EFFECTIVENESS OF SPORTS SPONSORSHIP: PERCEPTIONS AMONG FELDA UNITED F.C FOOTBALL FANS

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1 EFFECTIVENESS OF SPORTS SPONSORSHIP: PERCEPTIONS AMONG FELDA UNITED F.C FOOTBALL FANS Mohamad Amin Nurfaiz Musidi & Aishah Nadirah Mohamed Alauddin Faculty of Sports Science & Recreation Universiti Teknologi MARA Sheela Paramasivam Academy of Language Studies University Teknologi MARA ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that determine effectiveness of sports sponsorship based on the perception of Felda United F.C football fans. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between the factors that determine sports sponsorship effectiveness. This study was designed to assess the relationship between brand awareness, corporate images, and purchase intention and brand loyalty of customer towards certain brand or sponsor companies who sponsor Felda United FC. A total of 217 Felda United F.C football fans were involved as the respondent for this research. The result shows that there is no significant relationship between brand awareness and corporate images and there is no significant relationship between brand awareness and purchase intention. The result also shows that there is no correlation between brand awareness and brand loyalty. However, there is a significant relationship between Corporate Image and Purchase Intention (r=0.64**, n=217, p<0.05), a significant relationship between Corporate Image and Loyalty (r=0.56**, n=217, p<0.05) and it also shows a significant relationship between Purchase Intention and Loyalty (r=0.65**, n=217, p<0.05). Furthermore, Purchase Intention and Loyalty shows the highest r value which indicates that it has the highest relationship between each other based on the perception of Felda United F.C football fans. This understanding will help the company to focus more on the factors that contribute to Sports Sponsorship Effectiveness so that they can gain the benefit that they should get. The findings also will help the sponsor companies to determine the effectiveness of their Sports Sponsorship program. Keywords: Sponsorship effectiveness, sports sponsorship, brand awareness, brand loyalty, corporate image, purchase intention Introduction Sponsorship is a kind of investment of money in an event or activity, in return for access to the exploitable business potential connected with the activity (Meenaghan, 1991). In modern days, sponsorship has become a popular tool to gain financial support to conduct an event. Sports sponsorship refers to a business-to-business relationship between a sponsor and a sports entity or athlete that give equal benefits to each other (Urriolagoitia & Planellas, 2007). Sports practitioners 1

2 also use sponsorship to develop their financial needs and it is necessary for marketers to have sufficient knowledge on sponsorship area. As sports sponsorship has become more popular in the modern days, it becomes more important to understand sponsorship effectiveness for both marketers and sponsors (Ko, Kim, Claussen, & Kim, 2008). O'Reilly and Madill (2007) found that it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of sponsorship so that the sponsor companies know whether their investment is worth or not. Sports sponsorship has been widely used around the globe. Sports sponsorship has been used as a platform for the corporate sponsor to generate income. They use sports such as football to promote their product as they are involved in the football match as sponsors. Therefore, the sponsors need to know the effectiveness of their sports sponsorship. Although companies spend a lot of money to get returns from their investments, unfortunately, they still face the problem when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of their marketing activities (Gilaninia & Abbaszadeh, 2011). This study will discuss the effectiveness of sponsorship among Felda United FC football fans. The outcome of this study will help the sponsor company in making decisions on who to sponsor, what to sponsor and when to sponsor by looking at the factors of sports sponsorship Brand Awareness Brand awareness refers to specific level of awareness towards the name of a brand rather than knowledge about the brand. The term refers to situational awareness, not absolute awareness (Holden, 1992). Additionally, measurement of sponsorship awareness is an extension of exposure measurement. According to the previous survey, tracking measures were designed to gauge the awareness, familiarity, and preferences engendered by sponsorship (Rybanský, Prajová, and Księży Młyn Dom Wydawniczy, 2010). Pope (1998) review of sponsorship literature proves that the main objectives of corporate sponsorship are to increasing brand awareness, to increase corporate image (Yang, Sparks, and Li (2008) and increase sales (Crompton, 2004). Brand awareness is one of the important factors of effective sports sponsorship Corporate Image Corporate image refers to an image that is created in the mind of the consumer either as the good or bad image of a particular brand (Eshghi, 2009). The aim of an organization is to achieve a specific image with clients, the general public and the stockholders (Gilaninia, Mousavian, & Rezvani, 2011). The previous study done by Ibrahim (2014) proved that corporate image has a positive impact on purchase intention. This result is in line with previous research which proved that sponsor credibility and attitude towards sponsors partially give impact on the fan identification towards purchase intention. Another study done examined the effects on Asian fans' purchase intention when both the sponsoring firm and the sponsored sports team are Westerners (Chih-Hung Wang, Jain, Ming- Sung Cheng, & Kyaw-Myo Aung, 2012). 2

