Do sponsoring brand familiarity and credibility matter in professional sport league website sponsorship?

Abstract

Sport sponsorship has been significantly growing in the global sport industry and is expected to reach $108 billion by 2030 (Mills, 2024). Kim, Walker, Heo, and Koo (2017) found that perceived website interactivity, website fit, and website credibility influence consumers’ attitudes toward the corporate sponsor advertisement and their willingness to click on its banner advertisement to search for more information on the corporate sponsor product. Furthermore, Esch, Langner, Schmitt, and Geus (2006) found that consumers who are aware of a brand have a more positive perception of that brand than consumers who do not know about that brand In addition, Lafferty (2007) found that corporate credibility was not only positively related to consumers’ attitudes toward its advertisement, but also the advertising brand and purchase intentions. Despite the significant impact of brand familiarity and brand credibility in the advertising and sponsorship context, no empirical research has examined how brand familiarity and brand credibility play an important role in consumer behavior in the context of online sport sponsorship for a professional sport league website. The researcher developed the four versions of a mock NBA website that respectively feature the four different corporate sponsors including Mountain Dew, Kia, Foot Locker, and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA). The first page of the mock NBA website was the main page. The second page was composed of the 30-second commercial and banner advertisement of each corporate sponsor. The third page included the 3-minute game highlight video as well as the sponsor banner advertisement. Consumers who were more familiar with the sponsoring brand (i.e., Mountain Dew) were more likely to spread positive information on the product of the corporate sponsor by word of mouth than consumers who were less familiar with the sponsoring brand (i.e., Kia). In addition, these high brand familiarity consumers were more likely to express their intention to purchase the product of the corporate sponsor than those low brand familiarity consumers. Also, research participants who perceived the sponsoring brand as credible (i.e., Foot Locker) while viewing its commercial, banner advertisements, and game highlight video on the NBA website demonstrated a stronger intention to purchase the corporate sponsor’s product. However, brand credibility did not strongly impact word of mouth in the study. The findings suggest that both professional sports leagues and their corporate sponsors should consider consumers’ familiarity with the sponsoring brands and their perceptions of the sponsors’ credibility as critical factors.