilewatching sports competitions. That would fit well withChina’s approach of ‘talking up’ sports while avoidingpolitical issues.

Secondly, the COO literature suggests that acountry’s image can have a powerful effect on howconsumers evaluate its products and on the success ofits products in foreign markets (Kang & Yang, 2010;

Loo and Davis, 2006). However, in this study, wefound that hosting the Olympic Games provided nopositive changes in the image of Chinese products.According to the literature of image transfer in sportssponsorship (Reinhard & Heribert, 2005), higherexposure to the Olympics leads to an increased imagetransfer only if the event and the image of productsmade in the hosting country fit particularly well (Kooet al, 2006). Otherwise, the magnitude of this effect islower, because the level of exposure per se does nothave a significant influence on the improvement of theproduct image. This implies that there was no ‘haloeffect’ of hosting the event for Chinese products.According to Han (1989) and Kleppe et al (2002),the halo effect occurs when the perceived positiveimage of a particular country extends to its productimage. However, it seems that the halo effect hasbecome ineffective in the contemporary global market.While products are increasingly made in multiplecountries, consumers are likely to pay less attention towhere a product is made and more attention to thespecific attributes of the product (Han & Terpstra,1988; Kang & Yang, 2010). For example, althoughChina’s image was changed favourably after theOlympics, negative perceptions (e.g. ‘from adeveloping country’ and ‘low price/quality’) towardChinese products seemed to continue amonginternational consumers (Loo & Davies, 2006).Overall, a new consumer trend seems to be movingtoward strong product/brand preference withoutsubstantial knowledge about product origin. Thus, itbecomes relevant to reconsider the COO framework inorder to better understand contemporary consumertrends by focusing on examining the effect ofproduct/brand image or reputation on consumers’behaviours (e.g. purchase intention) instead of simplyexpecting a positive effect of COO on behaviours (Kang & Yang, 2010; Kumara & Canhua, 2009).

Thirdly, it can be implied that sports eventmarketing practices are not simple, but very complex,in today’s global market. According to reputationinterdependence literature (Barnett & Hoffmanross,2008), relationships among sponsors, corporations,




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government and other social sectors are increasinglyinterconnected. This is not just a matter of managingexternal resources – such as capital, labour,technology, and community – but also of managingimages (Kitchen & Laurence, 2003). Beforepurchasing a product, customers are not affected by asingle cue, such as COO image, but by multiple cues– e.g. specific product attributes (including theproduct’s quality and values, the manufacturer’shistory, marketing strategies and communicationeffectiveness) (Kang & Yang, 2010; Kumara &Canhua, 2010). In addition, it is not easy for acountry to have a consistent persona, because acountry is comprised of different images. A country isan economically, culturally and politically diverse entityand cannot be easily perceived via a single image.Therefore, it is difficult to project a positive overallimage of a country that fits with all of the products itmakes (Loo & Davies, 2006). For example, Japan israted highly for producing cars and electronicproducts, but is not known for its cigars. On the otherhand, Cuban cigars are loved all over the world – butwho buys cars ‘Made in Cuba’?

Finally, a country image can vary from consumer toconsumer and from market to market. Differentconsumers, including industrial buyers and foreigninvestors, evaluate Chinese products differentlydepending on factors such as individual perception,industry focus and market potential. Certainconsumers and industrial buyers may be attracted byChina’s ability to produce a wide variety of qualitygoods at a low price, while China’s huge domesticmarket, and low cost of investment, can offercompetitive advantages in attracting investorsworldwide (Loo & Davies, 2006). Because the distinctfactors of a country’s image may affect consumptionbehaviour in different ways, this study suggests thatan effective marketing strategy may be to developseparate messages for each relevant factor andsegmented consumer target groups.

Practical applicationsThe overall findings of this study have several practicalapplications. The first is that a country should beaware of the importance of image management forinternational marketing communication strategies.Since introducing their products into the US in the1980s, Chinese manufacturers have made greatefforts to penetrate the American market, mainly byrelying on low prices. However, this marketing strategyhas created a boomerang effect on China’s productimage, as China has come to be regarded as a low-cost producer in the global marketplace (Loo & Davies,2006). In order to achieve sustainable growth, Chinanow understands that it needs to move beyond a low-cost production model into higher value-addedproducts. But, more importantly, once Chinese brandnames are established, China has to convince theworld that these are brands that deserve a pricepremium (Loo & Davies, 2006).

On the other hand, as long as certain groups ofconsumers maintain an anti-China stance,communication/public relations strategies for Chineseproducts should not highlight their Chinese values(Loo & Davies, 2006). In fact, some global companiesintentionally make the COO of their products obscureas part of their marketing strategies – particularlywhen a negative country image might be linked tonegative product evaluations (Papadopoulos & Heslop,1993). For example, until the late 1970s, Japanesecar manufactures experienced a negative perception ofpoor quality in the US (Cole & Flynn, 2009). Becauseof this, they did not use ‘Made in Japan’ or Japanesewords in their advertising. When, in the 1980s, Toyotaintroduced Lexus, which is now a luxury car brand,US consumers were not even aware that the productwas manufactured by Toyota or in Japan (Fackler,2005).

Hosting the 2008 Olympic Games gave China agreat opportunity to build momentum. Chinesemanufacturers now need to take advantage of theresulting positive changes in perception of China’simage – China is still rated higher by American




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consumers due to hosting the event. The Chinesegovernment should assume a leadership role inmaking sure that the country as a whole presents aspecific image to the world through its products andalso through its political actions, popular culture andother aspects (Loo & Davies, 2006). The BeijingOrganising Committee for the Olympic Games spentthe equivalent of more than a billion US dollarsattempting to ensure that their image of China as asuperpower was conveyed to the 1.3 billion peoplewho watched the Olympics on television, as well as toglobal leaders who attended the opening ceremony(CNN, 2008).

However, using the hosting of a mega-event as atool for international marketing and public relations toenhance a country’s image may not provide long-lasting change because the effects of advertising andpromotional campaigns, unless continued, decay overtime. Lo (2008) reports that a recently observed post-Olympic investment slump in China may mean thatthe long-term economic impact of the BeijingOlympics was negligible. Lo also suggests that only0.3 % of China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)growth came from the Olympics, which was notimpressive considering the US$40 billion spent tooperate the Games. The Chinese government, andChinese manufacturers, should therefore make everyeffort to maintain the increased favourable perceptionsof China’s country image as this may improve productimage. Consequently, manufacturers should have usedthe period shortly after the Olympics to improve theirproduct quality and to provide benefits to consumers.Ultimately, the improved image of China may haveprovided consumers with more opportunities topurchase or directly experience Chinese products.

Overall, the findings of this study should enablemarketing and public relations practitioners to morefrequently and effectively use sponsorship practices toincrease a country’s image as a competitive tool ininternational marketing. In fact, scholars have foundthat hosting a mega-event increases people’sintentions to visit host countries and cities (Chalip et

al, 2003; Hiller, 2000). In the same vein, knowledgeabout the effects of improved country image can assistpractitioners in understanding the need for appropriatepromotion strategies – such as approaching the propertarget market or consumers or developing effectivemessages in an international marketing setting. Byemploying these strategies, a country can benefit frompositive stereotypes of its image and even convertnegative stereotypes into positive experiences.

Limitations and future study

The findings of this study include some limitations thatraise several questions for future research. Firstly, Han(1990) argues that consumers have significantlydifferent perceptions about products made in differentcountries, as shown in a number of country imagestudies. This notion brings up the question of thegeneralisability of country image effects tested in thisstudy. This is because the study only dealt with threeAsian countries and their general products withoutconsidering any products or brands of each countryspecifically. Loo and Davies (2006) observe thatgeographical proximity to a country affects consumers’familiarity with its products and also influences theirresponse. Jaffe and Nebenzahl’s (2001) study of theperception of the overall quality of goods produced indifferent countries shows that European respondentstend to select Germany as a quality leader, whileAmerican respondents choose the US and Asianrespondents select Japan. Another study on theperception of Canada by 18 countries (Papadopoulos& Heslop, 2002) showed similar findings – with theU.S., Canada’s immediate neighbour, consistentlyrating Canada and its products higher than any othercountry. As a result, American consumers’ perceptionsof cars made in South Korea may be very differentfrom their perceptions of cars made in Japan. Will thefindings hold true in other countries and situationswhere those products are less familiar? Futureresearchers should address this topic. As Green et al




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(2003) observe, hosting a mega-event may notnecessarily be perceived as a promotional activity byall audiences. Events such as sports or music festivalsattract a specific type of audience and therefore maybe more relevant for some product categories than forothers. In this sense, this study reaches only self-selected consumers, since most respondents werecollege students who are generally interested insporting events (Auruskeviciene et al, 2010).Therefore, it seems that the potential audience for theOlympic Games is not representative of the globalconsumer population. More research is needed toindicate more specific publics that are exposed to thistype of event. Future studies could obtain data fromrespondents across age (e.g. seniors) and gender (e.g.housewives who often purchase Chinese products) orgroups from various countries beyond the US.Furthermore, the findings of this study should betested by extending the methodology to includespecific (rather than general) products made in acountry, different origin countries and specificconsumers’ behaviours (e.g. attitude toward a brand,purchase intension, brand loyalty, etc.). In addition,extension of research on corporate sponsorship of theOlympic Games to create more favourable images ofcorporations and their products may also beappropriate.

There is a further limitation to this study because itonly uses two time periods – two months before andtwo months after the event. There are at least threeimportant milestones in hosting a mega sports event:announcement of candidacy (i.e. ‘we want to host’),awarding the hosting right (i.e. ‘we will host’) andthen the actual hosting (i.e. ‘we are currentlyhosting/have hosted’). The bid to host an event andthe actual hosting of the event are two differentprocesses. Because China was awarded hosting rightsin July 2001, it might be that significant improvementof China’s image had happened even before the firstdata collection of this study. Thus, a longitudinalresearch setting would help to overcome this issue forfuture, upcoming mega sports events such as the

2012 London Olympics, the 2014 FIFA World Cup inBrazil and the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Finally, the changes associated with the OlympicGames as an international marketing strategy might bestatic. Will the positive change in attitudes towards theimage of China remain at the same level as thatrecorded soon after the event? For how long will thiseffect last? More longitudinal research is needed toanswer these questions. Moreover, variables, includingeconomic, political and cultural factors, could beincluded for a more insightful and complete analysis.

Conclusion

Hosting the 2008 summer Olympic Games improvedthe country image of China due to the internationalattention given to the event. Hosting the Olympics wasa critical showcase for China to display its outputglobally and the event certainly gave the country animage boost. For the nation, winning the right to hostthe Games and successfully hosting the event was anaffirmation of its social and economic progress of thepast 30 years and its new status as a world power. Itwas also a chance for China to tell the world that itsubscribes to the Olympic spirit of excellence andvictory.

However, as a promotional sports event, theOlympics did not upgrade China’s product imagebecause that faces a number of challenges. We do notexpect that China can address all of its imagechallenges in a short time. Rather, we would suggestthat the country should deal with the challengingissues in effective ways. Future researchers shouldtrack how effectively the country handles thechallenges in the global marketplace over time.





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Biographies

Wonjun Chung (PhD, Purdue University) is anassistant professor in the Department ofCommunication at University of Louisiana at Lafayette(ULL). His research interests include internationalpublic relations and sports marketing, issue and crisismanagement, financial relations, and corporate socialresponsibility.

Chang Wan Woo (PhD, University of Alabama) is anassistant professor in the Division of Communicationat the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. He hasexpertise in sports communication, especially fanshipand public relations. His research also focuses onleadership and effective use of social media inorganisation public relations.

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Sponsorship and CSR: is there a link? A conceptual framework

Keywordssports sponsorshipcorporate social responsibilityemployeessponsorship effectiveness

Executive summary

Sponsorship has been defined in the literature as anexchange between a sponsor and a sponsored entity(also called a ‘property’), whereby the sponsor investsin cash and/or in kind in a property in order to securethe rights to exploit the commercial potential derivedfrom its association with that property (Meenaghan,1983). The commercial intent, therefore, is whatdifferentiates sponsorship from corporate giving orphilanthropy (Polonsky & Speed, 2001); whereascharitable giving entails no leverage of the association

and little or no expectation of return (Javalgi et al,1994; Speed & Thompson, 2000). Despite this keydifference, the boundaries between sponsorship andphilanthropy have become blurred in recent times asmarketers discovered the merits of cause-relatedmarketing and cause sponsorship. Cause-relatedmarketing involves corporate giving that is tied toconsumer purchases (Dean, 2003; Varadarajan &Menon, 1987), for example McDonald’s contributing$1 of every Big Mac sold on a certain day towards the

Abstract

A prolific stream of research has demonstrated theunique potential of sports sponsorship to contribute tocorporate image and to influence audiences around theworld. Meanwhile, the concept of corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) has increasingly been identified inthe literature for its potential to deliver a degree ofcompetitive advantage. This paper builds on both thesetheoretical fields to develop a conceptual frameworklinking the effectiveness of sports sponsorship with thesponsors’ CSR commitment to both employees andconsumers.

Carolin PlewaSenior Lecturer in MarketingUniversity of Adelaide Business School, 10 Pulteney StreetAdelaide SA 5005, AustraliaEmail: [email protected]

Pascale G. QuesterInaugural Professor of MarketingUniversity of Adelaide Business School, Australia

Peer reviewed

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Ronald McDonald House Charities. Causesponsorship, on the other hand, involves sponsoring asocial or environmental cause deemed worthy byconsumers, independent of sales (Coote & Cornwell,2005). In essence, both of these strategies aim tocreate goodwill among stakeholders (Dean, 2002), toimprove attitudes towards the sponsoring organisationand, ultimately, to increase sales and market share(Hoek et al, 2001; Polonsky & Speed, 2001;Varadarajan & Menon, 1987).

Despite growing engagement in social causes andphilanthropic activities by organisations aiming toestablish a community-focused corporate image, sportremains a primary focus of organisations, with 70% ofall sponsorship spending currently allocated to sports,according to the International Events Group (Klayman,2008). Sport provides unique opportunities byattracting mass audiences in local, regional and globalarenas (McKelvey & Grady 2008) and by engagingwith audiences and participants beyond the cognitivelevel, provoking emotional responses that have beenshown as beneficial for sponsors (Christensen, 2006).

Given the uniqueness of sports sponsorship, thelarge investments it already attracts and the increasingdesire by business organisations to be seen as sociallyresponsible within their communities, the questionarises whether sports sponsorship effectiveness shouldinclude its capacity to an improved CSR profile. Whilesome scholars have called for a conceptualisation ofthe role sports sponsorship may play in establishingCSR (Amis & Cornwell, 2005), the literature is yet toacknowledge and test the effectiveness of sportssponsorship as a form of CSR initiative.

This paper contributes to our theoreticalunderstanding of the phenomenon by developing aconceptual framework of sports sponsorship as a formof CSR communication, including relevant sponsor-,employee- and consumer-related influence factors.Moreover, it extends the current literature onsponsorship effectiveness by considering the internaleffects of sponsorship on the sponsor organisation, animportant question only touched upon in the literature(Amis & Cornwell, 2005). In this paper, based on a

comprehensive literature review, we argue thatsponsorship of sport can be used to establish andstrengthen employee and customer perceptions ofCSR, in turn leading to internal and external benefitsfor the sponsoring organisation.

Introduction

The extant literature about sports sponsorship hasprovided valuable insights into its unique potential fororganisations and suggested relevant success factors(for a comprehensive review, see Walliser 2003;Cornwell, Weeks & Roy, 2005). However, a number ofareas have remained under-developed boththeoretically and empirically. Of these, the potentialcontribution of sponsorship to Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR) outcomes is largely unexplored.Considering the ability of sponsorship to shapeconsumer perceptions and the increasing pressure onorganisations to engage in socially responsiblebehaviour and to communicate such CSR commitmentto the community, we believe that the integration ofthese two research streams could assist in thedevelopment of a conceptual framework explainingcustomer response to sponsor CSR initiatives. Morespecifically, we argue that sports sponsorship, whichaccording to the International Events Group accountsfor close to 70% of all sponsorship spending(Klayman, 2008), could be used very effectively tocommunicate sponsors’ CSR commitment toemployees and to consumers. This, in turn, mayenhance organisational outcomes such as consumerattitudes, retention and purchase intentions (external)as well as service staff motivation, job satisfaction andhigher levels of service quality (internal).

In this paper we first define CSR generally andclarify and differentiate some of its manifestations,especially as they relate to marketing or sponsorship.We then provide an interdisciplinary perspective onsports sponsorship and examine previous research,discussing its possible impact on CSR. The nextsection merges these two areas of research into one

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single theoretical framework which explains howsports sponsorship may impact consumer response viaCSR perceptions (of both staff and consumers) andseeks to identify the key relevant variables for thisprocess. This, in turn, influences internal and externalorganisational benefits. While there are clearly manystakeholders as well as many layers of outcomes thatmay result from examining sponsorship with a CSRlens, we focus here on the specific outcomes which asponsor may seek, with the view that such anunderstanding would benefit sponsors in their choiceand management of sponsorship activities, but alsopotential properties as they become more able toargue a broader value proposition in seekingsponsorship support. The paper concludes withlimitations and a research agenda.

Defining Corporate Social Responsibility

With a growing commitment to sustainable and ethicalbusiness practices by society as a whole, the conceptof CSR, defined here as the “organisation’s status andactivities with respect to its perceived societalreputation” (Brown & Dacin, 1997, p.68), hasincreasingly been identified in the literature for itspotential to act as competitive advantage. The conceptof CSR is based on the understanding ofinterconnections between organisations and ourbroader society insofar as they interrelate rather thanoperate as discrete entities (Wood, 1991).

Despite a general consensus about the need forCSR, various perspectives regarding the extent of suchresponsibilities are apparent in the literature. Forexample, while some authors have argued thatcorporate entities should serve the overall society (e.g. Bowen, 1953), others restrict firms’responsibilities to serving those directly or indirectlyaffected by its activities (e.g. Maignan & Ferrel,2004). Considering a broad definition of CSR as the“organisation’s status and activities with respect to itsperceived societal reputation” (Brown & Dacin, 1997,p.68), the scope of CSR presumably depends on its

various stakeholders and their perceptions, and shouldbe considered in the context of a study or operation.

As it reflects consumers’ growing commitment tosustainable and ethical business practices, theconcept of CSR has been identified in the literature asa potential form of competitive advantage (Luo &Bhattacharya, 2006). Many firms now embrace thenotion of CSR in their pursuit of a positive image inthe community, aiming in turn for a competitivemarket position (Liechtenstein et al, 2004). Thecommitment to CSR, however, will be tested in thecurrent challenging economic climate.

Various activities have been classified as CSRinitiatives, including the sponsorship of social orenvironmental causes (e.g. Diabetes Australia;Greenpeace), minority support programmes andsocially responsible employment (Ellen et al, 2000).Other examples may include companies establishingcharitable foundations, engaging in large philanthropicdonations or partnering with non profit agencies orcharities. While some authors have argued thatinitiatives which directly benefit organisations may notbe true CSR initiatives (Smith & Westerbeek, 2007),stakeholders are typically prepared to accept that acompany may derive such benefit from their CSRinitiatives, given their responsibility to shareholders tomake a profit (Carroll, 1999).

This paper argues that sponsorship generally, and itsmost common application in the domain of sports,may be an effective technique for developing thesponsor’s CSR. Recently, researchers have argued thatsubtle means of communicating CSR could be moreappropriate than corporate campaigns and otherpersuasion efforts (Morsing & Schultz, 2006; Morsing,Schultz & Nielsen, 2008). Sponsorship offers thissubtlety, as it is often perceived as less commerciallyaggressive and faces less consumer resistance andscepticism, particularly when focusing on community-based properties or when relying on volunteeringprogrammes.

With scholars emphasising the need for CSRcommunication that specifically targets consumers(Beckmann et al, 2006; Podnar, 2008) and since the

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literature remains scarce in relation to employee andconsumer expectations of, and response to, CSRinformation (Golob et al, 2008), this paper focuses ontwo key stakeholder groups – employees andcustomers. The extant literature dedicated to the issueof sponsorship generally, and sports sponsorship inrelation to CSR particularly, is discussed next.

Sports sponsorship

Sport remains the primary focus of sponsorshipglobally, with over two-thirds of all sponsorshipactivities related to sport (Klayman, 2008). Not onlyhas sports sponsorship been shown to induce positiveassociations through a variety of mechanisms, namelymeaning transfer (McCracken, 1989), image transfer(Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; Speed & Thompson, 2000)and attitude transfer (Crimmins & Horn, 1996;d’Astous & Bitz, 1995), it also remains acommunication vehicle with unique characteristics,including truly international appeal (Santomier, 2008),as seen in the Olympics or the Soccer World Games(Giannoulakis et al, 2008).

Extensive reviews of the existing sponsorshipliterature have now been undertaken (Cornwell &Maignan, 1998; Cornwell, Weeks & Roy, 2005;Walliser, 2003), with a considerable body ofknowledge in relation to the impact of sportssponsorship on consumer memorisation and attitudesavailable in the literature (Cornwell et al, 2006;Cornwell & Maignan, 1998; Lardinoit & Quester,2001; Quester & Thompson, 2001; Speed &Thompson, 2000; Walliser, 2003; McCarville et al,1998). More recently, researchers have alsocommented on the versatility of sponsorship and itsability to also cause an emotional response towardssponsors (Christensen, 2006), while others havesought to quantify the impact of declaring sponsorshipcontracts on the price of sponsors’ shares (Cornwell,Pruitt & Clark, 2005).