3 1. 3. Purchase Intention According to Thurston (2012), purchase has been identified as a gauge level of future use of product or service. Consumer purchase intention is the most valued useful measurement of sponsorship effectiveness given its impact on future sales (Crompton, 2004). Additionally, several studies by Aaker (1996), has proven that attitudinal variable is a very crucial indicator on behavioral aim. According to Ajzen (2001), individuals act according to their goals; and perception of control over their behaviour intention are affected by behavioural control and subjective norms. People do things based on their own intentions and perceptions of control over their own behaviour intentions are based on their attitudes towards the behaviour, perceptions of behavioural control and subjective norms (Ko, Kim, Claussen & Kim, 2008). Previous studies have found that the ability of sponsorship gives positive effect on purchase intention (Dees, Bennett, & Villegas, 2008). However, in an experimental context, it shows that no noticeable effects were detected on purchase intention to products or services from the sponsors (Hoek, Gendall, Jeffcoat & Orsman, 1997) Brand Loyalty Previous studies have provided evidence of sponsorship s has the ability to increase brand loyalty, particularly in the case of NASCAR racing. (Levin, Beasley, & Gamble, 2004). Another study relating to NASCAR by Sirgy, Lee, Johar and Tidwell (2008) shows that self-congruity with sponsored sports events absolutely affects sponsor brand loyalty when customers are fully aware of the sponsorship and have some level of contribution to the sponsored event. The researcher had used a modified version of Framework for understanding Sports Sponsorship and its impact measure (Thurston, 2012). The factors involved in this study are brand awareness, corporate image, purchase intention and brand loyalty. These factors are used to measure effectiveness of sports sponsorship. 2. Methodology 2.1 Sample and data collection method A total of 217 Felda United F.C football fans (N=217) are involved in this research. There are 137 male and 80 female respondents involved in this study within the age group percentage of less than 20 years old (49.3%), 21 to 29 years old (28.6%), 30 to 39 years old (11.5%) and 40 years old above (10.6%). All respondents are members of football clubs known as Ultras for Felda United, FELDAMANIA (D FEL). The club members watched the football match of the Felda United FC team at Majlis Perbandaran Selayang Stadium, Selangor, Malaysia. 2.2 Instrumentation This study was conducted using a questionnaire that was adopted from a few researchers (Ibrahim, 2014; Gilaninia & Abbaszadeh, 2011; Donlan, 2014). In this research, the researchers adapted the questionnaire from these sources to investigate the objectives of the research. The questionnaire was divided into 4 sections. Section A is for the demographic background. Section B discusses purchase intention. Section C is for Corporate Image and lastly section D discusses Brand Loyalty. For Section B, C and D, all items use a 5-point Likert scale. 3

4 3. Finding and Discussion 3.1 Reliability analysis The contents of the questionnaire showed that the Cronbach alpha value for Sponsorship Effectiveness factors is 0.92 for Corporate Image and Purchase Intention items while 0.86 for Brand Loyalty item. A pilot study was conducted to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. 3.2 Descriptive statistics & analysis Table 1: Descriptive statistic for factors of Sports Sponsorship Effectiveness: Brand Awareness Factor of Sports Sponsorship Frequency Percent % Effectiveness Brand awareness Aware Unaware Total From the Table 1 above, descriptive statistic shows that 85.7% of respondent are aware of the brand that sponsors Felda United FC which is higher than the respondents who are unaware about the brand that sponsor Felda United FC, (14.3%). Among the sponsor brands that the Felda United FC fans are aware of are PUMA, FELDA, KOPERASI PERMODALAN FELDA, FELDA D SAJI AND FGV (FELDA GLOBAL VENTURES). The brand is clearly the dominant sponsor in athletics, in terms of pure visibility and sponsorship awareness amongst those present at events (Donlan, 2014). Examining the brand effectiveness is essential to assess effectiveness of the sports sponsorship Table 2: Descriptive statistic for factors of Sports Sponsorship Effectiveness: Corporate Image, Purchase Intention, and Brand Loyalty Factors of Sports Sponsorship Effectiveness Mean Std. Deviation No. of items Ranks Corporate Images Purchase Intention Brand Loyalty Table 2 above shows that the highest factors measuring the effectiveness of sports sponsorship are Purchase Intention which indicates 3.72 (SD=.76), and the second factor is Corporate Image with 3.67 (SD=.75) and followed by Brand Loyalty factor which is 3.57 (SD=.86). The current study is consistent with the previous study saying that a fan's reaction to the sponsors goes through a series of stages, from first becoming aware of the sponsors to finally adopting purchase intentions and 4

