Impact of Sponsorship and Advertisement on Brand Equity and Customer Purchase Intention in Cultural and TV Programs

Transcription

1 International Research Journal of Management Sciences. Vol., 3 (4), , 2015 Available online at ISSN x 2015 Impact of Sponsorship and Advertisement on Brand Equity and Customer Purchase Intention in Cultural and TV Programs Niousha Dehbini *, Elham Rezaei Ahvanoei, Hossein Vazifeh Doost Islamic Azad University of Science and Research Branch of Tehran, Tehran, Iran * Corresponding Author: Niousha Dehbini ABSTRACT: In recent years, traditional marketing communications challenges with many problems. In today's competitive environment, companies for achieving competitive advantages and survival in a turbulent environment, annually they spend a lot of costs on effective advertising and marketing products and services. The objective of this study is to compare the effects of the sponsorships and advertisement of cultural programs on brand equity and customer purchase intention. Data analysis has been done by the SPSS software. In this research, researcher has used non-probability random sampling, the gathering data tool of this research was the questionnaire. The questionnaire included close-ended questions based on Likert scale with 5 sets of 47 questions. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire showed that the questionnaire has acceptable reliability and validity. From 400 questionnaires, 340 of them were valid. Data analysis has been done on two levels of descriptive and inferential analysis. The participants were citizens of shiraz who see TV programs and participate in the cultural programs that implemented in the amphitheater like theater, concerts, educational and etc. The results of this research revealed that both of advertisement and sponsorship have positive effect on brand equity and customer intention to buy, but the effect of advertisement is more than sponsorship. Keywords: Advertisement, Sponsorship, Brand equity, Customer purchase intention. INTRODUCTION When organizations develop marketing strategies, they always looking for the best and most efficient tool to achieve the highest efficiency. Since the late 1980s, the brand equity has become one of the key concepts of marketing. An important part of the marketing activities of organizations to design and implement appropriate promotional programs In order to introduce the company's products and services and targeting the consumer market. Advertising effectiveness take range of psychological aspects of awareness and purchasing decisions. Financial support, including support through funding or other resources to sponsor an event or activity that creates value. Indirect form of advertising that is located between public relation and advertising as a means of communication has been sharp growth in marketing activities. Financial support is one of the growing sections of marketing communications to inform, persuade, direct and indirect remind of the company's products and services (Areska, 2012). Creating a strong brand in the market is one of the main goals of any organization that provides a high benefits for a company such as lower vulnerability against competitors, profit margins, partnerships and opportunities to expand further by Brand. Financial support has many types such as sports, arts and culture, education, etc. Enthusiastic reception of TV and culture programs, especially theater and music in last years in Iran has caused that these programs attract companies for advertising their products and services. Some companies through financial support programs promote and introduce their own product in cultural programs in Amphi Theater but the challenge that most companies face today is how much advertising by Sponsor are effective in cultural programs, on selling their own products and customer purchase intention. If the advertising of sponsors will lead to more sales, cultural programs, grow up more in Iran. In this research we want to evaluate and compare influence of advertising and sponsorship on brand equity and customer purchase intention. 141