Other areas of inquiry, however, remain undevelopedtheoretically and untested empirically. For example,

scholars have been calling for more research on thepotential of sponsorship in relation to issues such ascommunity support or CSR, internal marketing andstaff morale (Amis & Cornwell, 2005; Farrelly &Quester, 2005). This is consistent with consumers’increasingly strident calls for firms’ greater socialresponsibility and the resulting pressure onorganisations to demonstrate and communicate theirCSR commitment to the community. The impact ofsponsorship on staff perceptions of CSR also remainsunexplored in the literature, despite obviousimplications for the service sector. For example, anorganisation’s external engagement and sponsorship isoften pursued not only to externally communicate CSRto customers and other stakeholders but also toincrease employees’ morale, encourage staff retention,recruit new employees (Dean, 2003) and enhancecustomer service.

Sports sponsorship and CSR

Researchers have only recently acknowledged therelevance of CSR in a sporting context by examiningthe CSR activities of sporting clubs. For example,Walker (2007) surveyed NFL football attendees toascertain consumers’ perceptions and reactions to theCSR of their team. His results suggested a positiveeffect of CSR on reputation, word-of-mouth intentions and merchandise consumption, but not onrepeat purchase or media consumption. In line withthis research, Babiak and Wolfe (2006) examined thecommunity outreach initiatives of the Super Bowls and NFL in the United States, arguing that sportsorganisations need to consider CSR activities asintegral to their business. Other recent articles provideuseful conceptualisations of CSR in a sporting context.For example, Smith and Westerbeek (2007)conceptualise sport CSR and outline its uniquefeatures and potential to deliver broader communitybenefits. Breitbarth and Harris’s (2008) conceptualmodel for CSR relates to the context of professionalfootball and is tested by means of case studies from

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four countries. Preliminary studies in relation to the CSR of sports

entities have coincided with initial interest in CSR as arelevant outcome measure for sponsors: do sportssponsors aim to enhance CSR perceptions whenentering into sports sponsorships? In exploratory workundertaken as part of a study looking at world bestpractice in sponsorship and cited in the HarvardBusiness Review (Farrelly & Greyser, 2006), a numberof key actors in world sponsorship, as well asmanagers of some large-scale sports properties, wereinvestigated. Overall, these large sponsors recognisedthe importance of CSR as a valid objective, a findingthat must now be validated empirically. If sponsorsview CSR as a measure of sports sponsorshipeffectiveness, how do they seek to achieve it?

One option recently identified in the literature is theuse of cause-related marketing in a sports context:using the term cause-related sports sponsorship(CRSS), Irwin, Lachowetz, Cornwell and Clark (2003)examined attitudes towards cause-related marketing inthe sports context, where the sports event wasassociated with a non-profit organisation. Consideringa triad of organisations, including the sports event (St Jude Classic, PGA Tour), the sponsor (FedEx) anda charity (St Jude Children’s Research Hospital), theirdescriptive results suggest positive outcomes for CRSS.A topical anecdotal example of this approach is theMcDonald’s promotion of the Community Shield as acurtain-raiser event, where the league winner playsthe FA Cup winner. This funding programme, linkingthe sponsor, sports event and charity, enables thedevelopment of 8,000 new community-basedcoaches. McDonald’s benefits by gaining tremendouspublicity of the community benefit stories. Otherexamples include the long-standing associationbetween a sponsor and an international charity (e.g.Vodafone partnering with the blind and hearingimpaired).

Interestingly, however, researchers are yet toconsider whether sports sponsorship in itself may leadto positive consumer evaluations of CSR. In thisinstance, therefore, the sponsorship would not be of a

cause (as is the case for CRSS) but a target sportsproperty that may be perceived by consumers asuseful, desirable or simply less likely to receivefunding from major sponsors because it deals with asmaller audience. To the authors’ knowledge, only onestudy has examined this issue, based on interviewswith race directors involved in a National WomenTriathlon Series (Pegoraro et al, 2009). The studydemonstrated that a sponsorship targeted at a gender-based grassroots event had the potential to allowcause-related marketing activities to lead to positiveCSR outcomes. However, their results provided limitedinsight into the potential of such activities to deliver asponsorship outcome. Given the limited understandingof the ability of sports sponsorship to establish CSR,this paper does not consider CRSS in isolation, asexplained by Irwin et al (2003) but, rather, establishesa more comprehensive and generic conceptualframework.

The lack of research considering sports sponsorshipin a CSR context is surprising given the specificcharacteristics of sport. First, the number and varietyof people engaged in sports attendance andparticipation is unmatched by any other arts or causeand provides a broad and fertile ground for companiesto reach their target audience. Moreover, sportgenerates a range of emotions, outlined by Zillmannand Paulus (1993, p.604): “sport generates fanshipthat is more intense, more obtrusive and moreenduring than it is for other forms of entertainingsocial activities without direct participation in thespectated events”. These emotions allow for a strongsponsorship response.

Sponsors looking for CSR as an outcome measuremay choose a specific event of particular relevance tothe community. For example, sponsorship programmesmay achieve CSR-related outcomes by sponsoringevents organised for specialised sporting communities,such as the Paralympics. The choice of event mayalso include considerations of humanitarian orenvironmental challenges. For example, French bankLe Crédit Lyonnais sponsors the Tour of Birkina Fasau,an African country, although it does not have any

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branches there, for humanitarian reasons. Somesponsors also run sports programmes with schools ininternational markets to promote healthy activity andlifestyle as an education programme, showing theirconcern and social responsibility in the process.

Just as sponsorship can, and does, reach globalaudiences, its versatility makes it suitable for use on amuch smaller and more intimate scale. Beyond thehandful of large-scale or truly global events, such asthe Superbowl (O’Reilly et al, 2008), the Olympics orthe FIFA World Cup, a myriad of activities and eventsof great significance to much smaller and focusedaudiences co-exists. While sponsoring a national orinternational sporting property such as a major leaguesoccer team may not directly indicate sponsors’concern for the community, involvement in local andregional sporting events is more likely to be perceivedas a CSR activity. It is precisely that community basethat may appeal to some sponsors as they seek toachieve local support and to demonstrate a willingnessto become embedded in the local fabric of an area orcity (Cousens & Slack, 1996). By demonstrating aconnection to their consumer base by both proximityand local investments, such community-mindedsponsors may seek to signal a degree of CSR thatresonates with local communities, providing them witha stronghold in consumers’ minds and, ultimately,affording them a form of market advantage.

This local and regional focus reflects reported trendsin the US for a wide range of companies areincreasingly sponsoring grassroots programmes(Wilson 1999). Reasons for this include: the rapid risein the cost of sponsorship at the elite level; concernover the level of commercial saturation and cynicismtowards sponsors involved at the elite level; and thebelief that consumers will respond favourably to anorganisation supporting programmes that are deemedappropriate for the betterment of the community(Cramer, 2003; Wilson, 1999).

CSR perceptions, be they by consumers or by staff,may also arise not from direct sponsorship but fromthe leverage of the sponsorship and relatedcampaigns. For example, Crédit Lyonnais engaged in a

campaign encouraging children to wear helmets onbikes (these are not a legal requirement in France), agood corporate citizen operation that is congruent withits engagement with the Tour de France. Whenconsidering CSR as a desired outcome of sportssponsorship, therefore, it is likely that eventcharacteristics and targeted promotional campaignsleveraging the sponsorship with a social responsibilityfocus influence the effectiveness of sponsorship.

Conceptual framework: corporate socialresponsibility in sponsorship

In line with the primary aim of this paper, we nowpropose a conceptual framework of sports sponsorshipin the form of CSR communication initiatives targetedat employees and customers. Customer and employeeperceptions of CSR are discussed, then an outline isgiven of consumer-, employee- and sponsor-relatedfactors of influence. A discussion of the consequencesof sponsorship exposure precedes presentation of thefinal conceptual framework.

Customer perceptions of CSRA large number of studies in the managementliterature have aimed to confirm the relationshipbetween CSR initiatives and the financial performanceof the organisation, with a recent meta-analysisshowing a small positive relationship between socialand financial performance, measured in terms ofaccounting- and market-based financial performanceindicators (Margolis et al, 2007). The marketingliterature also provides evidence of the benefits ofcommunicating CSR activities to consumers andstakeholders (e.g. Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001; Yoon etal, 2006). Indeed, a CSR programme can become astrategic tool which organisations may wish to use tomaintain the support of key stakeholders. Studies haverevealed positive consumer response in terms ofpurchase motivation, including willingness to payhigher prices for products and services (Creyer & Ross,1997), switching to brands seen as supporting the

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community (Smith & Alcorn, 1991) and higherevaluations of, and attitudes towards, an organisationby stakeholders (Barone et al, 2000; Brown & Dacin,1997; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). In brief, CSR hasbeen found to influence customer satisfaction (Luo &Bhattacharya, 2006), customer-corporateidentification, perceptual corporate benefits(conceptualised as store loyalty, emotional attachmentto the store and store interest) and, in turn,behavioural benefits (conceptualised as percentage ofshopping at store and year-to-date purchases)(Liechtenstein et al, 2004).

CSR can be measured in various ways (Margolis &Walsh, 2003). While the use of CSR investment hasbeen criticised due to the lack of clarity about whatcan be deemed as CSR spending (Luo &Bhattacharya, 2006), some use Fortune America’sMost Admired companies (FAMA) data, collected fromsenior executives, financial and corporate analysts andWall Street investors (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006;McGuire et al, 1988). Surprisingly, research into theeffectiveness of campaigns communicating CSR hasseldom included customer CSR perceptions as anactual outcome variable (Yoon et al, 2006), despitethe value of such an approach when investigating theimpact of CSR on consumer behaviour.

Employee perceptions of CSR While the impact of CSR on customers and marketvalue has become increasingly clear, ourunderstanding of the effect of CSR on staff perceptionsand behaviours remains very limited (Turker, 2008),although a few scholars have examined the impact ofsocial responsibility on employee attraction andemployer attractiveness (Bhattacharya et al, 2008;Schmidt et al, 2000). Conceptual papers proposingpositive effects of CSR on various employee-relatedoutcome measures have also emerged. For example,Rupp, Ganapathi, Aguilera and Williams (2006)utilised the theory of organisational justice to deriveseveral propositions positively linking CSR with jobsatisfaction, job performance and organisationalcommitment.

The latter has since been repeatedly empiricallytested. While perceptions of three CSR aspects,namely procedural justice – or the equity and fairnesswith which the organisation operates, external CSR,and training opportunities, were confirmed assignificant positive predictors of staff commitment in aretail banking service firm context (Brammer et al,2007), another study confirmed a significant positiveimpact of CSR perceptions relating to social and non-social stakeholders, customers and employees onorganisational commitment in business professionals(Turker, 2008). Indeed, when evaluating thecommunication of CSR initiatives, Pomering andDolnicar (2009) identified CSR as an issue relevant inan internal marketing context. Based on qualitativedata, these authors concluded that a primary targetmarket for CSR communications involves theorganisation’s own employees, suggesting that CSRmight improve staff satisfaction. Empirical validation,however, is sparse and should be part of any CSR-related research agenda.

Godfrey (2005) argued for the creation of “moralcapital” by means of philanthropic activity, making acase for the positive effect of philanthropic behaviouron employees and other stakeholders, due to theirpositive evaluations of the organisation’s actions. Thisis in line with previous research undertaken in aservices context. For example, the service-profit chain,developed by Heskett et al (1994), outlines employeesatisfaction and behaviour as dependent on theinternal service quality and thus the “feelings thatemployees have toward their jobs, colleagues andcompanies” (p.123). One would expect, therefore, thatthe employees’ positive feelings resulting from anorganisation’s CSR activities would have a positiveeffect on employees’ attitudes and behaviours.

The service-profit chain further elaborates on theeffects of employee behaviour, proposing a flow-oneffect of employee satisfaction, productivity andretention on customers’ perceptions via an increasedquality in service delivery (Heskett et al, 1994). Theimportance of employees’ attitudes and behaviours,particularly frontline employees, for customer

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satisfaction and retention has been repeatedly reportedin the literature (Schmidt & Allscheid, 1995; Johnson,1996; Bitner et al, 1994; Chen & Quester, 2006) andwas conclusively confirmed in a recent meta-analysis(Brown & Lam, 2008). While some authors identifieda reciprocal rather than a one-directional relationshipbetween internal service climate and customerperceptions of service quality (Schneider et al, 1998),a consensus exists on the close link betweenemployee and customer perceptions and behaviour,via service quality (Brown & Lam, 2008).

Influence factorsThe extant sponsorship literature has established anumber of factors potentially influencing itseffectiveness in relation to both awareness andattitudes (Cornwell, Weeks et al, 2005). Two maincategories of factors have been identified: consumer-based and sponsor-related. To the authors’ knowledge,employee-related influence factors have never beenexamined in a sponsorship context.

Consumer-related and employee-related factorsVarious consumer-related and employee-related factorsmay influence sponsorship effectiveness through theirinfluence on the processing of sponsorship messages.Figure 1 shows the list of factors which the extantliterature suggests might be operating in our model ofCSR-mediated sponsorship effectiveness. For example,consumer involvement or fan involvement, defined asthe “extent to which consumers identify with, and aremotivated by, their engagement and affiliation withparticular leisure activities” (Meenaghan, 2001,p.106), determines how sensitive consumers may beto a sponsor’s effort. As involved individuals are likelyto have a greater appreciation of the benefit thesponsor’s investment can have on the community(Meenaghan, 2001), involvement is proposed tomoderate the sponsorship effectiveness measured interms of CSR for both consumers and employees.

Other consumer factors, such as their brandfamiliarity, defined as “consumers’ level of direct and

indirect experience with a product or brand” (Carrillatet al, 2005, p.52), are also likely to influencesponsorship effectiveness. For example, Carrillat et al(2005) found a greater effect of sponsorship exposureon attitudes and purchase intentions for brandsconsumers were less familiar with. This phenomenoncan be explained by differences in the processing ofinformation: the greater the familiarity with the brand,the more associations a consumer has for the brandand the smaller the likelihood that new informationwill create a major change (Lafferty, 2009). Therefore,CSR perceptions are proposed to change moresignificantly for sponsoring brands with low levels offamiliarity than for those with high levels of familiarity.

In addition to brand familiarity, knowledge of theevent has also been shown to influence the processingof sponsorship messages and should thus also beconsidered (Roy & Cornwell, 2004).

Finally, other relevant factors to be considered in thiscontext include the emotions elicited by the sponsoredevent (Christensen, 2006; Ferrand & Pages, 1999;Quester, 1996) as well as the importance attributedby consumers or employees on socially responsiblepractices of organisations in general, or the sponsor inparticular, as suggested in the area of cause-relatedmarketing (Lafferty, 2009).

Other potential influence factors related specificallyto the employees of the sponsoring organisation mayrelate to the type of sponsorship commitment. Forexample, if the sponsor engages in employeevolunteering and thus an “ongoing and coordinatedbusiness support for staff involvement in the localcommunity” (Muthuri et al, 2009, p.75) as part oftheir sponsorship engagement, CSR perceptions areexpected to vary between those employees who areactively involved as volunteers and those who are not,as well as whether the volunteer activity is employee-or employer-driven. Rupp et al (2006) also proposethat the extent to which the sponsorship helps inmeeting employees’ needs in relation to control,belongingness and meaningful existence may impacttheir perceptions of CSR.

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It should also be noted that the effect of employeeperceptions of CSR and resulting behaviour maydepend on the motivation employees attribute to theCSR initiative, as indicated in related areas of research(Nishi et al, 2008). Only if non-self-serving orotherwise positive attributions prevail will the proposedpositive effect occur. Furthermore, the strength of thiseffect might depend on the supervisors’ behaviour inrelation to CSR, given the ability of managementsupport and leadership to foster employee behaviour(Chen and Quester, 2009; Kennedy et al, 2003).

Another potential factor is the moderating effect ofperson-organisation ethical fit and thus thecongruence between the ethical values of theemployee and his or her employer (Coldwell et al,2008). Such fit has been proposed to positivelyimpact both attitudes and behaviours in employees(Coldwell et al, 2008) and was confirmed as linked to organisational commitment, with a partial support for the influence of fit on job satisfaction(Ambrose et al, 2008).

Sponsor-related influence factorsCongruence, brand prominence or equity, sponsorshiparticulation and other leveraging activities are likely tomoderate sponsorship effectiveness and, morespecifically, CSR perceptions. These factors are shownas potential moderators in our conceptual modelillustrated by Figure 1. Congruence, or fit, betweensponsoring brand and the event is one of the mostcommonly investigated sponsor-related factorsinfluencing the processing of sponsorship stimuli(Henseler et al, 2007; Quester, 1997) and variousstudies have confirmed its effect on sponsorshipeffectiveness (Gwinner & Bennett, 2008). While it hastypically been conceptualised as a uni-dimensionalconstruct, primarily for the sake of parsimony (Speed& Thompson, 2000), recent research has identified abi-dimensional measure of congruence that includesrelevancy and expectancy (Fleck & Quester, 2007).Relevancy refers to the “degree to which theinformation contained in the stimulus favours (or

hinders) the identification of the theme or messagebeing communicated” or whether the sponsorshipmakes sense. Expectancy is defined as “the degree towhich an item or information falls into a pre-determined schema or a structure evoked by thetheme”, or whether sponsorship is surprising (Fleck &Quester, 2007, p 976). This bi-dimensionalconceptualisation allows for the consideration of highcongruence (relevant and expected), low congruence(irrelevant and unexpected) and moderate congruence(e.g. relevant and not expected), with the latter seenas the most beneficial for sponsorship effectiveness ingeneral (Fleck & Quester, 2007) and CSR perceptionsin particular (Geue & Plewa, 2010). This effect islikely to arise for both consumers and employees.

The impact of congruence on CSR perceptions,however, depends on a number of factors. Forexample, in situations where low levels of elaborationare required, CSR ratings were not impacted bycongruence (Menon & Kahn, 2003). On the otherhand, recent research has also investigated how low-congruent sponsorship pairings may achieve higherlevels of sponsorship effectiveness via articulation. Bycommunicating the link between the sponsor and theproperty, sponsors can significantly improve recall(Cornwell et al, 2006), sponsorship evaluations,attitudes towards the brand and image transfer(Copetti et al, 2009). Despite this increase, however,Copetti et al (2009) showed that evaluations remainedlower than for congruent sponsorship pairings. Hence,articulation is likely to alter the influence ofcongruence and should be included in the conceptualframework.

Other recent developments include the considerationof brand personality when testing the congruencebetween the sponsoring brand and the sporting event.More specifically, based on Aaker (1997), Lee andCho (2009) examined the fit between the personalitytraits of both the sponsoring brands (sincerity,excitement, competence, sophistication, ruggedness)and the event (diligence, un-inhibition, fit, tradition,amusement). Their results show personality

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congruence as positively impacting attitude towardsthe brand sponsoring the event, and indeed a greaterinfluence than prior brand attitude. The personality ofan event is, therefore, an interesting avenue for futureresearch. Also relevant would be key eventcharacteristics such as whether the event deals with aspecialised sporting community, is held in adeveloping/affected area or grassroots sporting context.

The prominence of a sponsoring brand has alsoreceived attention as a sponsor-related influence factor(Lardinoit & Quester, 2001; Pham & Johar, 2001).The extant literature shows differing effects ofprominence on sponsorship effectiveness, dependingon the outcome sought. Following informationeconomics theory, consumers are believed to makejudgments about a brand based on its eminence inthe marketplace (Johar & Pham, 1999) and to expectprominent brands to engage in sponsorship (Wakefieldet al, 2007). Research has confirmed this proposition,with high prominence (measured by means of marketshare) found to positively relate to sponsoridentification (Johar & Pham, 1999). Wakefield et al(2007) confirmed a significant effect of prominence(measured by perceived size/prominence of a brand incomparison to its competitors) on recall. Whenconsidering brand equity rather than market share,prominence was found to positively relate toperceptions of congruence: high equity brands wereperceived are more congruent than those sponsorswith low levels of brand equity (Roy & Cornwell,2003, 2004). Interestingly, however, prominence doesnot always relate to positive outcomes. For example,Lardinoit and Quester (2001) established that agreater change in attitudes occurred for less prominentbrands, which was explained using classicalconditioning theory. In line with these findings, it isproposed that less prominent sponsors are likely toachieve a greater change in consumer and employeeperceptions of CSR.

Finally, other influence factors, such as theleveraging activities (Quester & Thompson, 2001) andthe level of audience participation (Copetti et al,2009) are likely to moderate CSR perceptions arising

from the sponsorship. The expected moderating role ofthese variables on the ability of sponsors to influenceemployees’ and consumers’ CSR perceptions justifiestheir inclusion in our framework and any subsequentempirical examination.

