The Impact of Consumer Knowledge on Brand Image Transfer in Cultural Event Sponsorship

Abstract

The paper presents some preliminary findings on the role of consumer knowledge in cultural event sponsorships. Using a field design, the impact of consumer knowledge on the brand image transfer wasmeasured. Two international cultural events were examined and a total of 853 respondents participated in this study. The Kruskall-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were performed to determine whether there were any differences in brand image transfer between experts (‘high-knowledge’ spectators) and novices (‘low-knowledge’ spectators). The results reveal that image-building effects in cultural event sponsorship are considerably less pronounced if event spectators are highly knowledgeable about an event and its sponsoring brand. The findings indicate to what extent a brand may thrive on event sponsorship and how important it is to track current market segmentation and brand positioning.