The effectiveness of sponsorship

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Empirical findings

This chapter presents the empirical findings of this research. These empirical findings include the answers and information that are gathered and generated from conducting both a questionnaire and interviews.
After presenting the process of how the data are collected and gathered in the previous chapter, the aim of this chapter is to present these data. The collected empirical data are gathered through conducting interviews and questionnaire. Thus, these data are presented with the help of graphs and tables to provide a better interpretation. In addition to the em-pirical findings that are collected by the researchers, brief backgrounds of the chosen spon-sors are also included to give the reader a clear overview of the sponsors.

Sports sponsorship

For all floorball teams, a common goal is to be on the top of the “Swedish super league”. JIK is one of clubs that are playing in the Swedish floorball league. The club has a wide range of different sponsors, linked and unlinked as well as national and international. Four sponsors, one of each category is chosen for the investigation of this research paper: Inter-sport, HTH, Friskis & Svettis and Jönköpings-Posten.
As it is mentioned earlier that JIK has different types of sponsors, the club does not take into consideration whether the sponsors are linked or unlinked to the sports club. That is, JIK is not aware of the difference between linked and unlinked sponsors. They only focus on whether the business is beneficial for the sports club. JIK’s sponsors are categorised in-to different categories depending on the way they are sponsoring the club. They have dif-ferent sponsorship packages such as gold, silver, bronze and game. Detailed information about all of the packages is included in appendix (2).
A first contact with the potential sponsors is emerged through JIK, in 98% of the cases. One of the advantages that attract the sponsoring companies to sponsor JIK is that the club has been on the top of the floorball league several times. Therefore, a drawback of JIK can affect the sponsorship process. Those companies may stop being sponsors for JIK if the club are starting to lose. The sponsors only want to be seen when the club is on the top and is making good results. In such cases, JIK and the sponsors begin new negotiations about the sponsorship deal.
It is shown that the sponsors are sponsoring the club in different ways. Some of them are sponsoring JIK with sport products that are used by the players and other sponsors are sponsoring the club with money. In some occasions several sponsors offer discounts to the game visitors if they bring the ticket. For example Harrys/Slivers logo is printed on the backside of the game-ticket and if the visitors bring the tickets to the doorman, they get the entrance fee for free. In return on how the logo of the sponsors is being displayed is de-pending on the sponsors themselves and on the way they are sponsoring the club. For ex-ample some sponsors want their brand logo to be displayed at every game or on the cloths of the players. This is due to that the demand of the sponsors differs.
The main goal of the sponsorship process is that both the club and the sponsors want to get something in return. There are no “stupid businessmen” left that will sponsor without get-ting something in return from the sponsorship. Through sponsorship JIK wants to be sponsored and supported by different sponsors in order to continue being a successful floorball club. On the other hand through sponsorship the sponsors want to reach their main objectives of increasing brand awareness and developing brand image to increase purchase intention in the mind of JIK’s visitors (JIK)¹¹.

Intersport:

Intersport is an international company that was established in 1968. It has more than five thousands stores all over the world. The company is specializing in producing and selling sport products, both equipment and clothes. Intersport belongs to Intersport international corporation (IIC) and it is one of the world’s largest sport chains (Intersport)¹². Intersport is chosen as the international linked sponsor of JIK. The company is considered to be the head sponsor of JIK. They are sponsoring the club with all of their equipment. They are the exclusive supplier to JIK. Intersport is a “gold sponsor” and in addition to that they are also sponsoring with money. Twice a year Intersport in Jönköping is organizing an event for JIK’s members. In this event, members of JIK have the chance to get discounts and training packages to a special prize. They are also a “clothes sponsor” which means that the logo of Intersport is printed and displayed on the cloths of JIK’s players. Intersport has been a sponsor of JIK since the club was formed (JIK)¹³.

HTH:

HTH is an international company that was established in 1966. It has more than 130 stores in 12 different countries all over the world. The company is specializing in producing and selling kitchens (HTH)¹⁴. HTH is chosen as an international linked sponsor of JIK. They are a “bronze sponsor” and a “clothes sponsor” which means that HTH’s logo is displayed on the player’s clothes (JIK)¹⁵.

Friskis & Svettis:

Friskis & Svettis is a training facility that was established in 1978 in Stockholm. The com-pany is focusing on sport and training in general. They offer different types of training for example gym and spinning to their members in order to help people become healthier. They have more than 535 thousands members in 159 regions in Sweden (Friskis & Svettis)¹⁶. This company is chosen as the national linked sponsor to JIK. They are a “gold spon-sor” and in addition to this they are sponsoring JIK with discount their membership fee to the members of JIK. The company is a “sarge sponsor” which means that their logo is dis-played in the home arena of JIK. The company is a sponsor of JIK since 2010. It is consid-ered to be one of their most important sponsors since they are sponsoring them with both a big amount of money but also offers discounts to the members (JIK)¹⁷.

Jönköpings-Posten:

Jönköpings-Posten is a Swedish national company that was established in 1865. It is a daily newspaper in Jönköping that both sells and distributes newspapers to households and stores (Jönköpings-Posten)¹⁸. Jönköpings-Posten is chosen as national unlinked sponsor of JIK. They are a “bronze sponsor” and also a “clothes sponsor” which means their logo is dis-played on clothes of the players. JIK also gets a reduced prize when they are advertising about their games in Jönköpings-Posten. They have been a sponsor to JIK since the club was formed. (JIK)¹⁹.

Regular vs. non-regular visitors

Several outcomes are gathered through conducting questionnaire. One of these outcomes is the overall purchase intention of the different types of sponsors and whether it is affect-ed by the type of visitors. As it is argued that the purchasing intention is affected by the vis-itors’ awareness of a brand and their perception of the brand image. That is, to be able to answer the following research question:
RQ1: Is the purchase intention towards JIK’s sponsors in general affected by the different types of visitors?
The outcome shows that 17.3% of the non-regular visitors (blue) and 37.3% of regular visi-tors (brown) have no intention to purchase from any of the sponsors regardless whether the sponsor is linked or unlinked. The outcome also shows that 5.3% of non-regular visi-tors (purple) and 40% of regular visitors (green) have intention to purchase from any of the sponsors regardless of whether the sponsor is linked or unlinked. This indicates that the regular visitors have higher purchase intention than non-regular visitors.
A detailed description of the different types of visitors affecting the purchase intention is demonstrated in table (5) and figure (4).

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Floorball .
1.3 Problem discussion
1.4 Purpose
1.5 Delimitations
1.6 Definitions
2 Frame of reference 
2.1 Sports sponsorship
2.2 Regular vs. non-regular visitors
2.3 The effectiveness of sponsorship
2.4 Linked and unlinked sponsors
3 Method 
3.1 Research philosophy
3.2 Data collection .
3.3 Deductive research approach
3.4 Methodologies
3.5 Quality standards
3.6 Data analysis
3.7 Choice of method
4 Empirical findings
4.1 Sports sponsorship
4.2 Regular vs. non-regular visitors
4.3 The effectiveness of sponsorship .
4.4 Linked and unlinked sponsors
5 Analysis 
5.1 Sports sponsorship
5.2 Regular vs. non-regular visitors
5.3 The effectiveness of sponsorship
5.4 Linked and unlinked sponsors
6 Conclusion 
7 Discussion 
References
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S p o r ts Sponsorship Brand awareness, brand image and purchase intention of sport audience towards linked and unlinked sponsors