Consequences of sponsorship exposureWhile the literature provides some empirical evidencesuggesting economic benefits of an organisation’s CSR(Smith & Westerbeek, 2007), research needs toconfirm the positive effect of CSR perceptions onvarious consequences sponsors may seek from theirinvestment, such as satisfaction, purchase or customerretention. Satisfaction is central to marketing theoryand has even been described as “one of only a fewkey building blocks in marketing philosophy, theoryand practice” (Babin & Griffin, 1998, p.128). It hasmost commonly been conceptualised as an affectivemeasure (Lam et al, 2004; Patterson & Spreng,1997) based on the disconfirmation paradigm as afeeling based on a comparison between consumers’expectations and the perceived performance of aproduct or service (Churchill & Suprenant, 1982;Oliver, 1980; Parasuraman et al, 1988). A number ofvalid measurement scales of customer satisfactionexist (e.g. Crosby & Stephens, 1987; Spreng et al,1996; Spreng & Mackroy, 1996) and can be chosendepending on the research context. Satisfaction islikely to arise from increased service quality as well asenhanced perceptions of CSR, and has beenestablished to positively influence purchase intentions(Cronin & Taylor, 1992) and re-purchase behaviour(Reichheld & Sasser, 1990).

Both purchase intentions and behaviour are alsoimportant concepts in marketing (Morrison, 1979).Indeed, they are deemed the most useful indicatorswhen trying to evaluate sponsorship success(Crompton, 2004). While closely related, the literatureshows that the conversion of purchase intentions intoactual behaviour depends on the product (e.g. existingversus new; durable versus non-durable), the situationand measurement (Morwitz et al, 2007). Seiders,Voss, Grewal and Godfrey (2005) also identified a

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number of consumer, relational and marketplacecharacteristics moderating the effect of satisfaction onactual purchase behaviour, although the same was notshown for purchase intentions. Hence, depending onthe research question and the research context, thechoice of variables should be carefully considered.

Several scales have been suggested for themeasurement of the degree to which a consumerintends to purchase a brand, including uni-dimensional (Cronin & Taylor, 1992) and multi-

dimensional scales (Gwinner & Bennett, 2008;Putrevu & Lord, 1994). A number of different optionsfor measuring purchase behaviour also exist and canbe used, depending on the type of sponsorship andrelated leveraging activities, one option being tocompare sales in the time surrounding thesponsorship with other comparable time periods(Crompton, 2004).

Summarising the previous discussion, Figure 1outlines our proposed conceptual framework of CSR-

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FIGURE 1 A conceptual framework of CSR mediated sponsorship effectiveness

SPONSOR-RELATED INFLUENCE FACTORS

CONGRUENCEPROMINENCEARTICULATIONLEVERAGING

INTERNALSTAFF MOTIVATION

STAFF SATISFACTIONSTAFF RETENTION

EXTERNALCONSUMER SATISFACTIONCONSUMER PURCHASESCONSUMER RETENTION

EMPLOYEE-RELATED INFLUENCE FACTORS

SPONSORSHIPCOMMITMENT

PERCEIVED MOTIVATIONPERSON-ORGANISATION FIT

CONSUMER-RELATED INFLUENCE FACTORS

INVOLVEMENTBRAND FAMILIARITY

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

SPONSORSHIPEXPOSURE

CSRSTAFF PERCEPTION

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

CSRCONSUMER PERCEPTION

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+

+

++

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mediated sports sponsorship success, showing themoderating effects of both internal (employees) andexternal (consumers) perceptions in relation to theCSR profile of the sponsor.

Conclusion, limitations and further research

This paper provides a useful framework for propertiesand sponsors alike as they attempt to evaluate theimpact of their activities. Hence, it develops awelcome tool in a climate of economic instability andincreasing accountability. As such, the framework alsoprovides much needed assistance to managers lookingto more clearly articulate the benefits they seek fromestablishing mutually beneficial sponsorshiprelationships. While relevant for a broad range ofsponsors, a particular interest of smaller sponsorsseeking to establish their credibility as responsiblesocial citizens both internally and in their localmarkets is suggested. Given the multitude and varietyof local small-scale sponsorships and the increasingneed for many grassroots activities to seekindependent funding, the findings of this study couldprovide the necessary argument for local properties tosecure financial support from local sponsors.

The conceptual framework developed in this papersuggests a number of areas that require empiricalvalidation. First, the confirmation of the causal modelin a cross-sectional context would be a welcome andtimely contribution to the literature, as would be thevalidation of its inherent main and moderating effects.Furthermore, longitudinal research may enable theinvestigation and measurement of CSR perceptions,attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual behaviourstowards the brands and products of the sponsors overtime. This would allow actual sponsor and employeebehaviour to be measured (in terms of continuedengagement in the activities) and for any change inmotivation and satisfaction with the sponsored activityto be gauged. In relation to consumers, this approachcan assess actual behaviour (in terms of the purchase

of sponsor brands) rather than purchase intentions.Researchers may also examine whether CSRperceptions differ for various events and brands, giventhe personalities of brands and events engaged in thesponsor-property relationship.

In addition to the research agenda relatingspecifically to the model, research directions mayfocus on the role of sports sponsorship as a CSRactivity. Moreover, organisations aiming to engage insponsorship to achieve better CSR profiles should beaware of consumer perceptions relating to themotivation behind sponsors’ engagement (Barone etal, 2000). Research should thus investigate howcompanies can secure altruistic rather than self-serving attributions, for example by the choice of eventor athlete (Yoon et al, 2006). Future research mayalso engage with organisations differing in theirreputation prior to their engagement in CSR activities.Conflicting findings in the cause-related marketingliterature do not yet provide sufficient guidance fororganisations suffering from an adverse reputation.While some authors argue that the positive effects ofCSR activities may overcome previous negativeassociations with the organisation (Brammer &Millington, 2005), others indicate a potential forfurther damage to an already negative reputation(Javalgi et al, 1994). While authors have to datefocused on such reputational outcomes from aconsumer perspective, employee, athlete and otherstakeholders’ perceptions should also be taken intoaccount. While this is relevant for all sponsorshipactivities, research may focus specifically onsponsorship of specialised sporting communities witha large and diverse stakeholder portfolio. An all-inclusive approach will help develop a comprehensiveunderstanding and generate a set of managerialguidelines for organisations considering whether andhow to engage in sports sponsorship.


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Biographies

Carolin Plewa is a senior lecturer in marketing.Following a German Diploma in BusinessAdministration, Carolin completed her scholarshipfunded PhD at the University of Adelaide, examiningthe relationships between universities and industrypartners, their characteristics and success factors.Carolin was nominated for the Adelaide PostgraduateAlumni Medal in 2006 and was awarded the ScottHenderson Award for Excellence in Learning andTeaching in 2007. Carolin has presented her results ata number of international conferences and haspublished several articles in international journals,including Marketing Theory, Journal of ServicesMarketing, Australasian Marketing Journal,International Journal of Technology Transfer andCommercialisation and the Journal of Sponsorship.

Pascale Quester is the inaugural professor ofmarketing at the University of Adelaide BusinessSchool. She holds an undergraduate business degreefrom France, an MA from Ohio State University and aPhD from Massey University (New Zealand). Her workhas appeared in many prestigious internationalpublications, including the Journal of ConsumerResearch, Journal of Advertising, Psychology &Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, EuropeanJournal of Marketing, Recherches et Applications enMarketing and many others. Professor Quester is alsoa Distinguished Fellow of the Australian and NewZealand Marketing Academy.

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The impact of international TV media coverage of the Beijing Olympics 2008 on China’s media image formation: a media content analysis perspective

Keywordsmega-events national imageOlympic Games agenda-setting theoryChina host country

Executive summary

A country’s position in global competition can beinfluenced by its national image. Presently, mega-events (particularly those featuring sports) play asignificant role in drawing media coverage and, byextension, impact on public perception. This paper

aims to explain the impact of international TV mediacoverage of the Beijing Olympics 2008 on worldwidepublic perceptions of China.

This study builds on agenda-setting theory toanalyse how foreign TV media telecasts of the Beijing

Abstract

This study aims to explain the impact of the BeijingOlympic Games 2008 on China’s image in theinternational TV media. It applies agenda-setting theoryto analyse foreign TV coverage of the Olympics in ninecountries. Using Rivenburgh’s national image richnessconstruct, it attempts to make sense of the coveragebefore and after Beijing 2008, particularly its impact onthe image of the host country. The study concludes thatthe breadth and attribution of China’s image remainedrelatively stable, that these factors did not improveChina’s national image directly but that indirectly theyraised awareness of China in the international media andframed the host country’s image more clearly.

Guojun ZengAssociate ProfessorSchool of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, 135 XinggangxiRoad, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, P.R. China & Rotterdam School ofManagement, Erasmus University Rotterdam, NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]

Frank GoProfessorRotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands

Christian KolmerHead of Science-ResearchMedia Tenor International, Zurich, Switzerland

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Professor Peng Qing and Dr. Lai Kun inSun Yat-sen University for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of thismanuscript.

Peer reviewed

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Olympics 2008 affected perceptions of China in ninedifferent media lands. It refers to 7,261 news storiesabout China, from 8 August 2007 to 24 August2009, collected in a database and subjected tocontent analysis by Media Tenor International. Basedon this data, the change of Visibility, Valence, Breadthand Attribution of China’s international televised imageare analysed.

The visibility of the host country before the 2008Beijing Olympic Games increased through TVcoverage. However, it subsequently declined to abelow-average level. The main contribution of the2008 Beijing Olympic Games for China has been anenhancement of understanding about the countryworldwide.

It is difficult to determine whether China now has amore positive international televised image around theworld than it did before the Games. Put differently, theBreadth and Attribution of China’s image appears tohave remained relatively stable. Therefore, it cannot beconcluded that the Beijing Olympics 2008 improvedChina’s national image directly. Indirectly, however, theinternational media can be said to have raised interestin the host country and helped define its nationalimage more clearly.

This study provides findings on the effects of mega-events on the telecasted national image of a hostcountry. Practical and theoretical implications arediscussed and future research directions are provided.

Introduction

A country’s position in global competition can beaffected by its national image. The staging of a mega-event plays, according to current popular belief, animportant role in national image formation. Somecountries use mega-events, including sports events, asa core component of their destination marketingstrategy to appeal to visitors. In this process, themedia is the key vehicle between a mega-event andthe host country’s image formation. The interactionsbetween media practices and audiences are becoming

increasingly important in the shaping of publicperception and meaning making (Dong et al, 2005).The latter is relevant because, in turn, media coverageshapes decision-making by both consumers andbusiness executives. Thus, it is important for businessand government leaders, as well as the public, tounderstand the impact of the media.

The media plays an important role in generatingpublic interest (Cohen, 1963). Media agenda-settingrefers to the deliberate coverage of topics or eventswith the goal of influencing public opinion.Researchers have used agenda-setting theory todetermine the image of cities or corporations (Carroll &McCombs, 2003) and to examine the image of citiesor countries (Rivenburgh, 1992; Avraham, 2000).However, the formation of national image consequentto mega-event staging, while relevant, has been anunder-studied topic. Following Croteau and Hoynes(2003), this study considers “audiences to be activeinterpreters of the media rather than passivereceivers”. However, it also acknowledges that mediaaudiences are members of particular cultures andinter-cultural differences can easily result inmisinterpretation of the meaning of media messages.This observation is particularly relevant in the contextof telecasting the Beijing Olympics 2008 from China,with its unique historical, cultural and economicbackground, which differs markedly from the Westernsocial context of interpretation.

There has been increasing academic interest in thestudy of mega-events in relation to place imagemeasurement in the West. Despite the fact that Chinahas received increasing media coverage due to itsrapidly growing economy and rising political power,there have been few attempts to examine mediacoverage in relation to staged mega-events in theChinese context. The Beijing Olympics 2008 is aphenomenon that is justified and relevant to bestudied in order to enable an informed response to acomplex issue, i.e. what effects can media coverage ofmega-event staging have on the telecasted nationalimage? Based on agenda-setting theory, this paperseeks to understand the implications of media

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presentation and processes in relation to the BeijingOlympics 2008 and tourism. It asks, particularly,whether the Beijing Olympics 2008 may, or may not,have transformed the national image of China ininternational TV media.

Literature review

Mega-events and destination imageA long line of tourism research argues that mega-eventstaging results in considerable international attentionand increased recognition of the host country as apotential tourist destination (Gunn, 1989; Brown et al,2004; Lee et al, 2005). Other research indicates thatimprovement of the host country’s destination image(Brown et al, 2004; Giffard & Rivenburgh, 2000; Xing& Chalip, 2006) and the possible establishment of alegacy are among the benefits of hosting a mega-event.

Roche (1994) notes that mega-events may be short-term in nature but they offer potentially long-termconsequences for the host country. In the long term,the benefits of staging mega-events for hostdestinations are spectators’ repeat visitation andincreased tourism investments. Hede (2005) exploresthe efficacy of the Australian telecast of the AthensOlympics in 2004 in changing perceptions andattitudes of Greece as a tourist destination. He findsthat 38.7% of respondents indicated their overallattitudes toward Greece as tourist destination hadimproved as a result of telecast consumption of theAthens Olympics.

Chalip et al (2003) compare destination advertisingand sports event media effects in an experimentinvolving nine destination image dimensions inrelation to the intention to visit a specific hostdestination. They find that event telecasting, eventadvertising and destination advertising each affectdifferent dimensions of destination image. Each of themedia forms used has some negative effect. Basedprimarily on evidence from three cities in the UnitedKingdom (UK), Smith (2005) explores the value of

sport as a re-imaging theme for the contemporary city.He found that, although sport re-imaging does exhibitsome advantageous qualities, there are also significantproblems associated with this mode of placemarketing. Smith’s study mainly focuses on domestictourism. So far, few researchers have explored,specifically, the role of mega-event staging in changingnational image in international media presentations.Furthermore, Xing and Chalip (2006) state, “we knowvery little about changing a destination’s image orbrand”. The dearth of empirical evidence with regardto the role of mega-event staging in developingpositive impressions of a particular host destinationrenders relevant this case study of the BeijingOlympics 2008; and, in particular, its relationship tothe expected change it might have on China’s imagein international telecasting.

International media coverage of national imageInsights into the media coverage process play a veryimportant role in understanding issues that affect, andmay possibly change, a perceived national image. Forexample, satellite television offers a place-independentinternational information space that broadcasts andrepresents information that appeals to targetaudiences. In particular, these broadcasters reflect acultural mindset and should be framed accordingly(Go and Fenema, 2006).

Telecasting is an increasingly important aspect ofevent-related destination marketing strategies. Becauseof its global reach, telecasting plays an active role indefining, shaping and changing national imagesaround the world. However, a televised national imageportrayal does not automatically translate into animage held by audience members. This is particularlythe case when audiences lack direct experience of, orinformation about, a particular nation. However,Rivenburgh (1992) inferred that repeated nationalimages, as a component of mainstream mediacontent, would influence the understanding ofaudiences.

Drawing on several definitional approachesconsidered appropriate to media content analysis, a




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national image can be seen as a symbolic constructioncontaining abstract and concrete representationsassociated with a given nation or people (Rivenburgh,1992). Manheim and Albritton (1984) usedinterrupted time-series analysis to examine the effortsundertaken by professional public relations consultantsto influence the image of foreign nations as portrayedin the United States press. Their analysis identifiesconsistent patterns of improvement along two primarydimensions of national image: Visibility and Valence.Based on previous research (Manheim & Albritton,1984; Burriss, 1988) Rivenburgh (1992) constructs aframework of national image in TV media whichincludes four components: Visibility, Valence, Breadthand Attribution. Visibility refers to the quantity ofmedia coverage of another nation (Manheim &Albritton, 1984; Rivenburgh, 1992). Valence refers tothe degree to which a news item reflects favourably orunfavourably on the nation as derived by someassessment of cues within the content (Manheim &Albritton, 1984; Rivenburgh, 1992). Breadth, whichtends to cluster around political or economic issues, isabout the content themes or topics about other nations(Rivenburgh, 1992). Attribution focuses on how hometelevision audiences interpret the behaviour of anotherculture. Such analysis can often be accomplished bylooking at source characteristics (Burriss, 1988;Rivenburgh, 1992). Furthermore, taken together,these four dimensions can be applied to explore therichness of a national image.

The Olympic Games telecasts not only report on thesports, but they increasingly provide coverage of thehost country. There are worldwide media audiences –most significantly TV audiences – who conceive imageas important, either via direct or indirect perception(Soderman & Dolles, 2008). Dong et al (2005)investigate the keywords of 3,607 reports in foreignmedia on the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens andBeijing. They find that mass media reports on theBeijing Olympics 2008 tended to focus more onpolitical issues when compared to coverage ofprevious host cities. They also suggest that the BeijingOlympics 2008 should have adopted an integrated

strategy to build the national image in cooperationwith the media and enterprises and engage in activecommunication with the Western media. Utilising aproblem-centred approach, Lai’s (2009) study aims toidentify a general theory which helps to explain thevarious impacts of mega-event staging on the hostnation image. These studies contribute to a betterunderstanding of the role of mega-event staging and toa favourable change for a particular host country.However, it has proved hard to explicitly detect theimpact of media presentations of the Beijing OlympicGames 2008 in relation to the potential change ofChina’s televised national image. To understand theimpacts we need to gain insights into agenda-settingtheory.

Content analysis of national image and agenda-setting theoryContent analysis is a research technique for theobjective, systematic and quantitative description ofthe manifest content of communication (Berelson,1971). This method has very often been defined as‘quantitative content analysis’, whereas techniquesdeveloped in the linguistic tradition are labelled as‘qualitative’. In contrast to other analysis methods –which try to identify and analyse the characteristicsand define elements of media content – quantitativecontent analysis, in the first step, establishes thenumerical distribution of the variables and, in thesecond step, makes inferences from these findings.

With regard to content analysis, McCombs andShaw (1972) produced the first in a stream ofresearch that confirms the agenda-setting role of themedia, i.e. that the media has a strong impact inshaping the public’s view of events and theirimportance. Currently, agenda-setting researchappears to be in a state of flux: its parameters haveexpanded from the question ‘Who set the publicagenda?’ to ‘Who set the media agenda?’. Thisexpansion has resulted in three major study areas:media agenda-setting, public agenda-setting andpolicy agenda-setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1993,Takeshita, 2005). Media agenda-setting studies




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focuses on media routines, including news diffusion,selection and emphasis, and supports journalists,scientists and politicians as well as managers. Ininvestigations of agenda-setting there is considerablediscussion about the appropriate time lag betweencoverage in the media and subsequent changes inissue perceptions (Stroud & Kenski, 2007). Answersrange from lags of one and two months (Behr &Iyengar, 1985; Winter & Eyal, 1981) to lags of a fewdays (Watt & Berg, 1978). The likely appropriate timelag differs depending on the issue and the mediumemployed (Wanta & Hu, 1994).

The aforementioned studies all focus on the time lagbetween media coverage and issue perceptions. Butthe time lag between mega-event staging and mediacoverage is rarely studied. There exists a plethora ofmarketing, public relations and corporate brandingresearch in the framework of agenda-setting theory;but little attention is given to the national image ininternational media. Rivenburgh (1992) studies theimpacts of mega-events on the national image ofSouth Korea using agenda-setting theory. But thisresearch does not focus on the change of nationalimage of a host country with mega-events. Lee (2009)proposes a theoretical model of national imageprocessing in the media involving three factors –

Environmental, Relational and Strategic publicprominence. Based on the frameworks of Rivenburgh(1992) and Lee (2009), this paper extends the ideaof media agenda-setting as a mechanism to exploremega-event staging effects in relation to perceivedchange of national image in media coverage.

Interaction of mega-events, media coverage and thechange of national imageEvent media coverage increases recognition of the hostcountry (Brown et al, 2004). However, the impact ofmega-event staging on a particular destination image,while relevant, remains an understudied topic.Telecasting of mega-event coverage providesopportunities to project images about a host country toaudiences it attracts around the world. Therefore,Giffard and Rivenburgh (2000) argue, nationsincreasingly use the hosting of global media events asa strategy to enhance their image.

Based on the analysis framework (Figure 1), thepresent study explicates the applicability of agenda-setting theory to explain the influence of the media onChina’s image in international telecast presentations.The main aim of this case study is to analyse how theprocess of TV media telecasts of the Beijing Olympics2008 affected worldwide perceptions of China. The


FIGURE 1 Analysis framework of change of China’s image related to the Beijing Olympics in 2008

MEDIA COVERAGE MEGA EVENTS

CHANGE OF NATIONAL IMAGE

IMPACTS OF MEGA EVENTS ON CHANGE OF NATIONAL IMAGE’S MEDIA PRESENTATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE BEIJING OLYMPICS

VISIBILITY VALENCE BREADTH ATTRIBUTION



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media set used represents nine different media landsand provides results that are subsequently interpretedand discussed. Finally, we draw conclusions, assessimplications and limitations and propose suggestionsfor further research.

Although the present paper and the study by Xingand Chalip (2006) both focus on the effects ondestination image from hosting a sports event, theydiffer. Xing and Chalip (2006) focus on investigatingthe individual scale. In contrast, this paper leveragesdata about international media in nine media lands.So, whereas the former reveals the opinions of publicagenda, the latter examines the results of deployingthe media agenda within the Beijing Olympics 2008case study context.

