The Olympic Games and associative sponsorship

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand relationships between a mega-sports event, the Olympic Games, and its branded main sponsors, using the lens of brand personality. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the internet-based website communications of the sponsor and event brands to assess congruence in brand personality identity exhibited in the communications of sponsors and how these relate to the event brand itself. A lexical analysis of the website text identifies and graphically represents the dominant brand personality traits of the brands relative to each other. Findings The results show the Olympic Games is communicating excitement as a leading brand personality dimension. Sponsors of the Olympics largely take on its dominant brand dimension, but do not adapt their whole brand personality to that of the Olympics and benefit by adding excitement without losing their individual character. The transference is more pronounced for long-running sponsors. Practical implications Sponsorship of the Olympic Games does give brands the opportunity to capture or borrow the excitement dimension alongside building or reinforcing their own dominant brand personality trait or to begin to subtly alter their brand positioning. Originality/value This study is the first to examine how the sponsor’s brand aligns with the event being sponsored as a basis for developing a strong shared image and associative dimensions complimentary to the positioning of the brand itself.

El patrocinio como factor condicionante en el desarrollo de las carreras de los deportistas de élite españoles.

“…Otro factor que, sin duda alguna, es origen de desigualdad en los formatos y cuantías de los patrocinios es la disciplina que practica cada deportista, pues las empresas no tienen la misma disposición a invertir en patrocinios en deportes de masas que en aquellos que resultan minoritarios en cuanto a su seguimiento. Esto se debe a que el retorno financiero de la inversión realizada, en términos de comunicación, va a depender en gran medida de la presencia mediática de la disciplina (Rutter et al, 2019; Torres-Romay y García-Mirón, 2020; Wakefield…”

“…La elección por parte de las empresas de los deportistas profesionales a patrocinar va a depender obviamente de sus resultados y su imagen deportiva o de la presencia mediática de su disciplina, pero también dependerá de los valores que representa para la sociedad y su modo de exposición moral a la comunidad, además de la potencial visibilidad de la marca en función de los productos que se desean promocionar (Crespo-Celda, 2020; Torres-Romay y García-Mirón, 2020). Otros aspectos valorables en este mismo sentido son el fenómeno de experiencia compartida, la relevancia internacional y el volumen de participantes en los eventos, quedando relegadas, en muchos casos, variables como los gustos de los espectadores y las necesidades de los propios deportistas (Rutter et al, 2019;Wakefield et al, 2020). En este campo, las grandes multinacionales suelen apostar por contratos de patrocinio con grandes deportistas de reconocido prestigio a nivel mundial (p.e.…”

Evaluating e-commerce website qualities: personality traits as triggers

“…, 2017; Tseng et al. , 2021), including the importance of brand personality in the online environment (Rutter et al. , 2020).…”

“…Personality traits have strong impacts on consumer behavior in the e-commerce context (e.g. Leong et al, 2017;Tseng et al, 2021), including the importance of brand personality in the online environment (Rutter et al, 2020). However, the underlying processes are still not well understood.…”

A Model for Brand Personality Word Embedding: Identifying UNESCO World Heritage Personality Categories

“…They used this dictionary to measure the personalities of tourism websites. Researchers measured their target BP using the Pitt dictionary but failed to discover new items relevant to a specific subject of study (Hassan et al, 2021; Papania et al, 2008; Rutter et al, 2019). Rojas-Méndez and Hine (2017) recognized the importance of content validity when building a BP dictionary, and customized a dictionary to fit their study context.…”