5 behaviors toward their products (Meenaghan, 2001). When people are aware of a brand, they will have the intention to buy that product. In this study purchase intention has the highest mean among the factors of sports sponsorship effectiveness. Table 3: Relationship between Factors of Sports Sponsorship Effectiveness. Brand Awareness Corporate Image Purchase Intention Brand Loyalty Brand Awareness Corporate Image 1.64**.00.56**.00 Purchase Intention 1.65** Brand Loyalty 1.00 **. Correlation is significant at p<0.05 The relationship between factors of sports sponsorship effectiveness was analyzed using Pearson Correlation analysis. Based on the result, it shows that there is no significant relationship between Brand Awareness with Corporate Image (r=.01, n=217, p<0.05), Purchase Intention (r=.04, n=217, p<0.05) and Brand Loyalty (r=.05, n=217, p<0.05). The previous researcher found that there is no correlation between brand awareness and corporate image (Ko et. al. 2008). This finding supports current findings which found that respondents may not have the intention to buy a product even though they are aware of the brand or sponsor s product. According to Biscaia et. al (2013), in order to be loyal towards a brand, people do not necessarily need to be aware towards that brand. However, the results shows a significant relationship between Corporate Image and Purchase Intention (r=0.64, n=217, p<0.05) and Brand Loyalty (r=0.56, n=217, p<0.05). Research by Ibrahim (2004) and Gilaninia & Abbaszedah (2011) also proved that a corporate image has a direct positive effect on purchase intention. Therefore, when a sponsor company has a good corporate image, the consumer will have the intention to buy the sponsor s product. The findings also shows a significant relationship between Purchase Intention and Brand Loyalty (r=0.65, n=217, p<0.05). According to Biscaia et. al (2013), people need to have the intention to buy sponsor s product in order for them to become loyal towards sponsor s brand because the intention to purchase a product can affect the consumer s brand loyalty. 5

6 4. Conclusion and Future Recommendation The finding of current study shows that there is no significant relationship between Brand Awareness towards Corporate Image, Purchase Intention, and Brand Loyalty. However, there is a significant relationship between Corporate Image towards Purchase Intention and Brand Loyalty. Lastly, there is a significant relationship between Purchase Intention and Brand Loyalty. In conclusion, Brand awareness did not have any significant relationship with other domains. This may be due to fewer people who are aware of the product. People know about the product but they are not aware of the product existence in the real world. Therefore, the results are inconsistent. Future research could examine sports sponsorship effectiveness of other environments such as for badminton or hockey league. References Aaker, D. A. (1996). Measuring brand equity across products and markets. California management review, 38(3), 103. Ajzen, I. (2001). Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual review of psychology, 52(1), Alexandris, K., Tsaousi, E., & James, J. (2007). Predicting sponsorship outcomes from attitudinal constructs: The case of a professional basketball event. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 16(3), 130. Baumgartner, T. A. (2015). Conducting and Reading Research In Kinesiology. McGraw Hill, Fifth Edition. Biscaia, R., Correia, A., Rosado, A. F., Ross, S. D., & Maroco, J. (2013). Sport sponsorship: the relationship between team loyalty, sponsorship awareness, attitude toward the sponsor, and purchase intentions. Journal of Sport Management, 27(4), Chih-Hung Wang, M., Jain, M., Ming-Sung Cheng, J., & Kyaw-Myo Aung, G. (2012). The purchasing impact of fan identification and sports sponsorship. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 30(5), Crompton, J. L. (2004). Conceptualization and alternate operationalizations of the measurement of sponsorship effectiveness in sport. Leisure studies, 23(3), Gilaninia, S., & Abbaszadeh, M. R. (2011). Assessing the constructs of sport sponsorship effectiveness and theoretical relationships between them among football fans in Iran. Journal of basic and applied scientific research, 609. Ko, Y. J., Kim, K., Claussen, C. L., & Kim, T. H. (2008). The effects of sport involvement, sponsor awareness and corporate image on intention to purchase sponsors' products. International journal of sports marketing & sponsorship, 9(2), 79. Krejcie, R. V. a. M., Daryle W.. (2013). Educational and Psychological Measurement 6

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