2 Literature review Sponsors: Sponsors, by definition of meenaghan (1983), any monetary or non-monetary investment in an activity in order to take advantage the potential benefits. Sponsors in the last few years have been considered by the companies and they understand that this method makes high efficiency for communicating with consumers. Company's international investments in the market on sponsors are approximately $ 2 billion in 1984 and increase in 1994 to $ 23 billion and they predicted that it will be 28 billion dollars in 2004 and 37 billion dollars in Unfortunately, with such a trend, there is not comprehensive research in this category yet. Most research focuses on sports and sports sponsorships. Yet, extensive research has not been done about the sponsors in relation to brand value. Financial support improved organization public image, increase purchase intentions and loyalty of fans (Eshghi, 2009). Purchase intention has increased, when consumers have good image of the company sponsors. Advertising: Advertising is a powerful tool for awareness in identifying a company, product, service or idea. It can create a good image in customer s mind and it can make interest in customers to buy. According to kottler one of the uses of advertising is awareness and association in consumer. Advertising expenditures indicate the amount invested in the company's brand and consumer make a positive relation between advertising costs and quality of brand (Milgrom & Roerts, 1986; Simon and Mary, 1993; Gil et al., 2007). Commercial breaks are generally raised the level of information and advertising costs have a positive impact on brand equity also by increasing advertising costs and positive information gained from the brand in family, Gil et al (2007) implies that when advertising expenses increased, brand awareness, brand associations and perceived quality also will increase. Yoo and Donthu (2002) concluded that advertising had a positive impact on dimensions of brand equity in America markets. Simon and Mary (1993) reported that there is a positive relationship between advertising costs and perceived quality of the brand. There are some researches that examine the impact of various factors such as the media and non-media advertising on brand equity. Kim and Hyun (2010), examine the relationship between marketing mix and dimensions of brand equity. Soleymani beshli and Talebi (2009), in their research indicated that advertisements have positive effect on brand equity. Brand: Brand is a set of characteristics that over time, makes different between a product with competitor s product (Yoo and Donthu, 2002). Aker (1991) defines brand equity as the set of brand assets and liabilities linked to the brand - its name and symbols - that add value to, or subtract value from, a product or service. These assets include brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality and brand associations. Brand loyalty: In the face of more competitive environment and to confront with various challenges, companies pay more attention to creating more sustainable, long-term relationships with their customers and suppliers are (Liu et al., 2008). Many researchers have argued that loyalty is a prerequisite for a successful business, because consumers mostly are hesitant to purchase, unless they are loyal to the vendor or company. Brand loyalty can be described as the degree to which the customer has a positive attitude toward a brand. In fact, brand loyalty makes a commitment to buy. (Gil et al., 2007). Brand loyalty creates a deep commitment to repurchase a brand or a product or service in the future, even though, environment effects and marketing efforts are factors to change behavior. First choice of the customer from specific product or services is a reason for brand loyalty (Pappu, 2006). Brand Perceived Quality: Brand Perceived Quality can be defined as consumer perceptions of the overall quality or superiority of a product or service that can be compared to the other options. So perceived quality is the main issue to create more value for the consumer when purchasing a strong brand product or services (Gil et al., 2007). A company for success must identify customer desired characteristics about specific product or services. Companies must be able to define factors related to customer perceived quality of services or products in an industry. Perceived quality is customer perception of the quality of goods or services compared to competitors that does not include the technical dimension, also identifies that perceived quality is a component of brand equity, for this reason, high perceived quality, and guides consumer to choose one brand than other competing brands. Therefore, with increasing customer perceived quality, brand equity increases (Zeithaml et al., 1998). Consumer received quality is related with evaluate the information and loyalty to a brand. Also has great impact on consumer purchase intention (Gil et al., 2007). Children in families experiencing the brands that their parents consume or propose. And their attitudes of quality due to their parents knowledge about brands more than them and the impact of this experience for a long time along with them. Also perceived quality may lead person to purchasing a product of specific brand (Gil et al., 2007). Brand Awareness: In his model state that brand awareness can be effective on brand equity by these factors: 1. Familiarity and liking (consumers with a positive attitude towards a brand, will talk about it more and spread brand awareness) 2. Signal of substance/ commitment to a brand 3. Brand to be considered during the purchasing process (to what extent does the brand form part of the evoked set of brands in a consumer s mind). A brand that a long time ago and are traditionally used over the years by family, creates a high awareness in the minds of consumers that it is because of long-term use brands by family that it is considered a type of learning in the home environment. Perhaps awareness reinforce consumer learning In recognition of the brand in its product category, far as that brands in the future may be seen in children shopping list (Olsen, 1993). The role of brand awareness on brand equity is dependent on the level of awareness that is obtained. In higher levels of awareness, the possibility of 142

3 taking the specific brand increase and the impact on consumers' decisions to purchase is more (Prasad and Chekitan, 2000). Brand associations: Associations provides a sense and value of brands, which separates them of other Brands (Gil, 2007). Also consumer will be stored in its memory an indication of purchased product or used in family, which is not necessarily the name of the product and can be included in the package, special design or photos or anything else that could be associations in humans. Each new experience with the brand creates, reinforces or modifies the individual s associations. Associations have to be unique, strong and favorable to have a positive effect on brand equity. According to Alba and Hutchinson (1987) posit that brand associations may block consumer s search of other type of information for the purchase decision (Gil et al., 2007). Customer purchase intentions: Purchase intentions are the stay likelihood of consumers to purchase products or services in advertising environment. Purchase intentions are not like the real purchase. However, person's intentions have a strong effect on their future behavior (Dees et al, 2008). Another definition of purchasing intentions is that program consciously for trying to buy a brand. It can be said that purchase intentions is the alternative of sales. Also said to purchase intentions can be replaced for consumer behavior, but it should be noted that the actual behavior is different with planned behavior. According to researches (Buil et al., 2013; Senthilnathan and Tharmi, 2012; Chai Lee and Yew Leh, 2011) that have been made in various statistical society, customer-based brand equity has a significant positive effect on customer. Conceptual Model Researches on brand equity, advertising and customer purchase intention have been done in different areas. The research model, with tabloid, used from the thesis, the impact of sponsorship on brand equity. Sponsorship Brand Awareness Brand Image Brand Loyalty Customer Purchase Intention Advertisement Perceived Quality Figure 1. Conceptual Model. METHODOLOGY Research purpose is an important thing, which should be considered. The main objective of the most researches in human sciences is to investigate a field study that can be said that the aim of this research is in the area of applied researches. Considering that in this research used field study, such as questionnaires, it can be said that the present study, based on the nature and methods of data collection is a descriptive study. Population and Sample Statistical population of research is citizens who see TV programs and participate in the cultural programs that implemented in the amphitheater like theater, concerts, educational etc. Since in this study, the population size is unknown, the sample size was calculated from the formula Cochran and we got 384, from formula. As expected, some questionnaires not return to the researcher, 400 questionnaires were distributed. The method of sampling of this study is random. Collecting data method: Methods of data collection were field study. Based on research model and variables, a questionnaire was distributed among the participants. From 400 questionnaires that distributed, 352 questionnaires were returned to the researcher that 340 questionnaires were valid. The questionnaire included 5 questions about personal information of respondents and 42 main questions. Questions were closed questions based on 5 Likert scales that each spectrum includes strongly agree, agree, no idea, disagree and strongly disagree. Reliability implies that the measuring instrument in the same conditions gives the same results (khaki, 2003). Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the 143

