The impact of sport involvement on participants' purchase intention toward event sponsor's products - Running events and La Vie brand
Abstract
The amount expenditure on sponsorship has been grown faster than
advertising for few recent decades. Investing in sponsorship activities, business sponsors
expect to not only increase their product brand awareness and corporate image but also
impact potential customers’ intention to buy their products. As health is one of top
concerns nowadays, many sport events occur to meet the demand of people. Recently in
Vietnam, running sports events have been sponsored by some businesses to draw
potential customer involvement and their purchase preference toward their products.
Sponsorship on running events, a relatively new marketing phenomenon in Ho Chi Minh
City, demands perceived evaluation on effectiveness on brand awareness, corporate
image to demonstrate a new marketing model for domestic companies. This research
aims at this evaluation and also the impact of event involvement on intention to buy. 363
participants in three running events, named Color Me Run, Prisma – The Night Run and
HCMC Run organized by Pulse Active Event Agency, responded the Likert-point survey
questionnaires. Reliability Test, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factory
Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were utilized in the process of data analysis.
Participants’ involvement is found to have a significantly positive impact on sponsor
brand awareness and corporate image. Also, there are associations among brand
awareness, corporate image and participants’ purchase intention toward the sponsor’s
products. The findings provide insights on Vietnamese consumers’ attitude toward
sponsors’ products as well as the effectiveness of sponsorship activities for further
research and companies, particularly in running events which attract numerous
participants as potential customers.
Key words: sponsorship, brand awareness, corporate image, purchase intention.