Methodology

This paper employs the case study method, anapproach deemed appropriate when the researchconducted focuses on contemporary situations anddoes not require control over behavioural events (Yin,2008). Eisenhardt (1989) describes the case studyprocess as highly iterative and tightly linked to data.The logic of a case study is unique to the inductive,case-oriented process and the resultant theory is oftennovel, testable and empirically valid (Eisenhardt,1989). The case study method is used in conjunctionwith other research methods in this study.

Several researchers have used the case studymethod to study mega-event staging (Arthur &Andrew, 1996; Persson, 2000). In this study, the casemethod is used to investigate the internationaltelecasts of the Beijing Olympics 2008. The methodserves as a unit of analysis so as to, by extension,determine the coverage’s effects on the possible futurechange of media presentation of China’s image.

The Beijing Olympics 2008 were performed inseven cities of China. The majority of events were heldin Beijing, but events that required specific facilitieswere performed away from the Chinese capital. Forinstance, the sailing event was held in Qingdao;

equestrian events in Hong Kong; and men’s andwomen’s football matches were played in the cities ofTianjing, Shenyang, Qinghuangdao and Shanghai. Inthe case of the Beijing Olympics 2008, there aremultiple factors that might impact on China’s image,particularly international telecasts, and how worldwideaudiences perceived China. Media agenda-settingtheory helps us to gain insights into the various layersthat represent the determinants that are involved inthe research process.

The international television coverage of the BeijingOlympics 2008 serves for several reasons as anexcellent case study on the possible change oftelevised national image through mega-event staging.Firstly, according to the Olympic Charter, the modernOlympics are intended to promote internationalunderstanding and cooperation. Television coverage isacknowledged as an important means of doing this(International Olympic Committee, 2007) astelecasting tends to ‘beam’ to audiences a view of thehost country. Secondly, the Olympic Games 2008 wasa well planned media event. Generally, TV networksgive audiences the best they are able to offer so as toget high ratings. Thirdly, the government of China hadan explicitly stated desire for its national image to beportrayed positively to the rest of the world.

Paradoxically, a mega-event begins before the actualevent is staged. We distinguish three mega-eventphases: Phase 1, the period before staging; Phase 2,during staging; and Phase 3, after the mega-event.There are different news reports on what happens,with whom and why throughout these phases.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics wason 8 August 2008 and the closing ceremony was on24 August 2008. During the period of the Olympics,international media mainly focused on the games perse. During the ‘before’ and ‘after’ periods (Phases 1and 3) of the Olympics, the international media de-centralised their focus to include all kinds of topics,including political, economic, social and culturalenvironments. For the aim of investigating the possiblechange of China’s image, it is appropriate, therefore,to compare the broadcasts one year before and one




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year after the Olympics. The two comparative periodsused are from 8 August 2007 to 7 August 2008(Phase 1) and from 25 August 2008 to 24 August2009 (Phase 3). Multiple Analysis of Variance(MANOVA) on a dataset of news items before andafter the Olympics in nine media lands aims atassessing the change of media presentation of China’s image.

Data collection

This study adopts a content analysis method using adatabase of news coverage about the Beijing Olympics2008 supplied by the Media Tenor Institute for MediaContent Analysis. Media Tenor provides internationalmedia content analysis of print, TV, radio, online blogsand news groups for use by journalists, scientists,politicians and managers. This paper utilises, as amethodological approach, Media Tenor’s contentanalysis and qualitative data gathering method andsophisticated coding system to gain insight into thequalitative and quantitative volume of coverage in themedia sets. More than 250 Media Tenor analystsscrutinise contributions in the major daily and weeklynewspapers and monthly journals, as well as TV news

and magazines, from all over the world on a dailybasis. Sentence by sentence the analysts ask whattopics – and from what originator and source – thejournalists selected for print or broadcast. Following aset of criteria established in cooperation with theuniversities and the partner institutes in theInternational Media Tenor Association, the contents ofthe media are then subjected to a scientificallyapproved analysis. This offers the opportunity ofmeasuring – beyond personal bias – what matters tothe media and what does not. A database isproduced, of which the terms include Media Name,Original Countries, Results of Content Analysis,Thematic Structure (sports, foreign affairs, etc.) Sourceof News Coverage and so on. Based on the researchframework of this study: Media Name and OriginalCountries relate to Visibility; Results of ContentAnalysis provide data on image Valence; ThematicStructure can be used to analyse image Breadth; andSource of News Coverage connects with Attribution ofImage.

Television is selected as the main media type for thisstudy because satellite technology allows diversecultural groups to view each other and television iscurrently a primary source of international informationfor the world. Data collection is from selected TV news


COUNTRY CHANNEL NEWS

GERMANY ARD TAGESTHEMEN, ZDF HEUTE JOURNAL, RTL AKTUELL, ARD TAGESSCHAU, ZDF HEUTE 1664

FRANCE TF 1 622

UK BBC 1 10 O’CLOCK NEWS, ITV NEWS AT TEN, BBC 2 NEWSNIGHT 780

ITALY RAI UNO 293

SWITZERLAND SF DRS TAGESSCHAU 256

SPAIN TVE 1 534

USA NBC NIGHTLY NEWS, ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT, CBS EVENING NEWS, FOX NEWS 928

ARABIC AL-ARABIYAH, AL-JAZEERA 355

SOUTH AFRICA SABC 3 NEWS@ONE, SABC 2 AFRIKAANS NEWS, SABC 3 ENGLISH NEWS, SABC 3: AFRICA NEWS UPDATE, E-TV NEWS, SABC ZULU/XHOSA NEWS, SABC SOTHO NEW 1829

TABLE 1 Media setting of content analysis 8 August 2007 to 24 August 2009



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programmes broadcast by leading channels in ninedifferent ‘media lands’; that is, eight different countries– Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy,Switzerland, Spain, the United States of America andSouth Africa – and Arabic speaking channels Al-Arabiyah and Al-Jazeera. This gives a spread of datafrom four continents: Europe, Asia, North America andAfrica. Analysis over the two comparative periods –before and after the Games – shows the change oftelevision presentation of China’s image. The mediasetting is listed as Table 1. The tone of coveragerelates to the main protagonist of the news story, asopposed to one of countries mentioned. For example,news items such as ‘British athlete wins the goldmedal in China’ were included as these will haveinfluenced viewers’ perception around the world ofChina. In total 7,261 news stories focusing on Chinaas location of Olympic events, from the period 8August 2007 to 24 August 2009, were collected in adatabase for content analysis.

In order to organise the coding of valuations in astringent way, only valuations of subjects (persons andorganisations) are coded. The valuation only refers tothe description of the coded subject, not to the eventcovered in the news. In addition, there is continuouscoding of the nation in terms of economic, social andvalue-based developments. Valuations can beexpressed in two ways – by the use of either clearlypositive or negative terms. The explicit rating can becontrasted with an implicit rating that embeds thedescription of the protagonist in a positive or negativecontext. Implicit valuations are those that refer to factsor issues that are perceived in a positive or negativeway in a certain society. Rising unemployment figuresconstitutes negative information, even when ajournalist does not assess this development in explicitterms. In some cases, when this cannot be decidedunequivocally, media analysts are required to code thevaluation as ‘ambivalent’. Descriptions are coded as‘neutral’ if there is no clear rating (Media TenorInternational, 2006). In this study, we do notdiscriminate between ‘ambivalent’ and ‘neutral’ buttreat them alike.

Media Tenor distinguishes between manifest andlatent valuations and measures both dimensionsseparately on a five-point scale: 1 (positive), 2 (ratherpositive), 3 (neutral or ambivalent), 4 (rather negative)and 5 (negative). It also combines two five-pointvariables into one variable so as to improve valuation.Two steps are applied to achieve such result. Step 1recodes the valuation rating by adding relevant valuesof explicit and implicit valuation (wertung = (explicit+implicit)/2). Step 2 recodes valuation into the three-level format (-1, 0 and +1). For example, if thevaluation is lower than 2.5, then the value is beingrecoded into 1. In case the valuation represents avalue higher than 3.5, it is recoded into -1. Finally, ifthe value is between 2.6 and 3.4, it is recoded into 0.

Results

For the period studied a total of 7,261 internationalTV news stories are identified. The period is dividedinto three phases. Phase 1 (before the Olympics)comprises 3,969 TV news stories, Phase 2 (duringthe Olympics) comprises 1,198 TV news stories andPhase 3 (after the Olympics) comprises 2,094 TVnews stories – almost double that of Phase 2. Basedon news data, change of Visibility, Valence, Breadthand Attribution of international televised China’s imageis analysed.

Visibility of China in coverage by different countriesIn media analysis, Visibility provides a quantitativemeasure related to exposure. As an image dimension,Visibility is important because it often speaks to thesalience of one nation to another. (Although, it mustbe noted that salience can also result from meetingother media format characteristics such as drama,conflict, disaster and the like.) Visibility can bemeasured by share of stories in the internationalnews. However, unexpected events can disruptstructures of reporting. For example, in ‘routinecoverage’ the share of China varies between 0.9% and4% of all foreign news. But dramatic events, like the




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Tibet riots or the Sichuan earthquake, can boost thevisibility of China significantly.

Attention on Chinese affairs varies markedlybetween the different analysed media markets over thetotal period studied (Phases 1-3). US TV focuses mostintensively on China, with a total of 7.99% of US TVnews about foreign countries focused on China overthe whole period. French and South African TV newsalso paid great attention to China, with totals of TV

news focus on China for the whole period of 6.05%and 5.91% respectively. Arabic, Swiss and Italian TVshow less interest in China, with the ratio of Chinanews to all foreign news being lower than 3.5% inthese three countries for the whole period. The resultsare shown in Table 2 and Figure 2.

To compare the change of Visibility and Valencebefore and after the Olympics in the countriesincluded in the dataset, an overall multivariate


MONTH GERMANY FRANCE UK ITALY CH SPAIN USA ARABIC SOUTH ALLTV AFRICA NEWS

08/2007 6.24 3.23 4.62 3.00 3.95 2.66 4.82 2.65 5.04 4.30

09/2007 6.71 1.65 1.04 1.38 1.94 1.65 3.16 2.46 4.28 3.57

10/2007 4.04 2.13 3.78 2.98 4.02 1.25 6.47 2.40 3.98 3.58

11/2007 1.09 5.92 0 0 22.87 4.19 1.41 1.93 7.09 3.06

12/2007 0.60 2.26 0 61.82 0.92 1.46 4.98 0.89 4.28 1.70

01/2008 2.16 2.66 3.09 2.01 1.50 3.09 2.52 1.06 3.95 2.31

02/2008 1.24 1.92 3.99 0.38 0.86 2.89 2.87 0.99 3.55 1.97

03/2008 12.12 12.87 10.54 10.14 11.95 8.73 15.61 4.47 6.13 9.50

04/2008 7.37 8.87 4.90 4.50 4.42 4.38 6.61 2.37 5.37 5.45

05/2008 15.70 16.52 18.41 10.17 0 11.20 23.76 4.54 7.95 12.88

06/2008 3.08 5.89 4.40 1.19 8.63 3.31 6.28 1.35 4.97 3.96

07/2008 6.29 10.31 7.49 3.66 13.13 10.81 9.04 0 45.02 6.95

08/2008 17.72 37.06 35.98 31.62 9.33 43.36 42.37 0 20.62 28.20

09/2008 9.55 5.84 4.90 2.47 2.26 7.14 7.50 0 010.86 8.28

10/2008 2.97 0.98 2.84 1.54 0.73 1.51 1.75 0 55.67 3.10

11/2008 0.73 3.46 1.45 0.53 2.85 1.24 2.15 0.33 7.63 2.09

12/2008 2.04 2.21 1.42 0.46 0.72 0.43 2.23 0.42 3.40 1.82

01/2009 0.94 1.32 0.94 2.35 0.92 0.98 1.64 0.15 2.96 1.20

02/2009 2.02 0.40 0.61 3.30 1.74 1.25 3.97 0.21 3.70 1.43

03/2009 3.00 1.89 2.05 2.69 0.45 1.65 6.30 0.55 5.79 2.38

04/2009 1.31 2.41 1.80 1.39 0.65 0.71 1.95 0.39 5.27 1.70

05/2009 3.30 1.11 1.59 0.57 0.39 2.27 4.14 0.36 4.50 2.07

06/2009 2.16 1.31 1.67 0.84 3.23 0.78 1.71 0.22 4.89 1.72

07/2009 3.71 1.89 3.28 1.81 3.18 1.65 6.42 1.42 5.60 3.31

08/2009 0.55 1.82 0.79 2.03 2.82 1.50 1.92 0.73 4.08 1.76

TOTAL 4.91 6.05 5.84 3.45 3.48 4.05 7.99 1.05 5.91 4.41

TABLE 2 Percentage share of foreign news stories about China



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analysis of variance (MANOVA) was calculated. Fourvariables, including Visibility, Valence-negative,Valence-neutral and Valence-positive, are taken asdependent variables with Time and Country as fixedfactors. MANOVA with planned contrasts provides apowerful, parsimonious and informative analysis, withTime being a repeated measures variable. The dataanalysis showed a significant group-effect with WilksLambda = 0.732, F=22.999, p<0.01. Thisindicates a group difference between Phase 1 andPhase 3. At the same time, the difference of visibilitybetween Phase 1 and Phase 3 (Estimate –Hypothesised) equals 2.725 with the p<0.01, whichindicates there is a significant change of televisedvisibility of China’s national image.

With MANOVA, the visibility of China before theOlympics is significantly higher (1%) than after.Common sense suggests that mega-event staging willenhance the host country’s visibility both before andafter the event. In the case of the Beijing Olympics2008, this was the case before the event, however,afterwards media weariness set in – i.e. there was aloss of enthusiasm for giving further attention tocovering the host country.

Valence of China’s internationally televised imageThe data of Valence collected are primarily concernedwith how favourably (positive) or unfavourably(negative) a respondent views another nation, asreflected in the common usage of evaluative scales(like/dislike, friendly/unfriendly, etc) and semanticdifferential approaches (lazy/industrious, peace-loving/aggressive, etc). When used in the analysis ofmedia content, Valence refers to the degree to whichan article or item reflects a positive or negative viewon the nation as derived by some assessment of cueswithin the content. This affective aspect of imagecontent is judgmental and evaluative, often based onethnocentric notions of what is ‘right’, ‘good’ or‘valued’ by a particular culture when it looks at theother. Similarly, assessment of image Valence issubjective in both measurement and application.

News is the recording unit for Valence. In Phase 1,more than 35% of segment themes were found to benegative, 48.39% neutral and 16.27% positiveconsidering the value perspective of the nine medialands. During Phase 2 (the Beijing Olympics 2008)only 17.44% of segment themes were found to benegative, 39.15% neutral (which decreased comparedwith Phase 1) and 43.42% positive (which is far


TIME REPEATED CONTRAST DEPENDENT VARIABLE

VISIBILITY VALENCE_NEGATIVE VALENCE_NEUTRAL VALENCE_POSITIVE

MEAN BEFORE THE OLYMPICS 5.130 0.318 0.520 0.162

MEAN AFTER THE OLYMPICS 2.378 0.456 0.356 0.189

CONTRAST ESTIMATE 2.725 -0.137 0.166 -0.029

HYPOTHESISED VALUE 0 0 0 0

DIFFERENCE (ESTIMATE – HYPOTHESISED) 2.725 -0.137 0.166 -0.029

STD ERROR 0.440 0.031 0.031 0.023

SIGNIFICANCE <0.001 <0.001 <0.001 0.215

TABLE 3 Contrast results of before and after periods)



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higher than Phase 1). In Phase 3, 40.77% ofsegment themes were found to be negative (a 5.43%increase from Phase 1); 26.39% neutral (decreased22%); and 32.84% positive (double that of Phase 1)in the nine media lands. The data are mixed. Theresults of data analysis cannot substantiate that Chinagained a more positive international televised imageworldwide post Beijing Olympics 2008.

In Phase 1, coverage is strongly driven by businessnews, with Arabic and South African TV reportingmost positively above the average level. Generally lowcoverage tends to be strongly associated with negativenews. Telecasting in France, United Kingdom, Italyand Switzerland showed scant interest in China andhad more negative tone than in other markets. InPhase 3, percentage of positive tone in South Africaremained the highest in the nine media lands. TV

reported more positively during Phase 3 in Germany,France, UK and Spain. This suggests China’s imageimproved in these countries after the Olympics.

The Valence of international televised image ofChina was polarised in Phase 3. The results ofMANOVA in Table 3 indicate the change of thepercentages of negative, positive and neutral tone. Thepercentages of negative tone increased significantly(contrast estimate = -0.137, p<0.01). Thepercentages of positive tone increased, but not sosignificantly (contrast estimate =-0.029, p=0.215).And the percentages of neutral tone in internationaltelevision decreased significantly (contrast estimate =0.166, p<0.01). This suggests that the TV reports inthe nine media lands began to understand and cover,China more clearly; this owes to the power andinfluence of the Olympic Games.


80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

08/2007 10/2007 12/2007

MONTH

02/2008 04/2008 06/2008 08/2008 10/2008 12/2008 02/2009 04/2009 06/2009 08/2009

FIGURE 3 Breadth of China’s internationally televised image by monthCrime/Domestic Security

Domestic Policy

Foreign Affairs

Business

Sports

Other topics



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Breadth of China’s internationally televised imageBreadth (i.e. thematic structure) of national imagerefers to the cognitive complexity of an image asdefined by the range and character of knowledge areaspresented or recalled about a nation or culture. Realunderstanding can only occur through a grasp ofnorms, values, beliefs and communication stylesrelating to a wide variety of behavioural stages,including home, work, leisure, politics, religion, etc.National image research reveals that people, ratherthan acquiring or retaining a diverse range ofknowledge from which to better explain cross-culturalbehaviour, tend to perceive other nations rathernarrowly, based on political alignment, economicdevelopment and, to a lesser degree, geography and

population factor (Perry, 1985). While open to refinement, this study uses the

following categories list derived from an exhaustivesurvey of multicultural communication literature (e.g. Rivenburgh, 1992): political values; partypolitics; crime/domestic security; domestic policy;foreign affairs; economy/public policy; business(companies); media; business (other aspects);society/education/arts; religion/church;environment/transport; energy; science/technology;history; sports; human interest; and other topics. Fortelevision analysis, verbal association with a nationcan be identified and analysed using the samecategories. The inclusion of the category Olympics, ofcourse, pertains directly to this study.


PHASE MEDIA LAND NEGATIVE NEUTRAL POSITIVE TOTAL

8 AUGUST 2007 – GERMANY 405 38.50% 509 48.38% 138 13.12% 1052

7 AUGUST 2008 FRANCE 116 32.58% 216 60.67% 24 6.74% 356

UK 168 43.52% 196 50.78% 22 5.70% 386

ITALY 53 34.19% 88 56.77% 14 9.03% 155

CH 45 32.85% 78 56.93% 14 10.22% 137

SPAIN 56 18.73% 203 67.89% 40 13.38% 299

USA 187 36.74% 263 51.67% 59 11.59% 509

ARABIC TV 42 16.41% 153 59.77% 61 23.83% 256

SOUTH AFRICA 318 40.61% 197 25.16% 268 34.23% 783

TOTAL 1390 35.34% 1903 48.39% 640 16.27% 3933

25 AUGUST 2008 – GERMANY 199 48.54% 108 26.34% 103 25.12% 410

24 AUGUST 2009 FRANCE 30 30.00% 47 47.00% 23 23.00% 100

UK 63 46.67% 41 30.37% 31 22.96% 135

ITALY 39 49.37% 31 39.24% 9 11.39% 79

CH 58 48.74% 36 30.25% 25 21.01% 119

SPAIN 32 25.60% 57 45.60% 36 28.80% 125

USA 98 53.55% 61 33.33% 24 13.11% 183

ARABIC TV 36 36.73% 40 40.82% 22 22.45% 98

SOUTH AFRICA 293 35.26% 128 15.40% 410 49.34% 831

TOTAL 848 40.77% 549 26.39% 683 32.84% 2080

TABLE 4 Positive, negative and neutral reports of China



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Olympic messages were well placed by the media inadvance of the Games, with sports being the mostimportant message in the second half of 2007. Afterthe unrest in Tibet, discussion of the Beijing OlympicGames, especially about the merits of a boycott, droveup the share of coverage again. Enthusiasm decreased late in 2007. In 2008, evaluation of sports coverage from China was less positive,however, it was nevertheless notably better than inother reports from China as the international mediaemphasised the positive impact of the Olympics on thedevelopment of China.