4 reliability of the questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha for 421 questionnaires was and for all factors were greater than 0.8, which shows the reliability of the questionnaire. To evaluate the validity, we used content validity. Data analysis: Data was analyzed by SPSS software and descriptive and deductive statistics were conducted. Research hypotheses were tested using regression. In part of deductive we used parametric statistics. For study the effects of gender, age, educational level, interest in cultural programs and the time spent watching television on the main variables, the ANOVA test was used. The effects of gender on the main variable we used independent-sample T test. RESULTS The results of the descriptive analysis showed below in table 1,that men more than women were in the sample, As the result shows, persons between 25 to 34 years had the highest number of samples, in education, and it seems that persons who were in this range of age, involved more than the others in the cultural activities. Persons who had undergraduate license were more than the other level of education; it shows that most of the people in society study in university. As the results show that the majority of the sample had medium interest in cultural and television programs. It seems that, maybe cultural and television programs are not in a high quality or more people are working and studying. Given that the most of the people that between two to five hours watch TV and cultural programs. Maybe these programs have not any attraction for the people. They may spend time with the internet or communication s tools instead of watching television or involving in cultural programs. Table 1. Results of descriptive analysis (Source: Research Analysis). Variables Frequency Percentage Gender Female Male Age Between Between Between Between Up to Education Under diploma Diploma Up diploma Undergraduate Master of degree Ph.D Interest in cultural and TV programs Low Spending time to watch TV and cultural programs in one day Middle High Lower than 2 hours Between 2 to 5 hours Up to 5 hours Inferential statistics In order to assess the status of respondents in each of the variables in conceptual model we used Linear Regression Model. Hypothesis 1: "Sponsorship has significance effect on Brand Equity : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Sponsorship has a significant impact on gender. Such that its impact on women more than men. There are significant effects on age and the most affected age group is 45 to 54 years. There are not significant effect on education, interest in cultural and TV programs and spend time to watch cultural and TV programs. Hypothesis 2: "Advertisement has significance effect on Brand Equity : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Advertisement has not a significant impact on gender, age and spending time to watch cultural and TV programs. There are significant effects on education and interest in cultural and TV programs, such that, its impact on Ph.D. degree more than the other levels of education and 144

