Significance of purposeful sponsorship in sport events

Abstract

Sport sponsorship research is very important in efforts to discover how this type of marketing effort is formulated, implemented, measured and evaluated. It is important for the event organisers to acknowledge the needs and wants of the sponsor as well as the sponsor to have a purposeful and successful sponsorship. In many cases the sponsors do not disclose the ways of how they measure their efforts, but thorough their expectations it is possible to adjust the campaigns to better meet their goals.

The primary objective of this thesis was to examine why organisations invest in Neste Rally Finland, what they expect to achieve through their investment and how they measure those expected sponsorship objectives in Neste Rally Finland 2018. The secondary objective was to examine if, based on the results, there were any recommendations to be made for futures development of the sponsorship relationship.

A mixed research method was implemented to be able to compile a more in- depth understanding of the expectations and objectives behind the corporations sponsoring Neste Rally Finland. The data for this research was gathered through a questionnaire sent to all the sponsors. The questionnaire was conducted pre- event and the total number of questionnaires sent back answered was ten. Using discretional sampling (researcher´s discretion), the ten organisations were all chosen as the sample population of this research.

The key findings of this study suggest that Neste Rally Finland is an attractive sport event regarding sponsorship opportunities. It has the ability to retain acquired sponsorships, in many cases for eight or more years. The research uncovered that most significant factors driving sponsorships were national and international visibility as well as brand association to a an international event. It is also evident that measuring and evaluating the effects of sponsorship campaigns is not a priority for all sponsors.

Sponsorship as a marketing tool rather than the other more traditional ways, perhaps does not yet have the maturity and professionalism as it should in the Finnish market. This, as in literature as well as the business environment, is clearly changing for the better.