Table 5 shows the segment main topics that can bebroadly categorised. Sports news plays a significantrole in international TV coverage. This holds true for

the media image of China. At a glance, sport was thenumber one message about China on international TVboth before and after the Olympics. Apart from theOlympic focus, China was also framed as animportant business spot in some markets. Business,foreign affairs, accidents and natural disastersgenerally feature centrally in international news. Thetop six coverage themes in Phase 1 were sports, othertopics, business (other topics), foreign affairs,domestic policy and domestic security. Coverage ofother topics dropped from second in Phase 1 to fifthin Phase 3, while other five themes listed in the topsix in the Phase 1 stayed in their previous order.Although the sum of coverage declined significantlyafter the Olympics, the breadth of China’s


PHASE 8 AUGUST 2007 – 7 AUGUST 2008 25 AUGUST 2008 – 24 AUGUST 2009

THEME GROUP NEGATIVE NEUTRAL POSITIVE TOTAL NEGATIVE NEUTRAL POSITIVE TOTAL

POLITICAL VALUES 24 29 1 54 8 1 0 9

PARTY POLITICS 2 38 2 42 3 3 1 7

CRIME/DOMESTIC SECURITY 181 85 4 270/6 118 38 2 158/5

DOMESTIC POLICY 117 199 16 332/5 55 35 5 95

FOREIGN AFFAIRS 74 247 31 352/4 52 102 19 173/4

ECONOMY/PUBLIC POLICY 29 46 17 92 92 53 30 175/3

BUSINESS: COMPANIES 44 38 21 103 44 26 28 98

MEDIA 54 24 0 78 5 4 1 10

BUSINESS: OTHER ASPECTS 165 42 151 358/3 181 33 222 436/2

SOCIETY/EDUCATION/ARTS 42 86 32 160 79 50 11 140

RELIGION/CHURCH 7 25 2 34 7 7 1 15

ENVIRONMENT/TRANSPORT

/ENERGY 63 106 12 181 23 7 6 36

SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY 3 14 6 23 1 13 17 31

HISTORY 4 3 0 7 6 7 0 13

SPORTS 132 696 319 1147/1 63 120 320 503/1

HUMAN INTEREST 2 15 15 32 3 10 10 23

OTHER TOPICS 447 210 11 668/2 108 40 10 158/5

TOTAL 1390 1903 640 3933 848 549 683 2080

TABLE 5 Positive, negative and neutral reports of China of different topics



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R internationally televised image showed no significantchange before and after.Attribution of China’s internationally televised imageThe concept of Attribution, drawn from interculturalcommunications literature, refers to the interpretationof another’s behaviour (Burriss, 1988). Wheninvolving people from the same culture, Attributionconfidence increases as people discover that theyshare behaviours with similar meanings (Gudykunst,1988). In the international context, however, fewshared meanings are found to exist, so Attributionconfidence is low. The natural tendency is to projectone’s own cultural perspectives and assumptions ontothe behaviour of the others. This results inmisunderstandings, misperceptions and even conflict(Albert & Triandis, 1988; Rivenburgh, 1992).

Source characteristics can be selected to analysewhether or not cross-cultural Attributions are beingexcessively guided by a Western-centred approach.From Table 6, the political section controlled anddominated the narrative about China before and afterthe Olympic Games. After the Games, coverage by thepolitical section declined sharply, while coverage bythe economics section rose. By comparison, Phase 1coverage by the sports section also declined in Phase3. Therefore, the Attribution of China’s internationallytelevised image showed no change before and afterthe Olympics.

Conclusion

Based on the TV database derived from Media Tenor,content analysis and a framework comprised ofVisibility, Valence, Breadth and Attribution, thisresearch provides insights into the effect of mega-event staging in relation to media presentations oftelevised national image in the China context. Theconstruction of national image richness is used todescribe the national image in the studies of Manheimand Albritton (1984) and Rivenburgh (1992). Thispaper extends this framework to explain the change ofChina’s image with the impacts of the Beijing OlympicGames 2008. Based on the data analysis, the BeijingOlympic Games 2008 apparently did not improvemedia presentations of the televised national image ofChina directly. But it did stimulate interest in Chinaand its people among the international media enoughto present a defined televised image of China tointernational audiences around the world that wasbetter than previously.

The media presentation of China’s image has notbeen improved by Beijing Olympics 2008. This resultis distinct from previous studies (Hede, 2005; Xingand Chalip, 2006). In Hede’s study, the overallattitude of Australians towards Greece as a touristdestination changed as a result of their consumptionof the telecast of Athens 2004. Xing and Chalip


SOURCE 8 AUGUST 2007 – 8 AUGUST 2008 – 25 AUGUST 2008 – TOTAL7 AUGUST 2008 24 AUGUST 2008 24 AUGUST 2009

EDITORIAL STAFF – POLITICS 2987 815 1351 5153

EDITORIAL STAFF – ECONOMICS 458 33 468 959

EDITORIAL STAFF – SPORT 334 327 252 913

EDITORIAL STAFF – OTHER 160 0 1 161

OTHER SOURCES 30 23 22 75

TABLE 6 Attribution of China’s internationally televised image in different areas



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(2006) found that “a destination hosting an event thatis perceived to be active will evoke a more activeimage than if the destination were not hosting thatevent”. This study used the content analysis method toanalyse the change of media presentations of China’simage. By comparison, the aforementioned studies,used the survey method to investigate the resident orstudent samples. The different conclusions could,therefore, be explained by the deployment of divergentresearch objectives and method. The subject issufficiently relevant to warrant further study.

The visibility of a host country often rises sharplybefore mega-event staging. Issue perceptions thenchange during and after the media coverage.Theoretically, the time lag between mega-event stagingand media coverage is very much linked to theproposed mechanism underlying agenda-settingeffects, which have been little studied. For example,previous studies (Lim, 2006; Stroud & Kenski, 2007)focus mainly on the time lag between media coverageand public perception. There is little agreement in theliterature about the mechanism underlying agenda-setting effects. An explanation may be thatinternational Olympics TV coverage can be accessedbefore and during the Olympics. Enhancedaccessibility leads reporters of TV news programmes tocover the Olympics. At the same time, audiences ofinternational TV news often watch news reports beforeand during the Olympics, only to lose interestafterwards. TV newscasters have no or little incentiveto cover the Olympics once media weariness sets inwith their audiences. The time lag mechanism impliesthat agenda-setting effects are rather short andprovides an argument for empirical research into thefield of agenda-setting theory to gain more insight intothe time lag phenomenon.

As an aspect of image analysis, Valence becomesone of the most important aspects of national image.With the comparison of Phase 1 and Phase 3 (beforeand after the Olympics) the trend of Valence changecan be summarised. The percentages of positive andnegative tone in international television about Chinaincreased significantly. The international televised

image of China became clearer, which owes to thepower and influence of the Beijing Olympic Games2008. This indicates that the Beijing Olympicsreached one of the main IOC targets of increasinginternational understanding and that the media doeshave a fundamental role to play in brokeringunderstanding of China (Latham, 2009).

In conclusion, this case study demonstrates thecomplex effects of mega-event staging in relation tothe televised national image of a destination. Based oncontent analysis of telecasted national image of China,we conclude the following. Firstly, prior to mega-eventstaging, a host country’s Visibility in internationalmedia tends to increase above average; afterwards ahost country’s visibility declines to a below-averagelevel. Secondly, the main contribution of 2008Olympic Games for China is to enhance theunderstanding of China around the world. However,the televised national image of China has not beenimproved around the world as a result of the BeijingOlympics 2008, with the Breadth and Attribution ofChina’s image remaining relatively stable.

Implications

This paper provides insights into the efficacy of TVmedia coverage of Beijing Olympics 2008 in relationto changing China’s televised national image. Inparticular, the study findings regard the effects ofmega-events on the telecasted national image of ahost country. This research is one of the first attemptsto adopt the richness of national image in the field ofagenda-setting theory to study the change oftelecasted national image before and after mega-eventstaging. It is in contrast to many previous studieswhich focus on either the national image during themega-event or the change of tourist image with mega-event staging.

The function of mega-event staging to a hostcountry is mainly to raise the awareness of audiencesaround the world about that country. While feasibilityand financial studies associated with the hosting of




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mega-events are important, understandinginternational media coverage has become imperativefor any host country government wishing to improveits destination image.

More often than not, special events, such as sportsmega-events, will cast a spotlight on a country withoutcreating a sustainable image. Therefore, host countrycommunications departments need to provide a varietyof topics during these ‘good’ times so as tocontinuously find the media’s ear. The time lagbetween mega-event staging and media coverageshould also be taken into account. News coverage of ahost country rises sharply before the mega-eventstaging only to decline afterwards. It is extremelyimportant to consider this issue in the early stages ofevent preparation so that strategies can be put inplace to harness the benefits of mega-event staging fora host country.

Limitations and future research

This study uses the construct of national imagerichness based on four component concepts: Image,Visibility, Valence, Breadth and Attribution(Rivenburgh, 1992). Nonetheless, it begs the questionwhether it is possible to derive any sense or realunderstanding of the nation in question from theimage constructed in the international media.Although the stated intent of the Chinese governmentwas to reveal to audiences positive facets of China,during the 2008 Olympics the attempt to do so wasboth limited and shallow. The results of this study,therefore, partially reveal how international mediacoverage of the Olympics impacted the televised image of China, but they also raise some criticalissues and barriers.

The results presented in this paper are based on justone case study. Therefore, generalisation of thefindings is not possible (although they do provideinsights into the contemporary phenomenon of event-related media and destination image). Furthermore,from this study we cannot determine whether the

relationship between event-related media and changeof national image of a host country is a causal one.This study was not an experiment, and it must beremembered that other variables may have come intoplay within this context. That is to say, it is necessaryto separate the influence of mega-events on nationalimage because of the complexity of influence factors inany future study.

There is no doubt that the Beijing Olympics 2008enhanced the visibility of China in international TVmedia before the opening ceremony. But further studyis worthwhile, particularly of how news coverage ofmega-event staging might contribute to improving thedestination country image – and under whichconditions news coverage of mega-events is unable tocontribute. In fact, such information would be mostvaluable as it responds to the goal of most any hostcountry – namely to improve, through mega-eventstaging, their national image.

Constraints on data, time and participant availabilitydetermined that this study only discusses media innine media lands. TV news in several other countries– such as Japan, Australia and India – should also betaken into account in content analysis, as thesecountries are important internationally as well as beingneighbouring countries to China. Further research onthe changes for national image, with data from morecountries (especially neighbouring countries) and withmore comprehensive techniques, is thereforerecommended. In addition, because TV channels wereselected by Media Tenor, there may be a bias in themethod. Some media lands’ coverage included severalchannels (USA, Germany) and others only one(France, Spain, Italy), and some TV channels selectedwere not the official broadcaster of the 2008Olympics, which could also have an impact onChina’s image in countries such as France. This couldbe improved by assessing coverage from only the mostimportant TV channel in a country. In addition, otherkinds of media, besides television, should be takeninto account, along with the potential influence of theOlympic Games Organising Committee (OGOC). Bygiving, or not, the media access to strategic places or




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people, the OGOC can influence messages conveyed.The potential influence of the OGOC on internationalTV coverage was not taken into account in this study.

This paper is not a test of an actual change ofChina’s image, but rather an assessment of televisednational images that might have impacted uponChina’s image. A further study, similar to that by Hede(2005), could be carried out to compare the differencein image change between the host countries for boththe Athens and the Beijing Olympics. Examination onthe construction of televised national images and theirinterrelationship with people’s image would tell usmore about the effects of mega-events on the changeof national image. A continued study of place imagewith agenda-setting theory is also suggested. There isparticular need to do research on how a host countrycould use public relations to improve its imageworldwide.

This paper is a study of media agenda-setting, anddoes not include the role of public agenda-setting orpolicy agenda-setting. In addition, there is a lack ofknowledge about the connection between the mediaimage of countries and the perception of them amongthe international general public. It is necessary toinvestigate the relation of media agenda and publicagenda when considering the impact of mega-eventson national image. It is also necessary to look at towhat extent a media image affects the decisions ofmultinational corporations and governments aroundthe world. The answers to these questions are likely tofurther advance the study of national image in theinternational media.


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This study was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Project of the Ministry of Education of China ‘Differentiation Paths of InternationalService Outsourcing in China (to ZENG Guojun) (No. 09YJC630233)’, the Doctoral Fund of the Ministry of Education of China ‘DifferentiationStrategies of Different Parts in China’s Participating International Service Outsourcing (to ZENG Guojun) (No. 200805581046) and The FundamentalResearch Funds for the Central Universities ‘Paradox of Standardisation and Authenticity: Strategic Synergy as Sources of Sustainable CompetitiveAdvantage (to ZENG Guojun)’.



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A service quality framework in the context ofprofessional football in Greece

Keywordsservice qualitysatisfactionspectator sportsfootball

Executive summary

As business environments of professional sportleagues become more highly complicated andunpredictable, the adaptation of effective marketingstrategies and management principles is moreimportant than ever for sports organisations. Inparticular, delivering a high quality service to the fansis critical as it influences revenues and the long-termviability of the organisation.

Previous studies support that the provision of highquality services is critical in attracting spectators to thestadium, building spectator loyalty and increasing therevenue of sport clubs (Dale et al, 2005).Consequently, service quality researchers have paidclose attention to this area of study and proposed avariety of models in the context of spectator sports(McDonald et al, 1995; Kelley & Turley, 2001;

Abstract

This study examines the mediating role of OverallService Quality in the service quality-customersatisfaction relationship in the context of professionalfootball. Quantitative data were collected from a surveyof 415 spectators attending a professional football gamein Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) wasemployed to examine the validity of the scale. Multipleregression analyses was used to assess the mediationeffect of Overall Service Quality. Results of the CFA andalpha test supported the psychometric property of thescale. Overall Service Quality was shown to mediate therelationship between the five dimensions of servicequality and fans’ satisfaction.

Nicholas D. TheodorakisAssistant Professor in Sport ManagementAristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Kostas AlexandrisAssistant Professor in Leisure ManagementAristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Yong Jae KoAssociate Professor of Sport ManagementUniversity of Florida, USAEmail: [email protected]

Peer reviewed

SMS12.4 paper 4 Pro Soccer pp337-351 KT2 20/7/11 21:08 Page 337


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Ko et al, 2011; Theodorakis et al, 2001). However, it has not been well documented whether

service quality (sub) dimensions are components ofthe service quality construct or whether they areantecedents of a separate distinct Overall ServiceQuality evaluation. To resolve this issue, we proposedand tested a framework of service quality in thecontext of professional sport, in which Overall ServiceQuality plays a mediating role in the relationshipbetween service quality dimensions (i.e. Tangibles,Responsiveness, Access, Security, Reliability) andcustomer satisfaction.

Data were collected from sport fans (n=415)attending a professional football game in Greece. Toexamine the psychometric property of themeasurement scale we conducted a ConfirmatoryFactor Analysis (CFA) by using EQS (Bentler, 1995).Following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggestion, wetook a four-step approach to testing the mediationeffect of Overall Service Quality on the relationshipbetween the five service quality dimensions and fans’satisfaction. The results of the CFA supported thevalidity of the scale and the alpha scores supportedthe internal consistency reliability of the scale. Resultsof a series of regression analyses suggested thatOverall Service Quality mediates the relationshipbetween the five dimensions of service quality andfans’ satisfaction in the context of professional sport.

This study will benefit practitioners in the spectatorsports industry and the field of sports marketing bycontributing to the development of a knowledge baseregarding consumer service quality perceptions andsatisfaction. For example, our study suggests thatmanagers of professional sports teams can measureservice quality at a dimensional level as a diagnostictool, but they could also use the Overall ServiceQuality scale for investigating complex relationshipsbetween service quality and other consumer variablesof interest such as consumer satisfaction, word ofmouth promotion and repeat purchase behavior.

Introduction

Today, watching sport is one of the most popularleisure activities in our society. The sports industry hasexperienced substantial growth and success in theprofessional sports segment over the past threedecades and is now a major segment of the economy.However, many sports organisations face challenges.For example, competition within the spectator sport ofprofessional football (soccer) has been affected by theaddition of rival leagues (Mullin et al, 2007). Sportsmarketers also need to pay close attention to issuessuch as economic disconnection, increased cost, newtechnologies, ongoing expansion of playing seasonsand the increased importance of selling broadcastingrights (Howard & Crompton, 2004)

In response to the increased competition within thesport business environment, there have been seriousinvestments in sports facilities. In the US, for example,state government entities have provided substantialsubsidies for stadiums, to secure professional sportsteams. Crompton (2004) reported that the publicsector supported 64% of the total cost, approximately$15.2 billion, of stadium construction in the fourmajor professional sports leagues between 1961 and2003. This was done to help deliver economic andsocial benefits to the local community – job creation,tax revenues and community self-esteem (Sparvero &Chalip, 2007; Eckstein & Delaney, 2002).

Stadium construction has also boomed in majorEuropean football leagues. For example, Germany builtnew stadiums to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Thisled to a significant increase in attendances andrevenues for football clubs, with four clubs enteringthe top 20 European football clubs in terms offinancial performance (Deloitte & Touche, 2008).Spanish team Real Madrid enjoyed a boost inrevenues after renovating their stadium by developingmore corporate hospitality amenities. This enabled theclub to offer superior services to their customers. Inthe 2006-07 football season, Real Madrid matchdayincome was reported to have reached €82.2 million(Deloitte & Touche, 2008).

Service quality in professional football



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As business environments of professional sportsleagues become more complex and unpredictable, theadaptation of effective marketing strategies andmanagement principles becomes more important thanever for the leagues’ organising bodies. In particular,providing a higher quality service to fans is critical asthis influences revenue generation and the long-termviability of the organisation. Previous studies havesupported the notion that the provision of high qualityservices is critical for attracting spectators to thestadiums, building fan loyalty and increasing clubrevenue (Dale et al, 2005; McDonald et al, 1995).

Assessment of service quality is recognised as animportant issue among scholars and industry leaders.Thus, the amount of the research on service quality iscontinuously increasing in various fields of study anddemand for effective measurement tools andapproaches is growing. Recently, sports marketingresearchers have developed various service qualitymodels (e.g. Hightower et al, 2002; Ko, 2004, 2005;Ko et al, 2011; Theodorakis et al, 2001; Tsuji et al,2007) and tested them in relation to various sportsconsumer behavioural outcomes (Alexandris et al,2004; Howat et al, 1999; Howat et al, 2008;Theodorakis et al, 2001). In most of these studies,researchers have not referred to Overall Service Qualityor considered Overall Service Quality as the computedsum scores of service quality dimensions, rather amulti-item measure, as suggested by recent studiesfrom the business and industrial marketing literature(Dabholkar et al, 2000; Dagger et al, 2007).Accordingly, the purpose of our study was toinvestigate if Overall Service Quality can be a distinctconcept that mediates the relationship between themultiple dimensions of service quality and fans’satisfaction in the context of professional sport.

Theoretical background

Measurement of service quality in professional sportParasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) definedperceived service quality as “a global judgment orattitude relating to the superiority of a service” (p.16).Similarly, Bitner and Hubbert (1994) suggested thatservice quality is “the consumer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority/superiority of the organisationand its services” (p.77). Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) developed the SERVQUAL, a measurement scale of service quality which includes22 items that represent five factors as Tangibles,Reliability, Responsiveness, Customer Assurance andEmpathy. The scale has been widely used in variousservice industries. The authors argued that the servicequality concept should be measured by thecongruence between consumer expectation andperceived performance level. In this disconfirmationparadigm, service quality is defined as “the extent ofdiscrepancy between customers’ expectations or desireand their perceptions” (Zeithaml et al, 1990, p.19).

Numerous attempts have been made to examine theconcept of service quality in various segments of thesports and leisure industries. Scholars either adoptedand modified SERVQUAL to tailor it to the services ofthe sports industry (Crompton et al, 1991; Howat etal, 1996; McDonald et al, 1995; Wright et al, 1992),or developed scales based on unique characteristics ofspecific segments of the sports industry (Chelladurai &Chang, 2000; Kim & Kim, 1995; Ko & Pastore,2004, 2005). There have also been attempts tomeasure service quality in spectator sports (Kelly &Turley, 2001; Ko et al, 2011; McDonald, et al, 1995;Theodorakis & Alexandris, 2008; Theodorakis et al,2001; Zhang et al, 2004). By modifying the fivedimensional factor structure of the SERVQUAL, forexample, McDonald, Sutton & Milne (1995)developed the TEAMQUAL, a 39-item scale. Theauthors measured the performance of ticket takers,ticket ushers, merchandisers, concessionaires andcustomer representatives by applying simultaneousmeasurement of expectations and perceptions of




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professional basketball fans. Using weighted averagescores, the authors suggested that Overall ServiceQuality could be measured by averaging the scores ofthe five dimensions.

In addition, Theodorakis, Kambitis, Laios &Koustelios (2001) developed the SPORTSERV scale toassess perceptions of service quality among sportspectators. This scale comprises 20 performance-onlyitems representing five dimensions of service quality:Tangibles (i.e. cleanliness of the facility),Responsiveness (i.e. personnel willingness to help),Access (i.e. accessibility of / to the stadium), Security(i.e. team provides high standards of security duringgames) and Reliability (i.e. team delivers its servicesas promised). Lately, Theodorakis, Koustelios,Robinson and Barlas (2009) averaged the scores ofthe five SPORTSERV dimensions for examining therelationship between Overall Service Quality and fans’repurchase intentions.

In another study, through an exploratory factoranalysis, Kelley and Turley (2001) developed a nine-factor structure including Employees, Facility Access,Concessions, Fan Comfort, Game Experience,Showtime, Convenience, Price and Smoking. Theauthors found that the influence of each factor differsacross a variety of demographic and sportsconsumption levels.