5 also its impact on persons who have high interest in cultural and TV programs interest in cultural and TV programs more than the others. Hypothesis 3: "Brand awareness has significance effect on customer purchase intention : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Brand awareness has not a significant impact on gender and age. There are significant effects on education, spending time to watch cultural and TV programs and interest in cultural and TV programs, such that, its impact on Ph.D. and Diploma degree are more than the other levels of education and also its impact on persons who have high interest in cultural and TV programs more than the others and also its impact on persons who watch cultural and TV programs up to 5 hours in a day more than the other groups. Hypothesis 4: "Brand image has significance effect on customer purchase intention : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Brand image has not a significant impact on gender and age. There are significant effects on education, spending time to watch cultural and TV programs and interest in cultural and TV programs, such that, its impact on under diploma is more than the other levels of education and also its impact on persons who have high interest in cultural and TV programs more than the others and also its impact on persons who watch cultural and TV programs up to 5 hours in a day more than the other groups. Hypothesis 5: "Brand loyalty has significance effect on customer purchase intention : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Brand loyalty has not a significant impact on gender, education and age. There are significant effects on spending time to watch cultural and TV programs and interest in cultural and TV programs, such that, its impact on persons who have high interest in cultural and TV programs more than the others and also its impact on persons who watch cultural and TV programs up to 5 hours in a day more than the other groups. Hypothesis 6: "Brand quality has significance effect on customer purchase intention : With 95% confidence and level of significance , there was no evidence to reject this hypothesis. Brand quality has not a significant impact on education. There are significant effects on age, gender, spend time to watch cultural and TV programs and interest in cultural and TV programs, such that, its impact on women is more than men of education and also its impact on persons who are in the range of 45 to 54 years is more than the other age ranges and persons who have high interest in cultural and TV programs more than the others and also its impact on persons who watch cultural and TV programs up to 5 hours in a day more than the other groups. Table 2. Hypothesis analysis results with Regression (Source: Research Analysis). Variable R Square Beta t B F Sig. Sponsorship Advertisement Brand Quality Brand Loyalty Brand Awareness Brand Image To investigate which of the average of independent variables, was higher and prioritization factors and comparison of dimensions, the Friedman test was used. Table 3 shows the Friedman test. Table 3. Friedman test results (Source: Research Analysis). Variables Average SD Ranking average Brand awareness Advertisement Brand quality Brand Image Brand Loyalty Sponsorship Number of responders Chi square df Sig DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This study examines the impact of sponsorship and advertising on brand equity and customer purchase intention on television and culture programs. Six hypotheses were defined. The first hypothesis was to investigate the impact of sponsorship on brand equity. The results of such research eshghi (2009) showed, whatever financial support from sponsors increase, Brand equity also increase. In other words, whatever sponsors is familiar for the customer, brand equity elements such as logos, slogans, etc., in the mind of the customer is more enduring. The factors that related to 145

6 product such as packaging, quality and etc., and also factors that unrelated to the product, such as brand equity elements (logo, slogan, music) increse, by increasing sponsors support. The second hypothesis as Milgrom and Roerts 's research (1986), Gil et al (2007), Simon and Mary (1993), Yoo and Donthu (2002), Simon and Mary (1993), Kim and Hyun (2010) and Soleymani Beshli and Talebi (2009) have shown that by increasing advertising, brand equity increases and these two factors have a significant impact on each other. In other words, through a variety of promotional activities and media coverage or increase the number of advertisements and possibility reinforcement to exposure to the message. This caused, increase the positive image of the company, increase awareness and increase customer loyalty. As a result, brand equity increase, by increasing advertisements. The third hypothesis was to investigate the impact of perceived quality on customer purchase intention.as the results of Buil et al (2013), Senthilnathan and Tharmi (2012), Gil et al (2007) showed, whatever perceived quality increase, customer purchase intention increase. In spite of early imposing costs, continuous improvements of quality, caused reduce financial costs and time. So if companies with long-term strategies act in on continuous quality improvement in market, increase customer perceived quality of their products. Consequently impact on customer purchase intention. The fourth hypotheses investigate the impact on Purchase intention was loyalty. As the results of Liu et al (2008), Richard (2009), Gil et al (2007), Pappu (2006), Taylor et al (2004) showed, whatever customers loyalty about products or services increase, their purchase intention to buy products or services increase. In the other words, if the factors that caused increasing customer loyalty about products or services, increase purchase intention of the brand. So whatever loyalty is more, it is easier to keep them satisfied. In this case customers do not seek for different brands, so customers purchase intention increase. The fifth hypothesis was to investigate the impact of brand awareness on customer purchase intention. Since brand awareness make similar sense in customer mind, it can be effective on customer purchase decision. In the other words, whatever products or services are more familiar to customers and customers more aware to product, the customer purchase intention increases. The sixth hypothesis was to investigate the influence of brand associations on Purchase intention. The results of such investigations Alba and Hutchinson (1987) showed whatever brand association by customers about products or services, increase, consequently their intention to purchase increase. In the other words if the factors of brand association are in customer s mind, caused that customer purchase intention and decision about purchase products or services increase. So whatever, customers think more deeply about the related information of product and make relation among this information with their current knowledge about the brand, strong association of the brand formed in their mind. As a result, formed positive feeling in customer s mind and it makes them buy more. Suggestion for future researches: Researchers can do research about the impact of sponsorship in the other areas, like educations, entertainment (Including tours, concerts, parks and other various attractions), occasions (sponsor of the celebrations charity), marketing with participate in making the venue (stadium, arena, forums, etc.). REFERENCES Alba JW, Hutchinson JW, Dimensions of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer Research. 13: Areska J, The Impact of Sport Sponsorship on Brand Equity. 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