Event-sponsor personality fit and sponsor identification

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to understand the 'event-sponsor fit' in the context of personality dimensions and investigate if sponsor identification is biased towards brand whose personality is more similar to the personality of the event that it sponsors than brands with less similarity. For the purpose of the study, 10 brand personality traits were adapted from Aaker's Brand Personality Inventory (Aaker, 1997). Recall and recognition measures were used for the construct of sponsor identification. The study was conducted on a representative sample of 527 respondents, who were viewers of the live telecast of ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 (event). The findings of the study suggests that sponsor identification is not biased towards brands whose personality is more similar to the personality of the event that it sponsors than brands with less similarity. The findings support the proposition made by Jagre, Watson & Watson (1991) that "Companies that sponsor events that are completely consistent with viewer expectations (high fit) will have significant lower recall rates than companies that sponsor events that are either extremely inconsistent (low fit) or moderately inconsistent (moderate fit)."