Ko (2005) developed the Scale of Service Quality inSpectating Sport (SSQSS) by adapting Ko andPastore’s (2005) multidimensional and hierarchicalmodel. The SSQSS was developed to test thepsychometric property of a five-dimension frameworkincluding Quality of Game, Augmented Services,Interaction, Outcome, and Physical Environment.Several corresponding subdimensions wereoperationalised within each primary dimension asfollows: (a) Game Quality – Skill Performance, GameSchedule and Information; (b) Augmented ServiceQuality – In-game Entertainment and Concessions; (c)Interaction Quality – Spectator-Employee Interactionand Inter-Spectator Interaction; (d) Outcome Quality –Valence and Sociability; (e) Physical EnvironmentQuality – Ambience, Design and Sign/Scoreboard.

Although Ko (2005) proposed a two-level hierarchicalmodel of service quality, it was not reported whetherthe five dimensions act as antecedents of an OverallService Quality construct.

From the aforementioned studies, it becomes clearthat the majority of sports marketing researchersconsider Overall Service Quality to be a higher orderfactor reflecting a number of service qualitydimensions. However, recently, researchers from thebusiness domain suggested that consumers, alongwith the evaluation of different services attributes,form an overall evaluation of service quality that is notnecessarily the average score of its dimensions, but aseparate multi-item construct (Dabholkar et al, 1996;Dabholkar et al, 2000; Dagger et al, 2007; Hightoweret al, 2002).

These two different methodological approaches werediscussed in detail and clarified by Dagger, Sweeney &Johnson (2007), who argued that service qualityshould be conceptualised as a formative and not areflective construct. Adopting the formative approachmeans that the dimensions of service quality cause theOverall Service Quality and act as antecedents of it. Onthe other hand, the reflective approach proposes thatthe service quality dimensions act as reflectiveindicators or consequences of the overall service.Dagger et al (2007) argued that the reflective approachis not a methodologically correct approach, since highor low levels of service quality dimensions cannot bedue to the high or low levels of Overall Service Quality.Instead, perceptions about specific service qualitydimensions lead to higher or lower levels of OverallService Quality.The formative approach, therefore,proposes that Overall Service Quality acts a mediator ofthe relationship between service quality dimensions andoutcome variables (e.g. consumer behaviouralintentions). This proposition is also in line with thestudy by Dabholkar, Thorpe & Rentz (2000), whoargued that “direct measures of service quality canserve as better predictors of behavioural intentions thana value of service quality computed from measuredimensions” (p.139).

Service quality studies conducted so far in the




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context of professional sport have adopted thereflective approach. With one notable exception (Koo, Andrew & Kim 2008), no published studieshave adopted the formative approach and treatedservice quality dimensions as antecedents of Overall Service Quality.

Using the formative approach (Dabholkar et al,1996; 2000; Dagger et al, 2007; Hightower et al,2002), we suggest that sports consumers, along withthe evaluation of different services attributes, form anoverall evaluation of service quality that is notnecessarily the average score of its dimensions but aseparate multi-item construct (Dabholkar et al, 2000).For this approach, Overall Service Quality is treated asa mediator of the relationship between service qualitydimensions and various critical behavioural outcomessuch as satisfaction, value and loyalty.

We propose a framework of service quality in thecontext of professional sport by examining themediating role of Overall Service Quality in the servicequality-customer satisfaction relationship. We havechosen satisfaction as the primary outcome variable inour framework for two reasons. Firstly, customersatisfaction has become a major corporate goal (Rust& Oliver, 1994). Secondly, numerous studies havesupported that service quality is recognised as anantecedent of customer satisfaction, and researchershave suggested that the enhancement of servicequality is a key strategy for increased level of customersatisfaction (Anderson et al, 1994; Cronin & Taylor,1992; Zeithaml et al, 2006).

Methodology

Participants and data collectionThe researchers collected data from spectators of aprofessional football team in the Greek superleague.The selected team is well established, has played inthe league for many years and has a strong fan base.The team was chosen for its accessibility. Due to theabsence of a database of team spectators, data werecollected in an on-site survey. Questionnaires were

distributed in the stadium during a home match. Sixresearch assistants helped with the collection of thedata. To ensure representation of all fans within thestadium, data were collected in six different areas ofthe stadium (Robinson et al, 2005) during the half-time break.

It should be noted that the data collection method isnot a strict probability method; subsequently, anygeneralisations of the results should be made withcaution. Furthermore, since data were collected fromspectators of one team only, the results cannot begeneralised to all spectators of teams in the Greeksuperleague. Results can only be considered asindicative of the study population. However, this studyaimed to test a theoretical research model and not togeneralise our results to all Greek fans. The samplingmethod described above was considered to beappropriate.

A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed and415 useful cases were collected, a response rate of69.1 %. The average age of participants was 33.63years and ranged from 16 to 71 years, with 360(86.7%) male respondents and 55 (13.3%) female.

Measures

Service QualityTo assess spectators’ perceptions of service quality, theSPORTSERV scale was used (Theodorakis et al, 2001;Theodorakis & Alexandris, 2008). This scalecomprises 20 performance-only items, measuring fivedimensions of service quality. Each dimension hasfour items: Tangibles (i.e. cleanliness of the facility),Responsiveness (i.e. personnel willingness to help),Access (i.e. accessibility of / to the stadium), Security(i.e. team provides high standards of security duringgames) and Reliability (i.e. team delivers its servicesas promised). Recently, Theodorakis and Alexandris(2008) documented evidence regarding SPORTSERV’spsychometric properties in the context of professionalsport in Greece.




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Overall Service QualityWe used Dabholkar et al’s (2000) four-item Likerttype scale to measure spectators’ perceptions of overallservice evaluations. These items were referred to as“excellent overall service”, “high standards of service”,“service of very high quality”, and “superior service inany way”.

SatisfactionAn evaluative satisfaction item was used to assessfans’ levels of satisfaction with the latest game theyhad attended. Similar global satisfaction measureshave been used by researchers in different sports andleisure domains (Howat et al, 2008; Murray & Howat,2002; Petrick et al 1999; Vlachopoulos et al, 2008).

Responses for all measured items were given on aseven-point Likert type scale, ranging from 1 (stronglydisagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Data analysisTo test the dimensionality of SPORTSERV, a five-factorConfirmatory Factor Analysis model (CFA) wascomputed by using EQS (Bentler, 1995). Hoyle andPanter (1995) suggested the use of both incrementaland absolute indices to assess the fit of CFA models.In this study, the fit indexes used for modelassessment were the chi square statistic (x2), theNon-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), the Comparative FitIndex (CFI) and the Standardised Root Mean Residual(SRMR) (Hoyle & Panter, 1995; Hu & Bentler, 1999).CFI and NNFI values greater than .90 and SRMRvalues less than .08 are considered indicators of goodfit (Hu & Bentler, 1995; 1999).

A similar analysis was conducted for the OverallService Quality and Satisfaction scale.

Following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggestion, weadapted a four-step approach to test the mediationeffect of Overall Service Quality on the relationshipbetween the five service quality dimensions(predictors) and fans’ satisfaction (outcome). Thisapproach suggests the use of a sequence of regressionequations among the variables, as follows: a) a regression analysis with the independent variables

(service quality dimensions) predicting the dependent(satisfaction); b) a regression analysis with theindependent variables (service quality dimensions)predicting the mediator (Overall Service Quality); c) a regression analysis with the mediating variable(Overall Service Quality) predicting the dependentvariable (satisfaction); d) a regression analysis withboth the independent variables (service qualitydimensions) and the mediator (Overall Service Quality)simultaneously predicting the dependent (satisfaction).When the effect of the predictor on the outcome is notsignificantly different from zero, full mediation isobtained. Partial mediation is obtained when thiseffect is reduced, but it is still statistically significant.

Results

Factor structure and reliabilitySPORTSERV item skeweness values ranged from -.70 to .10 and item kurtosis ranged from -1.44 to -.27. Mardia’s coefficient of multivariate kurtosis was123.06 (Mardia, 1970), suggesting that theassumption of multivariate normality was tenable,since this value was smaller than the 440 cut-offpoint derived from the formula p (p+2), where prepresents the number of observed variables (Bollen,1989). Thus, the maximum likelihood method wasused. Results indicated an adequate fit for the five-factor model: X2=541.60, df=160, p<.001,NNFI=.936, CFI=.946, SRMR=.048.

For Overall Service Quality, item skeweness valuesranged from .09 to .42 and item kurtosis ranged from-.40 to -.61. Mardia’s coefficient of multivariatekurtosis was 14.40, indicating that the data werenormally distributed according to the p (p+2) formulamentioned above. Hence the maximum likelihoodmethod of estimation was also employed. Thegoodness-of-fit indexes showed an adequate fit: x2 =36.76, df=2, p < .001, NNFI=.910,CFI=.970, SRMR=.027. Descriptive statistics andCFA item statistics for both scales are presented inTable 1.




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Internal consistency reliability was assessed usingthe Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for all scalesmeasuring the five service quality dimensions andOverall Service Quality. All scales had satisfactoryalpha values, ranging from .89 to .94. Compositereliabilities and average variance extracted (AVE) were

also computed. The results indicated acceptable levelsof composite reliability for all constructs, since valuesexceeded the .60 cut-off point (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988).The AVE for all constructs were above the .50threshold (Fornell & Lacker, 1981; see Table 2).


VARIABLES M SD T-VALUES SKEWNESS KURTOSIS FACTOR ERROR SMCSLOADING TERM

TANGIBLES

ITEM 1: 4.23 2.09 19.04 -0.24 -1.25 0.79 0.6 0.63

ITEM 2: 4.25 2.09 20.24 -0.22 -1.31 0.83 0.55 0.69

ITEM 3: 4.12 2.1 24.28 -0.17 -1.33 0.92 0.36 0.86

ITEM 4: 4.2 2.05 22.78 -0.22 -1.21 0.89 0.44 0.8

RESPONSIVENESSITEM 5: 3.68 2.04 20.76 0.05 -1.32 0.84 0.53 0.71

ITEM 6: 3.66 1.99 19.3 0.04 -1.32 0.8 0.58 0.65

ITEM 7: 3.61 2.16 22.58 0.09 -1.44 0.89 0.45 0.79

ITEM 8: 3.62 2.06 21.93 0.1 -1.34 0.85 0.51 0.73

ACCESSITEM 9: 3.82 1.89 19.72 0.02 -1.14 0.81 0.53 0.65

ITEM 10: 4.02 1.89 22.91 -0.07 -1.75 0.89 0.58 0.79

ITEM 11: 4.24 1.87 26.04 -0.19 -1.06 0.95 0.45 0.91

ITEM 12: 4.2 1.89 25.92 -0.19 -1.06 0.95 0.51 0.91

SECURITYITEM 13: 4.05 2.14 17.92 -0.11 -1.4 0.76 0.58 0.58

ITEM 14: 4.03 2.02 22.91 -0.14 -1.25 0.89 0.45 0.8

ITEM 15: 3.91 2.02 22.61 -0.1 -1.31 0.89 0.28 0.79

ITEM 16: 4.27 1.94 21.42 -0.27 -1.14 0.86 0.29 0.74

RELIABILITYITEM 17: 4.57 1.78 19.07 -0.45 -0.64 0.8 0.64 0.64

ITEM 18: 4.29 1.88 21.5 -0.31 -0.91 0.87 0.43 0.75

ITEM 19: 4.25 1.85 21.61 -0.23 -1.03 0.87 0.45 0.76

ITEM 20: 4.48 1.76 17.94 -0.39 -0.72 0.72 0.5 0.59

OVERALL SERVICE QUALITYITEM 1 3.87 1.49 20.15 0.98 -0.4 0.82 0.56 0.68

ITEM 2 3.43 1.55 24.82 0.22 -0.61 0.94 0.33 0.88

ITEM 3 3.14 1.54 22.29 0.42 -0.46 0.88 0.47 0.77

ITEM 4 3.69 1.57 15.75 0.12 -0.54 0.69 0.71 0.48

TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics and CFA item statistics of the SPORTSERV and the Overall Service Quality scale

SMC=Square Multiple Correlations (N=415)



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Testing for the mediation effect ofOverall Service Quality

Step 1: Establishment of the link between servicequality dimensions and satisfactionA regression analysis was performed to examine thedegree to which the five service quality dimensionscould predict fans’ satisfaction. The regression analysisproduced a significant effect (F=41.07, p<.001).Three dimensions of service quality had significantcontributions to the prediction of satisfaction: Tangibles(Beta=.28, t=6.77, p<.001), Responsiveness(Beta=.21, t=4.05, p<.001) and Security(Beta=.20, t=3.84, p<.001; see Table 3).

Step 2: Establishing the link between service qualitydimensions and Overall Service QualityA regression analysis was conducted to examine thedegree to which Overall Service Quality could bepredicted by the five service quality dimensions. The regression was significant overall (F=95.04,p<.001). The dimensions of Tangibles (Beta=.38,t=11.0, p<.001), Responsiveness (Beta=.35,t=8.12, p<.001), Security (Beta=.22, t=4.89,p<.001) and Access (Beta=.09, t=2.28, p<.05)offered significant contributions (see Table 4).

Step 3: Establish the link between Overall ServiceQuality and satisfactionA regression analysis was performed with OverallService Quality as the independent variable andsatisfaction as the dependent. The results showed thatOverall Service Quality predicted a significant amountof the variance in satisfaction (F=363.24, p<.001,Beta=.68, t=19.05, p<.001; see Table 5).

Step 4: Examining the mediation effect of OverallService QualityFor the final step, a regression analysis was conductedto examine the degree to which satisfaction could bepredicted by the five service quality dimensions andOverall Service Quality simultaneously. The regressionanalysis produced a significant effect (F=62.78,p<.001). The results showed that Overall ServiceQuality fully mediated the relationship between thefive service quality dimensions and satisfaction, sincethe beta scores of Tangibles (Beta=.07),Responsiveness (Beta=.01) and Security (Beta=.08)were reduced to non-significant levels (see Table 6).


COMPOSITE VARIABLES M SD α RELIABILITIES AVE r

SATISFACTION 3.83 1.55

OVERALL QUALITY 3.53 1.35 0.9 0.9 0.8 .68*

TANGIBLES 4.17 1.88 0.92 0.91 0.77 .35* .45*

RESPONSIVENESS 3.65 1.84 0.91 0.9 0.76 .40* .53* 0.02

ACCESS 4.07 1.76 0.94 0.94 0.83 .36* .44* .23* .39*

SECURITY 4.06 1.82 0.91 0.91 0.77 .44* .53* .14* .55* .43*

RELIABILITY 4.4 1.54 0.89 0.88 0.75 .38* .45* .15* .51* .43* .57*

*p<.01.

TABLE 2 Mean, standard deviation, reliability estimate and correlation for service quality dimension, Overall

Service Quality and satisfaction



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SATISFACTION

BETA t p

TANGIBLES 0.28 6077 0.001

RESPONSIVENESS 0.21 4.05 NS

ACCESS 0.08 1.77 0.001

SECURITY 0.2 3.81 NS

RELIABILITY 0.07 1.44 0.001

R2=.33 F(5.400)=4.40 p<.001

NS = not significant

TABLE 3 Regression analysis for the prediction of satisfaction from service quality dimension

OVERALL SERVICE QUALITY

BETA t p

TANGIBLES 0.38 11 0.001

RESPONSIVENESS 0.35 8.12 0.001

ACCESS 0.09 2.28 0.05

SECURITY 0.22 4.89 0.001

RELIABILITY 0.04 0.91 NS

R2=.54 F(5.400)=95.04 p<.001

NS = not significant

TABLE 4 Regression analysis for the prediction of satisfaction from service quality dimension

SATISFACTION

BETA t p

OVERALL SERVICE QUALITY 0.68 19.05 0.001

R2=.47 F(1,409)=363.34 p<.001

TABLE 5 Regression analysis for the prediction of satisfaction from Overall Service Quality



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Discussion

The link between service quality and organisationalsuccess is well documented in the business marketingliterature; service quality was found to be positivelyrelated to customer satisfaction and retention (Burtonet al, 2003; Dagger & Sweeney, 2006; Keillor et al,2007; Olorunniwo et al, 2006). Research evidencefrom the sports marketing domain also indicates thatservice quality plays a significant role in the predictionof sport fans’ future behaviours (Theodorakis, et al,2009; Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996). Although servicequality has been a popular topic among sportsmarketing researchers, it has not been welldocumented whether service quality dimensions arecomponents of the service quality construct orantecedents of a separate distinct Overall ServiceQuality evaluation (Ko & Pastore, 2005; Koo et al,2008). Thus, in this study, we aimed to examine ifperceptions about Overall Service Quality mediate therelationship between service quality dimensions andsport fans’ satisfaction in the context of professionalsports.

Two scales were used to measure perceived servicequality in this study: the SPORTSERV (Theodorakis etal, 2001; Theodorakis & Alexandris, 2008) at thedimensional level and a four-item scale aiming tocapture fans’ overall service evaluations. In terms ofthe psychometric properties of the scales used, both

were shown to be valid and reliable. A confirmatoryfactor analysis supported the factorial and convergentvalidity for both scales, while the alpha scoressupported the internal consistency reliability of them.

To examine the interrelationships among servicequality dimensions, Overall Service Quality andsatisfaction, a series of regression analyses wereconducted. Initially, the ability of service qualitydimensions to predict fans’ satisfaction was tested.The regression analysis results indicated that fansatisfaction is significantly predicted by differentservice aspects, such as sports facility design,aesthetics and functionality, reliability in the servicedelivery process, parking availability, use of masstransportation, and easy and fast arrival and departurefrom the stadium. Similar results have been reportedby other researchers in the context of professionalsport (Brady et al, 2006; Tsuji et al, 2007; Wakefield& Blodgett 1994). Next, the results indicated that theservice quality dimensions significantly predictedOverall Service Quality. It is noteworthy that this is thefirst research to find that spectators develop servicequality perceptions in a hierarchical manner. Theresults from the third regression analysis also revealedthat Overall Service Quality significantly predicted fansatisfaction, exerting actually a greater influence onsatisfaction than on the five-dimensional servicequality model.

Finally, the mediation effect of the Overall Service


SATISFACTION

BETA t p

TANGIBLES 0.07 1.81 N.S

RESPONSIVENESS 0.01 0.36 N.S

ACCESS 0.03 0.79 N.S

SECURITY 0.08 1.7 N.S

RELIABILITY 0.06 1.27 N.S

OVERALL SERVICE QUALITY 0.55 10.45 0.001

R2=.48 F(6,397)=67.78 P<.001

N.S=not significant

TABLE 6 Regression analysis for the prediction of satisfaction from service quality dimensions and Overall Service Quality



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Quality on the relationship between the five servicequality dimensions and satisfaction of spectators wastested. The regression analysis results indicated thatOverall Service Quality fully mediated the relationshipbetween service quality dimensions and satisfaction,supporting our main hypothesis. These results areconsistent with Koo et al’s (2008) study, which wasconducted among collegiate basketball teams in theUS. Koo et al (2008) reported that Overall ServiceQuality perceptions partially mediated the relationshipbetween service quality dimensions and fansatisfaction. Similar results were presented by Daggeret al (2007), who conducted a study in the context ofhealth services.

Our results are also consistent with the Dabholkar etal (2000, p.166) argument: “…consumers evaluatedifferent factors related to the service but also form aseparate overall evaluation of service quality”. Weargue that this approach is more congruent with thewidely accepted conceptualisation of service quality;as previously discussed, quality is defined as aconsumer’s judgment of an entity’s overall excellenceor superiority (Parasuraman et al, 1985, 1988).However, our results still provide evidence for theimportance of the dimensions in the proposed servicequality framework in professional sport, suggestingthat higher levels of service quality on the dimensionallevel increase perceptions of Overall Service Quality.The following section provides several practicalimplications referring to both service qualitydimensions and overall service evaluations.

Managerial implicationsReferring to the role of service quality dimensions, wepropose that sports managers should measure servicequality at a dimensional level, since such a tool hasdiagnostic value. Sports managers can check servicedeficiencies and weaknesses in their services, allocatebudget where required and make appropriateimprovements. However, sports managers could usethe short Overall Service Quality scale for investigatingcomplex relationships between service quality andother behavioral outcomes that have practical interest

for them (e.g. ticket season holding, repeat patronageand behavioral loyalty – Pritchard et al, 2009).Measuring service quality in an aggregated level couldhelp them save money and time, since short scalesare more easily distributed and guarantee a higherresponse rate.

In addition, Overall Service Quality evaluations canbe examined in relation to various sports fansegments. These segments can be drawn based onbehavioral and attitudinal variables such as teamidentification, fan motivation, brand associations andlevel and frequency of attending matches (Funk et al,2002; Funk & James, 2006; Ross, 2007; Trail et al,2003). Recent studies showed that different fansegments have different service needs and require adifferent marketing approach (Greenwell et al, 2002;Hill & Green 2000; Theodorakis et al, 2009). Sportsmanagers should periodically track service qualityperceptions and satisfaction indicators among differentfan segments, aiming to provide tailored services tothem and foster fan loyalty. Finally, since servicequality was found to be a significant predictor of fansatisfaction, sports managers should work on newservice developments, or improvement of the existingones, because new services are required to addresschanging consumer needs and meet consumerexpectations.

Limitations and future studies

The results presented in this study are based on aconvenience sample of Greek football fans. Both thecontextual (football) and cultural (Greek) aspect of thestudy should be considered in any attempt togeneralise the results. Subsequently, as previouslydiscussed, the results cannot be generalised to allGreek football fans. They should be verified in samplesthat include fans of more teams and spectators indifferent types of sport. Additionally, the service qualityframework that we suggested in this study should beverified among football fans from different cultures. AsTaylor, Sharland, Cronin and Bullard (1993) have




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suggested, researchers and practitioners should bevery careful about generalising service qualitytheoretical models and business practices acrossdifferent international sport and recreational servicesettings. Furthermore, cross-cultural studies couldexamine the role of culture in the relationship betweenservice quality and spectator behavioral outcomes.

In this study, data were collected at a single footballmatch in Greece. This does not guarantee that resultscan be generalised to all Greek football spectators.Collecting data at more games would increaseconfidence in generalising from our results. Also, wemeasured spectators’ perceptions of service quality ata specific point in time, but other important factors,such as longer-term team performance, might impactoverall spectator satisfaction. In addition, the model ofservice quality used in this study includes process-related dimensions. Future research should alsoincorporate service quality dimensions such as GameQuality and Valence (Ko et al, 2011). Finally, weshould address the validity of using satisfaction as adependent variable; we used customer satisfaction asthe dependent variable since it has been proposed andempirically supported (Anderson & Sullivan, 1993;Dabholkar et al, 2000; Dagger et al, 2007) thatsatisfaction is correlated with service qualityevaluations. However, future studies should includemore outcomes in their models, such as behavioralintentions, perceived value and behavioral loyalty, tobetter predict the behaviour of the sports consumer.

In summary, this study contributes to the sportsmarketing literature by showing that Overall ServiceQuality represents a distinct construct that is formedby sports consumers in their evaluation of the overallservice experience. It was also found that servicequality in this context is a multi-level construct and anumber of context-specific service quality dimensionsact as antecedents and cause Overall Service Qualityperceptions.


Biographies

Nicholas D. Theodorakis is Assistant Professor inSport Management at the Aristotle University ofThessaloniki, Greece, and a visting professor at theUniversity of Oporto, Portugal. His research focuses onconsumer behaviour in sport and leisure.

Kostas Alexandris is Assistant Professor in LeisureManagement at the Aristotle University ofThessaloniki, Greece, and an adjunct faculty memberat the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He isAssociate Editor in the Journal of Leisure Researchand a member of the editorial boards of ManagingLeisure: an International Journal and the InternationalJournal of Sport Management. His research focuseson consumer behaviour in sport and leisure.

Yong Jae Ko is Associate Professor of SportManagement at the University of Florida with a degreefrom Ohio State University His research focuses onsports consumer behaviour and service marketing.

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Does sponsorship pay off? An examination of the relationship between investment insponsorship and business performance

Keywordssponsorship spendinvestmentbusiness performance indicatorCompound Annual Growth Rate

Executive summary

In 2009, North American-based companies spent atotal of US$16.51 billion on sponsorship, 68% ofwhich (US$11.28 billion) was spent with sportsproperties such as the US Olympic Committee, theNational Football League and hundreds of local teamsand athletes (IEG, 2010).

However, without a universally acceptedmeasurement metric (such as Gross Rating Points forbroadcast media expenditures), many corporations

have struggled to compare the effectiveness ofsponsorship against other more traditional marketingtactics (Meenaghan, 1999). Many have studiedsponsorship’s impact on business results, such asincreases in sales and market share (Smolianov &Shilbury, 2005), and several, including Farrell andFrame (1997), Miyazaki and Morgan (2001), Ozturk,Kozub and Kocak (2004) and Cornwell, Pruitt andClark (2005), have examined the stock price

Abstract

Do corporations who invest in sponsorship performbetter? Examining five years of sponsorship spendingdata and business performance indicators of more than50 US-based corporations, this case study analyses therelationship between a company’s investment insponsorship and its business performance. The resultsindicate that as a group corporations that consistentlyinvested in sponsorship outperformed market averagesand those who spent at an above average leveloutperformed those who spent at a below average level.

Jonathan A. JensenAdjunct ProfessorColumbia College Chicago, 618 S. Michigan AvenueSuite 700, Chicago, IL 60605, USATel: + 312 933 2940Email: [email protected]

Anne HsuAccount DirectorRelay Worldwide, 375 Hudson Street, 13th Floor, New York, NY 10014Tel: + 212 471 5495Email: [email protected]

Peer reviewed

SMS12.4 paper 5 Does Sponsorship Pay Off pp352-364 KT2 20/7/11 21:23 Page 352


CASESTUDY

performance of sponsors of one particular property,including Olympic sponsorships and officialsponsorships of the National Football League (NFL),Major League Baseball (MLB), the National HockeyLeague (NHL) and the Professional Golfers Association(PGA). However, no studies appear to exist thatexamine the relationship between the larger group ofcompanies that invest significantly in sponsorship andtheir business performance over an extended period.

The purpose of this case study is to examine therelationship between consistent investment insponsorship and a company’s overall businessperformance. The study examines annual sponsorshipspending data for more than 50 US-basedcorporations, which constitutes all companies whoinvested a minimum of US$15 million per year insponsorship for the five-year period from 2005-2009.Business results achieved by these companies,including the key performance indicators of stock priceappreciation, total revenue, net income and earningsper share, over the same five-year period were alsotabulated. In order to correct for the varied sizes of thecompanies, we calculated the five-year CompoundAnnual Growth Rate (CAGR) for each, and thepercentage change for each company’s stock pricefrom 2005 to 2009.

The results demonstrated that the performance ofthose companies who invested in sponsorship at theUS$15 million level achieved better than marketaverages, and the 16 companies who invested at ahigher-than-average level outperformed the companieswho invested at a below-average level. For thepurpose of this study, the higher investing companieswere referred to as ‘super sponsors’.

These 16 super sponsors spent an average ofUS$160 million annually on sponsorship during the five-year period, compared to an average of US$33.7 million per year by the other 35 companies.Not only did these super sponsors invest insponsorship at a higher level, by examining mediaspending data we were able to determine that thesecompanies spent an average of 15.25% of their media investment on sponsorship, compared to the

9.58% the other 35 companies spent on sponsorshipversus media.

We conclude the study by introducing a theory toexplain why the sponsoring companies outperformedmarket averages and enjoyed better results than theirpeers. The theory is that these companies had anunfair advantage, which contributed mightily toincreased business performance over time. Of the 16super sponsors, eight were included on Interbrand’slist of the 100 Best Global Brands in 2009 (Kiley &Helm, 2009).

Introduction

In 2009, North American-based companies spent atotal of US$16.51 billion in sponsorship. Globally,sponsorship expenditures reached US$44 billion, a2.1% increase from 2008 (IEG, 2010). In NorthAmerica, 68% of the total was spent on sportssponsorship with properties such as the US OlympicCommittee, the NFL, MLB, NASCAR and a multitudeof local sports teams. According to IEG, sportssponsorship spending in North America grew fromUS$8.31 billion in 2005 to US$11.28 billion in2009, a CAGR of 6.3%, and was projected toincrease by 2.8% in 2010 (IEG, 2005-2010).

A time-honoured question among marketingexecutives is whether such sponsorship investmentspay off. Advanced marketing measurement modelsthat evaluate the impact of various marketing tacticson business results, such as marketing mix modeling(MMM) approaches, do not account for the impact ofinvestment in sponsorship. This leaves many brandsunable to determine the impact of its sponsorshipinvestments compared to expenditures in othermarketing tactics (Pham, 1991).

Furthermore, without one agreed-uponmeasurement metric in the sponsorship industry (suchas Gross Rating Points or Targeted Rating Points forbroadcast media expenditures), many corporationsspending tens of millions of dollars on sponsorshipshave been left to ponder this question (Meenaghan,

Does sponsorship pay off?



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1999). Traditionally, sponsorship effectiveness studieshave focused on the achievement of media objectives,marketing objectives or image-based corporateobjectives (Pope & Voges, 2000; Sandler & Shani,1993; Quester, 1997; Shanklin & Kuzma, 1992).

As chronicled by Smolianov and Shilbury (2005),some studies have sought to examine sponsorship’srole in helping a company to achieve business results.Most have examined sponsorship’s ability to increasesales or revenues, including increases in sales (Stotlar,1998; Meenaghan, 1998), the seizing of marketshare from competitors (Hansen & Scotwin, 1995;Irwin & Sutton, 1994) and influencing intent topurchase (Ko et al, 2008).

Recent studies have noted the growing concernamong marketers about their company’s return ontheir investment in sports sponsorship (Koo et al,2006; Smolianov & Shilbury, 2005; Lawson, 2002),and many agree that the subject still merits furtherexamination (Stotlar, 2004; Farrelly, 2002; Olkkonen,2001). Yet year after year, the most trusted andvaluable brands in the world – Coca-Cola, IBM,General Electric and McDonald’s – make significantannual sponsorship investments in properties such asthe Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, the NFL andNASCAR (Yang et al, 2008; Koo et al, 2006; Deaneet al, 2003; Santomier, 2008; Haan & Shank, 2004;Collins, 2003; Cornwell et al, 2005).

We wondered whether companies that make suchlarge sponsorship investments performed better interms of their business results. Building on researchby Ozturk, Kozub and Kocak (2004), who examinedthe performance of a group of companies that investedin one particular sponsorship (the 2002 Paralympics)over a period of 1.5 years, and the work of Mishra,Bobinski and Bhabra (1997), Farrell and Frame(1997), Miyazaki and Morgan (2001) and Cornwell,Pruitt and Clark (2005), who examined the effects ofthe announcements of sponsorships on the firm’sstock prices, our aim was to examine the performanceof companies who consistently invested in sponsorshipover a much longer period (five years). No studies

appear to exist that examine the relationship betweencompanies that consistently invest in sponsorship andtheir business performance over such a time period.

Objectives

The objectives of this study are threefold. First, byanalysing sponsorship spending data over severalyears we are seeking to determine which UScorporations consistently invested in sponsorship at aminimum level over time, and which corporationsspent at an above-average level compared to theirpeers who also appeared on the list. In addition, byanalysing annual media spending data for the samecompanies, we seek to determine if these companiesas a group also invest in sponsorship at an above-average level as a percentage of their investment in media.

Second, by analysing publicly available businessresults such as stock price appreciation, revenues,income and earnings, we hope to determine whetherthese corporations that invest in sponsorshipoutperform market averages and whether companieswho invest in sponsorship at an above-average leveloutperform their peers who spend less.

Finally, we will attempt to ascertain whether there isa reason for the performance of these companies.Basic economic principles suggest that companieswho invest in sponsorship should not perform anybetter than companies who do not. If that were thecase, every company would invest heavily insponsorship, causing demand and prices to riseconsiderably. Do these companies have something incommon other than their consistent investment insponsorship? Is there a reason why they may performbetter as a group? We conclude the study bydiscussing a theory as to why these companies mayhave outperformed market averages and their peers.




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Methodology

We began by gathering company-by-companysponsorship spending data for a five-year period from2005 to 2009, provided by IEG. The companiesincluded in our analysis are all North American basedcompanies that spent at least US$15 million per yearon sponsorship for each year from 2005 to 2009. Thespending estimates for the 51 companies on the listreflect the amount spent on sponsorship fees of US-based properties and the portion of spending oninternational properties that is directed to the USmarket; it includes spending across sport, causes, thearts and entertainment.

We chose to examine the performance of thesecompanies specifically because they have shown aconsistent year-over-year commitment to sponsorshipas a key part of their overall marketing investment. Infact, by analysing spending data back to 2000, wewere able to determine that 39 of the 51 companieshad also invested a minimum of US$15 million insponsorship each year between 2000 and 2004,meaning that most of the companies included in thestudy have consistently invested in sponsorship for aperiod of at least 10 years. Furthermore, most majorsponsorship investments generally involve acommitment of a minimum of three years, with manylasting at least four or five years (such as Olympicsponsorship, which generally spans a minimum of oneOlympic quadrennial), so we felt it important toinclude only those companies who have invested insponsorship for a minimum of five years. Therefore,companies who did not appear on the list in earlieryears yet have more recently begun devotingconsiderable funds to sponsorship, such as State FarmCos (US$55 million spent in 2009), Citigroup, Inc.(US$40 million) and Bridgestone Americas, Inc.(US$35 million), have been omitted (IEG, 2010).

An analysis of annual sponsorship spending of the51 companies showed that they spent an average ofUS$73.3 million (SD = 74.5) on an annual basisover the five-year period (Table 1). The highest meanon an annual basis was in 2007 (US$83.9 million),

not coincidently the year before the economicslowdown began, in 2008. The leading sponsorsduring this five-year period by average annualspending were Pepsico (US$326 million), Anheuser-Busch (US$285 million), Coca-Cola (US$240 million)and Nike (US$225 million). A total of 16 companiesspent at an above-average level compared to the restof the group, or more than an average of US$73.3million annually. For the purpose of this study we willcall these companies ‘super sponsors’ (Table 2). These16 super sponsors spent an average US$160 million(SD=79.6) annually on sponsorship during the five-year period compared to an average of US$33.7million (SD=14.9) per year by the other 35companies (Table 1).

One may suggest that these companies owe theirplace on the list to the fact that they spend moreoverall on marketing and advertising, and their higherinvestment in sponsorship is simply a factor of theirincreased spending overall. Our hypothesis was thatthese companies not only spend more on sponsorshipoverall, but as a group also devote a larger percentageof their overall marketing spending to sponsorshipcompared to their peers.

To determine whether this was the case, we sourcedannual US measured media spending data for eachcompany, via Kantar Media’s online database (seeTable 1). The data sourced from Kantar Mediaincludes spending on network television, syndicatedtelevision, cable television, spot television, magazines,newspapers, network radio, spot radio, online andoutdoor. Measured media is for most companies theirlargest annual marketing expenditure, and therefore an effective gauge of a company’s overall investmentin marketing. For example, the largest media spenderon the list and in the US, Procter & Gamble, spentUS$2.66 billion on measured media in 2009 and an average of US$3.07 billion each year from 2005 to 2009.

We then compared the media spending data to eachcompany’s sponsorship spending data to determinehow much each company spent on sponsorship as apercentage of its overall media investment. It was




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evident that many of the super sponsors devote amuch higher proportion of their marketing budgets tosponsorship than other companies. These brandsinclude worldwide Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola(59.26%) and Visa (24.27%) and NASCAR primaryteam sponsors Shell (92.63%), FedEx (72.24%),Anheuser-Busch (59.38%), MillerCoors (50.39%),Office Depot (42.34%) and UPS (26.19%).

When totalling the spending on both sponsorship

and media for all 51 companies, we find that theaverage investment in sponsorship as a percentage ofeach company’s investment in media is 12.85% (five-year average of US$73.3 million spent on sponsorshipversus an average of US$570.5 million spent annuallyon media) (Table 1). Over the five-year period, thesuper sponsors as a group spent an average of15.25% of their media investment on sponsorship (anaverage of US$160 million on sponsorship versus


GROUP SPONSORSHIP MEASURED MEDIA SPONSORSHIP SPENDINGSPENDING SPENDING AS % OFUS$millions US$millions MEDIA SPENDING

ALL 51 COMPANIES IN STUDY

TOTAL 3,739.0 29,093.0 N/A

MINIMUM 15.0 4.1 2.10

MEAN 73.3 570.5 12.85

MAXIMUM 326.0 3,071.0 450.98

STANDARD DEVIATION 74.5 638.2 85.05

N 51 51 51

SUPER SPONSORS

TOTAL 2,560.0 16,791.7 N/A

MINIMUM 74.0 127.9 2.91

MEAN 160.0 1,049.5 15.25

MAXIMUM 326.0 3,071.0 134.94


N 16 16 16

OTHER 35 COMPANIES IN STUDY

TOTAL 1,179.0 12,301.3 N/A

MINIMUM 15.0 4.1 2.10

MEAN 33.7 351.5 9.59

MAXIMUM 73.0 1,485.6 450.98


N 35 35 35

Note: All years are calendar years. Sources: IEG, Inc., Kantar Media.

TABLE 1 Spending summary 2005-2009



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US$1.05 billion on media). The other 35 companiesspent an average of 9.59% on sponsorship versusmedia (US$33.7 million in sponsorship versusUS$351.5 million on media). Of the six supersponsors who spent the highest average annualamount on sponsorship over the past five years(Pepsico, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Nike, GeneralMotors and MillerCoors), four spent at a below-average level in media. These include Anheuser-Busch

(US$491.1 million in media), Coca-Cola (US$409.7million), MillerCoors (US$400.8 million) and Nike(US$178.4 million). This data supports our theorythat the super sponsors as a group devote a higherpercentage of their overall marketing investment tosponsorship.

To determine the business performance of thecompanies, we sourced the key business performanceindicators of stock price appreciation, total revenue,


SPEND US $ MILLIONS

COMPANY 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 MEAN

PEPSICO, INC. 295.0 305.0 340.0 360.0 330.0 326.0

ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV 310.0 330.0 360.0 220.0 205.0 285.0

THE COCA-COLA COMPANY 215.0 225.0 260.0 260.0 240.0 240.0

NIKE INC. 205.0 225.0 240.0 220.0 235.0 225.0

GENERAL MOTORS CORP. 220.0 230.0 235.0 245.0 180.0 222.0

MILLERCOORS, LLC 225.0 235.0 250.0 150.0 150.0 202.0

AT&T, INC. 125.0 150.0 160.0 180.0 175.0 158.0

FORD MOTOR CO. 135.0 140.0 145.0 140.0 125.0 137.0

SPRINT NEXTEL CORP. 130.0 135.0 150.0 110.0 110.0 127.0

TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. 30.0 60.0 150.0 170.0 140.0 110.0

BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION 95.0 100.0 120.0 105.0 95.0 103.0

FEDEX CORPORATION 95.0 105.0 120.0 80.0 65.0 93.0

PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. 105.0 110.0 90.0 60.0 80.0 89.0

VISA, INC. 110.0 120.0 140.0 35.0 30.0 87.0

MCDONALD’S CORP. 115.0 115.0 125.0 25.0 30.0 82.0

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS, INC. 45.0 100.0 100.0 70.0 55.0 74.0

TOTAL 2,455.0 2,685.0 2,985.0 2,430.0 2,245.0 2,560.0

MINIMUM 30.0 60.0 90.0 25.0 30.0 74.0

MEAN 153.4 167.8 186.6 151.9 140.3 160.0

MAXIMUM 310.0 330.0 360.0 360.0 330.0 326.0

STANDARD DEVIATION 82.4 79.7 83.7 92.5 84.1 79.6Source: IEG, Inc.

TABLE 2 The super sponsors’ spend 2005-2009

NotesAll years are calendar years. AT&T figures include spending for BellSouth & Cingular in 2005-2007. Bank of America figures include spending forMBNA in 2005. MillerCoors figures includes sum of Miller Brewing Co. and Molson Coors spending from 2005-2007 prior to 2008 mergerVerizon Communications includes spending for Alltel Corp. in 2006-2008 prior to 2008 acquisition.



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GROUP FIVE-YEAR FIVE-YEAR FIVE-YEAR FIVE-YEAR TOTAL REVENUE NET INCOME EPS STOCK PRICE

CAGR % CAGR % CAGR % CHANGE %


MINIMUM (11.70) (41.65) (35.80) (98.80)

MEAN 6.90 7.81 9.14 2.32

MAXIMUM 90.80 131.20 111.80 159.90

STANDARD DEVIATION 15.48 32.45 30.30 58.48

N 42 37 34 41

S&P 500 INDEX (SPX)

MINIMUM (43.20) (74.10) (59.90) (97.90)

MEAN 8.24 6.50 6.97 (7.94)

MAXIMUM 782.70 108.00 104.20 400.80


N 486 401 399 489

SUPER SPONSORS

MINIMUM (11.70) (41.65) (35.20) (98.80)

MEAN 7.58 22.11 20.35 (0.64)

MAXIMUM 24.60 131.20 111.80 96.20


N 14 13 12 14

OTHER 35 COMPANIES IN STUDY

MINIMUM (9.70) (31.20) (35.80) (92.00)

MEAN 6.56 0.07 3.03 3.85

MAXIMUM 90.80 43.80 44.60 159.90


N 28 24 22 27Source: Capital IQ, Inc.

NotesAll figures are in (US$ millions. All years are fiscal years except for stock price, which are calendar years 2005-2009. EPS is Diluted EPS ExcludingExtraordinary Items. For net income, EPS and stock price for Visa, a one-year growth rate was utilised. For stock price for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, aone-year growth rate was utilised. For stock price for Mastercard, a three-year growth rate was utilised.

TABLE 3 Business performance summary 2005-2009


net income and earnings per share for eachcompany’s fiscal year from 2005 to 2009. Thisinformation was sourced from Capital IQ, a Standard& Poors company that provides web-based informationservices to analyse the fundamentals of both publicand private companies. Among other reasons,analysing a variety of key performance indicators helpsto correct for several mergers and acquisitions duringthe period, such as the merger of Sirius and XM, themerger of Miller Brewing Co. and Molson Coors,Verizon’s acquisition of Alltel Corp., and AT&T’sacquisition of BellSouth.

Unlike Ozturk, Kozub and Kocak (2004), whoutilised the mean stock value of a group of companiesas the basis for their comparisons, we utilised thepercentage change in each company’s stock price overthe five-year period. This is similar to the approach ofCornwell, Pruitt and Clark (2005), Miyazaki andMorgan (2001) and Farrell and Frame (1997), whoeach examined the percentage increases in stockprices following the announcements of sponsorships.

We also calculated the five-year Compound AnnualGrowth Rate for total revenue, net income andearnings per share for each company, and used thesegrowth rates as a basis for our comparisons of thecompanies’ financial performance over the five-yearperiod (Table 3).

This approach helps to correct for the sizes of thevarious companies, as well as in each instance correctfor the differences in the companies’ stock prices,revenues, income and earnings at the beginning of thefive-year period. The advantage to our approach is thatit helps us to understand whether the continued andconsistent investment in sponsorship over a multi-yearperiod has led to increases in the companies stockprice, revenue, income and earnings over time. Inaccordance with accepted financial practices, growthrates are not able to be computed if negative numbersare involved. In these cases, three-year growth rateswere utilised. If three-year rates were not available,one-year rates were utilised.

Unfortunately, financial records are not publiclyavailable for every company. Two of the companies on

the list, Mars and Nationwide Financial Services, areprivate companies. For private companies, anyfinancial information that was available (such as totalrevenue) was included. One of the companies,MillerCoors, is a joint venture of Molson Coors andSABMiller and was only created in 2008. Several ofthe companies are private subsidiaries of foreign-basedcompanies, and financial information is largelyunavailable for the US-based subsidiaries. Thoughinformation is available for their foreign-based parentcompanies, due to the fact that the sponsorship andmedia data included in the study is based only on USspending, it would not be prudent to attribute theperformance of foreign-based companies to theexpenditures of US-based subsidiaries such as SonyCorp. of America, Canon USA, Inc., American HondaMotor Co., Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. and SamsungElectronics America, Inc. Ultimately, at least somefinancial information was available for 42 of the 51companies, including 14 of the 16 super sponsors.These challenges are similar to those faced by Agrawaland Kamakura (1995), who were forced to exclude atotal 97 of their 207 cases as privately held companiesor foreign firms for which stock data were unavailable.

We then compared these results to the performanceof the 500 companies in the S&P 500 Index (SPX),and compared the business results of the supersponsors to the results of the companies who investedin sponsorship at a below-average level. The S&P 500stock market index, maintained by Standard & Poor’s,comprises 500 large-cap American companiescovering about 75% of the American equity market bycapitalisation. We felt that the S&P 500 index was abetter basis of comparison than the Dow JonesIndustrial Average. While both of these measurementsare used by investors to determine the general trend ofthe US stock market, the S&P 500 is moreencompassing as it includes a greater sample of totalUS stocks, its stocks come from a vast number ofindustries and because the S&P 500 is market-valueweighted. The S&P index components included in thisstudy were current as of the start of the trading day of1 April 2010.


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Results

The data and our subsequent analysis found that as agroup those companies that have consistently investedin sponsorship achieved better business results whencompared to market averages, and those companieswho spent at a higher than average level outperformedpeer companies who spent less on sponsorship.

As a group, the companies who invested at leastUS$15 million in sponsorship in each of the five yearsoutperformed the 500 companies in the S&P 500index over the same period in three of the four keyperformance indicators (Table 3). From the start of2005 to the end of calendar year 2009, thesecompanies realised a higher mean stock priceappreciation (M=2.32, SD=58.48) than the S&P500 stock market index (M=-7.94, SD=50.33). Theyalso achieved a higher mean net income CAGR(M=7.81, SD=32.45) than the S&P 500 index(M=6.50, SD=21.64), and their mean earnings pershare (M=9.14, SD=30.30) CAGR was also greater(M=6.97, SD=19.69). The S&P 500 indexexperienced a higher average rate of growth in totalrevenue (M=8.24, SD=36.93), compared to thecompanies in the study (M=6.90, SD=15.48).

As a group, the 14 super sponsors whose financialinformation was publicly available posted significantlyhigher average net income growth (M=22.11,SD=48.27) and average earnings per share growth(M=20.35, SD=44.50). The super sponsors whohad the highest net income growth over the five-yearperiod were General Motors (107.9%), Anheuser-Busch (35.0%), Ford (26.0%), AT&T (19.7%) andProcter & Gamble (13.5%). All but three of the supersponsors (Bank of America, Verizon and FedEx) postedhigher net income growth than the average of the S&P500 index (6.50%). The top super sponsors in termsof growth in earnings per share were General Motors(111.8%), McDonald’s (16.8%), AT&T (10.9%) andNike (10.2%). All but two of the companies(Anheuser-Busch and Verizon) posted earnings pershare growth rates that exceeded the S&P 500 indexaverage of 6.97%.

In terms of stock price appreciation, the supersponsors declined by an average of 0.64%(SD=56.46), compared to a decrease of 7.94% (SD=50.33) for the S&P 500 index. The supersponsors who realised the highest percentage increasein stock price were McDonald’s (96.2%), Visa(66.7%), Nike (45.7%) and Coca-Cola (37.2%). TheCAGR for total revenue of the S&P 500 index(M=8.24, SD=36.93) was 8% higher than that ofthe super sponsors (M=7.58, SD=10.34).

In addition to achieving higher than marketaverages, the super sponsors also outperformed thecompanies on the list who invested in sponsorship ata below-average level, in revenue growth, net incomegrowth and earnings per share growth. As a group, thecompanies who invested an average of US$33.7million per year in sponsorship (versus an average ofUS$160 million per year by super sponsors) had anaverage revenue growth of 6.56% (SD=17.67),average net income growth of 0.07% (SD=15.95)and average EPS growth of 3.03% (SD=17.17). As agroup, the 35 peer companies realised a mean stockprice increase of 3.85% (SD=60.51).

Discussion

The data presented in this study provides someinteresting findings with regard to the relationshipbetween a company’s investment in sponsorship andits performance. However, we do not suggest a causalrelationship between investment in sponsorship andbusiness performance. Rather, it is our theory thatthese companies have consistently outperformed peercompanies who spend less on sponsorship andmarket averages due to the fact that they alreadyenjoy the benefits of their brands being moreestablished and valuable compared to their peers,which contributes to better company performance overtime. Their consistent investment in sponsorship isreflective of their efforts to continue to nurture theirbrands, which, according to branding experts, areamong some of the most valuable in the world.


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We do not believe it is a coincidence that nearly half(16) of the companies on Interbrand’s list of theworld’s top 35 brands in 2009 were among the 51companies included in this study (this does not includeProcter & Gamble, who is excluded from the list byInterbrand since they are a multi-brand company butwhose Gillette and Duracell brands appear on the list)(Kiley & Helm, 2009). Furthermore, eight of the super-sponsor companies we identified during the course ofthe study were among the 100 Best Global Brands in2009, according to Interbrand (Table 4). Wiles andDanielova (2009) noted that Interbrand’s list is a validmeasure of brand equity.

Older, more established brands generally havehigher levels of awareness and are less dependent ontraditional media and marketing vehicles to driveawareness levels higher. They can therefore afford tospend a greater percentage of their marketingexpenditures on tactics that influence consumers onthe lower end of the purchase funnel, such assponsorship and other below-the-line marketingactivities. Newer, less established brands do not havethe luxury of being able to devote greater proportionsof their budgets to such areas, and generally focus onmore traditional mass media vehicles to establishawareness of their brand.

True to form, the top three brands on Interbrand’s listin 2009, Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft, spent anaverage of US$109.7 million annually on sponsorshipover the five years. The annual amounts these threecompanies devoted to sponsorship over the five yearsconstituted more than 30% of what they spent onmeasured media (30.35%), meaning that for every 10dollars they spent on measured media at least threedollars were devoted to sponsorship. This is significantlyhigher than the 51 companies who spent at leastUS$15 million in sponsorship per year (12.85%).

Brands such as Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft canafford to execute a more holistic marketing plan,employing a varied and diverse set of marketingtactics, due in large part to the companies’commitments to nurture and grow their brand’s equity.Through this process the companies have consistently

executed a marketing strategy inclusive of not onlytraditional media and advertising but other lessmainstream marketing tactics such as sponsorship.These companies are in a better position to investheavily to ensure consumers associate their brandswith the desired attributes – a strategy thatsponsorship has always been in a position to support(Deane et al, 2003). Several studies have shown thatsponsorships have contributed to improvement in acompany’s brand image and to increases inconsumers’ positive attitude towards a brand andbrand familiarity (Pope & Voges, 2000; Javalgi et al,1994; Turco, 1995; Rajaretnam, 1994; Ko et al,2008), while both Cornwell, Roy & Steinhard (2001)

TABLE 4 Brand value summary


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GROUP 2009 BRAND VALUE

100 BEST GLOBAL BRANDS

TOTAL $1,154,489.0

MINIMUM $3,081.0

MEAN $11,661.5

MAXIMUM $68,734.0

STANDARD DEVIATION $12,398.8

N 100


TOTAL $411,895.0

MINIMUM $3,170.0

MEAN $20,594.8

MAXIMUM $68,734.0


N 20

SUPER SPONSORS

TOTAL $181,232.0

MINIMUM $3,170.0

MEAN $22,654.0

MAXIMUM $68,734.0


N 8



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and Henseler, Wilson, Gotz and Hautvast (2007)found that sports sponsorship contributed significantlyto increases in brand equity.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that as agroup these companies have a higher average brandvalue as well, according to Interbrand. The 20 brandswho invested at least $15 million in sponsorshipannually and were considered to be among the 100Best Global Brands had an average brand value ofUS$20.59 billion (SD=19.39) in 2009, compared toan average brand value of US$11.66 billion(SD=12.39) for all 100 brands on the list (Table 4).

Not only do half of the super sponsors appear onthe list, but as a group they have a significantly higherbrand value as well. The eight super sponsors on thelist had an average brand value of US$22.65 billion(SD=21.39) in 2009, more than double the averageof the 80 companies on the list who were notincluded in the study.

Keep in mind that it was super sponsors such asCoca-Cola, McDonald’s, Pepsico, Visa, Anheuser-Busch, Nike, AT&T, Ford and Proctor & Gamble whosebusiness performance over the five-year period waslargely responsible for the above average performanceof the companies included in the study. As a group,the super sponsors had a particularly high mean netincome CAGR (22.11%) and earnings per shareCAGR (20.35%), and a mean revenue CAGR of7.58%. These figures should not be surprising giventhat Barth et al (1998) found that the Interbrandbrand values are significantly and positively related tostock prices and returns.

This data supports our theory that while the resultsof this study do not prove causality between spendingon sponsorship and improved business performance,on average these brands do have a distinct advantageover their peers. They enjoy stronger brands, amongthe most valuable in the world, and their decision toembrace sponsorship and devote significant funds tothis tactic reflects their continued emphasis onnurturing and supporting their brand’s overall health.

Limitations and further research

There are several limitations to this study. First, we didnot intend during the course of this study to prove anycausality between sponsorship investment andimproved business performance. A more in-depth andtheoretical analysis could be performed that utilisesquantile regression and other control factors todetermine if the consistent investment in sponsorshipactually caused better financial outcomes for thecompanies. This could also help determine if theresults varied across company size or market leader.

In addition, research on specific market and industrysegments could help determine whether thesecompanies simply outperformed market averagesbecause their given industries performed at a higher-than-average level during the period measured.

Unfortunately, the five-year period of this studyincludes the tumultuous economic period that beganin 2008. It could be argued that due to this economicvolatility, the results of this period could be atypical. Itcould also be suggested many of the larger companiesincluded in the study (such as many of the supersponsors) outperformed their peers due to their abilityto better respond to the downturn and weather theperiod’s economic turbulence. Perhaps many of theselarger companies were able to better implement cost-cutting measures, particularly given impressive returnsin the areas of net income and EPS. Further researchcould analyse a different or shorter time period thatdid not include an economic downturn, which couldhelp alleviate these concerns.

Finally, during the course of this study we haveanalysed the sponsorship spending and businessperformance of more than 50 US-based corporations.A more extensive study examining and comparingsponsorship spending data and the businessperformance of foreign-based companies could also bein the offing.





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Biographies

Jonathan A. Jensen is an adjunct professor in theSports Management Department at Columbia CollegeChicago and a sponsorship industry consultant. Hepreviously served as director of the sponsorshipconsulting division at Relay Worldwide, a sports andevent marketing agency in Publicis Groupe. He earnedhis masters from the Sport Management Programmeat the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a BAfrom the University of Notre Dame.

Anne Hsu is an account director at Relay Worldwide,specialising in sports sponsorship consulting andconsumer activation. Prior to joining Relay in 2005,Hsu worked at IMG in its action sports division. Sheearned a masters in sports management fromColumbia University and a BS in sports managementwith a specialisation in sports marketing from NewYork University.

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Farrelly, F. (1995) Marketing practitioners lack the understandingnecessary to effectively manage commercial sponsorship - Anexploratory investigation. Masters thesis, Monash University,Melboure, Australia.

Haan, P. & Shank, M. (2004) Consumers’ perceptions of NFLstadium naming rights. International Journal of Sports Marketing& Sponsorship, 5(4), 269-281.

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Sport Public Relations and Communication

Edited by Maria Hopwood, Paul Kitchin & James Skinner288 pages, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010

Reviewed by John Beech, Coventry University, UK


BOOKREVIEW

Book review

If public relations and communication were onceperipheral topics in sports management studies, highprofile reports such as those relating to the behaviourof Tiger Woods (2009) and Max Mosley (2008) havemade sure they remain firmly on the curriculum.Following a series of allegations Woods found himselfnot just playing off-form but also facing a considerableloss of income from his various endorsement contracts.Mosley saw himself presented in the media in a waythat he might have wished were otherwise followingallegations over his private life. During the past year wehave seen an increase in the number of well knownsports figures among the Twitterati, often creatingproblems for themselves through knee-jerk postings.

There has been a notable absence of textbooks forundergraduate and postgraduate students on sportsmanagement and sports marketing courses, with theobvious exception of Sport Public Relations by Stoldt,Dittmore and Branvold (2006). This tome is becomingdated, and for UK and other European students, is notideal as it was written with a North American marketin mind. Hopwood, Kitchin and Skinner identified thisgap in the market and sought to fill it with areasonably priced (£29.99), up-to-date and moreglobally focused alternative. The chosen authorscollectively have experience as practising academics inthe UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand as well asin North America, and make a formidable team ofspecialists. This results in a good spread ofgeographical locations for the case study settings anda wide range of sports for their context. A minorirritation is that the publisher, Butterworth-Heinemann,

has not included a list of the case studies.The book follows what has now become an

established format for edited textbooks published inthe UK, with each chapter including learningoutcomes, an overview, key terms, discussionquestions, guided reading, recommended websitesand references. The application of this standard formatworks well in establishing a coherent presentation forstudent readers.

Following two introductory chapters, a range ofappropriate topics are covered: relationship marketing,social responsibility, volunteerism, crisiscommunication, cross-cultural communication and, ofgrowing importance, the use of social media. If theeditors ever hesitated about the last of these, theirdecision to include it was definitely a wise one.

The only reservation this reviewer has with thepublication as presented is that guideline answers tothe discussion questions are included within the bookrather than as a separate teacher’s manual. The lattermight more helpfully have been made available on apassword-protected website. The chosen arrangementis not especially helpful for promoting what wouldotherwise be lively debates in seminars, nor is thedecision to locate discussion questions at the end ofeach chapter rather than with the relevant case study.

These minor criticisms aside, the book fills theidentified gap very well indeed, and is certainly to berecommended for appropriate modules.


SMS12.4 Book Review p365 KT2 20/7/11 21:29 Page 1

EDIT

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LICY

International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship l JULY 2011 l366

The Journal welcomes the submission of academicand practitioner research papers, articles, casestudies, interviews and book reviews. Submissionsshould aim to educate and inform and should ideallyfocus on a specific area that is pertinent to thesubject matter of the Journal, as detailed below.In all instances, the editorial team seeks to publishsubmissions that clearly add value to theory and/orpractice in sports marketing and sponsorship.

Aims and scope

The mission of the Journal is to bring togetheracademics and practitioners in one forum, with theintent of furthering knowledge and understanding ofsports marketing and sponsorship. The Journalinterprets sports marketing and sponsorship broadly,to include:l fans and customers l individual performers and endorsersl teams and clubsl leagues and competitionsl events and stadia l sponsors and propertiesl retailers and merchandisersl suppliers and intermediariesl broadcasters and the medial governing bodies and representative associationsl places, spaces and citiesl economic and social development initiativesl magazines, newspapers and websitesl betting and gambling servicesl sportswear manufacturersl gaming and collecting.

We encourage submissions from a wide variety of perspectives, including marketing, all areas ofmanagement, economics, politics, history, sociology,psychology, cultural studies and anthropology.

All articles should be written primarily to informacademics and practitioners directly or indirectlyinvolved in the sports marketing and/or sponsorship

industries. Articles that detail results of original work areaccorded high priority. The Journal also invites reportson new or revised business techniques, perspectives oncontemporary issues and results of surveys.

Case studies and reviews of books and/or reportsare welcomed. For these, we request that copies of thebook/report be sent to the Editor and to the Publisher.

Research articles should be well grounded conceptually and theoretically, and methodologicallysound. Qualitative and quantitative pieces of researchare equally appropriate.

The Editor is willing to discuss and advise onproposed projects. This is no guarantee of publication.

Submissions are double-blind peer reviewedaccording to the following general criteria:l clarity and content of the abstractl problem or issue definition and justificationl relevance and rigour of literature reviewl credibility, appropriateness and relevance of research

methodology and in the reporting of resultsl quality and relevance of conclusions and

recommendationsl value added by the submission to academic and

practitioner understanding of sports marketing.

Format and style

Research articles should normally be no less than4,000 and no more than 8,000 words. Case studies of no less than 2,500 and no more than5,000 words should be objective rather thanpromotional and should follow the following format:Background / Objectives / Implementation / Results /Conclusion. Interviews are welcomed, but should bediscussed with the Editor. Book reviews shouldnormally be less than 1,500 words.

Each article submitted for consideration shouldinclude an executive summary of up to 500 words,which gives a flavour of the article and includes therationale for the study, methods used, key findings,conclusions and value added. A shorter abstract, of nomore than 100 words, must also be included.

Editorial policy

SMS12.4 Editorial Policy pp366-367 KT2 20/7/11 21:35 Page 272

Footnotes and endnotes may be used but only whereappropriate and as sparingly as possible.

Tables, charts, diagrams and figures should be inblack and white and placed on separate pages at theend of the manuscript. Where data or image files havebeen imported into Word for tables, diagrams etc,please supply the original files. Authors must indicatein the main body of the text approximately where eachtable, chart, diagram or figure should appear.

Jargon should be kept to a minimum, with technicallanguage and acronyms always clearly defined.

The accuracy of references is the responsibility ofthe author(s). Authors should refer to the Journal forstyle or use the Harvard system of referencing foundat: http://library.curtin.edu.au/referencing/harvard.pdf

Submissions protocol

Submissions should be sent as Word documents byemail directly to the Editor. If this is not possible, threecopies of the manuscript should be sent by regularmail with a copy on CD (preferably) or computer disc.

Authors should submit their manuscripts with a covering letter. Receipt of submissions is noguarantee of publication. Submission of a paper to the Journal implies agreement of the author(s) thatcopyright rests with International Marketing ReportsLtd if and when a paper is published. The copyrightcovers exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the paper.

The Journal will not accept submissions underreview with other publications. If the manuscript ispreviously published or copyrighted elsewhere, specific permission must be obtained from thePublisher before submission and the Editor of theJournal must be informed.

All research papers submitted will be double-blindpeer reviewed. Authors will normally receive anassessment from the reviewers within six to 12 weeks.

The Publisher reserves the right to sub editsubmissions for accuracy and consistency of style.

Based upon reviewer comments, the Editor will makeone of four decisions:l that the submission should be accepted for

publication without amendmentsl that the submission should be accepted for

publication subject to minor amendmentsl that the submission should be returned to the

author(s) with recommendations for major changesbefore publication is considered again

l that the submission should be rejected.

Submissions accepted for publication will normally bescheduled to appear within 12 months of the authorreceiving written confirmation of acceptance from theEditor. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned.

Professor Michel Desbordes, EditorInternational Journal of Sports Marketing & SponsorshipISC School of Management, Paris, France & University Paris Sud 11, FranceTel: +33 (0)1 69 15 61 57Fax: +33 (0)1 69 15 62 37Email: [email protected]

Submissions format

Page 1 l Title of the submissionl Author(s) name(s), affiliation, postal

address, email, telephone and fax l Up to six keywordsl Specify: academic/practitioner paperl Biography of author(s) (50 words)

Page 2 l Title of the submissionl Executive summary (500 words)l Abstract (100 words)l Author details MUST NOT appear

Page 3 l Title of submission; begin main text.

For more specific style questions, please consulteither a recent edition of the Journal or the Editor.

EDITORIALPOLICY

l JULY 2011 l International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 367

SMS12.4 Editorial Policy pp366-367 KT2 20/7/11 21:35 Page 273

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