An Explorative Study on Scope of Audience, Brand Personality,
and Sponsor-Music Festival Congruence
Linghuan Zhang Student No.: 10860819 Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc. in Business Administration – Marketing Track Supervisor: Dhr. A.C.J. Meulemans
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Linghuan Zhang who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ... 3
List of figures and tables ... 4
1. Introduction ... 6 2. Literature review ... 9 2.1 Music festival ... 9 2.2 Scope of audience ... 12 2.3 Brand personality ... 14 2.4 Sponsorship ... 17 2.5 Congruence ... 19 2.6 Theoretical framework ... 22 3. Methodology ... 23 3.1 Overview ... 23 3.2 Procedure ... 23 3.2.1 Pre-test ... 23 3.2.2 Survey ... 26 3.2.3 Interview ... 26 3.3 Variables ... 27 3.3.1 Sponsor-festival congruence ... 27 3.3.2 Control variables ... 28 4. Results ... 30 4.1 Quantitative analysis ... 30 4.1.1 Descriptive ... 30 4.1.2 Data preparation ... 31 4.1.3 Hypothesis ... 31 4.1.4 Control variables ... 34 4.2 Qualitative analysis ... 37 5. Discussion ... 42 5.1 Findings ... 42
5.2 Contribution and implications ... 44
5.3 Limitation and further study ... 45
5.4 Conclusion ... 46
Appendix 1. Information of music festivals ... 53
Appendix 2. Pre-test questionnaire ... 56
Appendix 3. Questionnaire for online survey ... 60
Appendix 4. SPSS ... 65
List of figures and tables
Figures
Figure I The conceptual model ... 22
Figure II The congruence level of each brand-festival combination ... 33
Figure III The congruence level comparison of different region groups ... 36
Tables
Table I Brand personality scales from Aaker (1997) ... 15Table II Basic information about Glastonbury and Hellfest festival ... 24
Table III Perceived brand personality mean value ... 25
Table IV Summary of sponsor-festival linkages presented to subjects ... 25
Table V Characteristics of study participants ... 30
Table VI Independent samples t-test of mainstream and niche festival groups ... 32
Table VII Independent samples t-test of beverage and technology brand groups ... 33
Table VIII Independent samples t-test of two age groups ... 34
Table IX The congruence level of different age groups ... 35
Table X Independent t-test of different gender groups ... 35
Abstract
Music festival is becoming an important field for major brands to make sponsorship choices. But the study on scope of audience and brand personality’s influence on sponsor-festival congruence is scarce. The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between scope of audience and sponsor-festival congruence, and how brand personality intervenes in it. This study mainly based on Roy and Cornwell (2003) and Leenders, van Telgen, Gemser & van der Wurff (2005)’s theory. To answer the research question and test the hypotheses, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. A survey to 143 participants and a followed up interview to 8 interviewees were done. Three main findings were found in this study. First, scope of audience is not an important influencer to congruence. Second, Industry was found influential in sponsor-festival congruence. It was because the chosen beverage brands’ personalities have better match with the chosen festivals’ brand personalities. Third, age, gender and region have no significant effects on congruence. At last, management suggestions for music festival sponsorship and future research directions are discussed.
1. Introduction
Music festival, which has been an effective method in reaching target audiences for quite a long time, is becoming more important for major brands to make sponsorship choices (Rowley & Williams, 2008), and its fast developing has been a new trend of music industry. Over the past decades, music festival as an entertaining activity, is increasingly popular among young people all over the world.
Nowadays festival organizers are facing a lot of challenges and threats, such as fierce competition, new technology, and globalization (Leenders, 2010) which are forcing organizers to quick adapt to changes and develop new strategies. In the past 10 years the music festival market seems to become more saturated (Leenders, van Telgen, Gemser & van der Wurff, 2005). For most of the festival organizers, it seems to be increasingly important to seek for sufficient budget, government subsidies, and suitable artists (Leenders, 2010). For festivals, without government funding, it is not an easy task to fund themselves by raising money purely from ticket sells. Therefore, music festival organizers are seeking other ways to fund themselves in order to survive. When trying to fill the gap of festival budgets, sponsorship as a marketing communication tool is playing a significant role for festival organizers (Harvey, 2001). This trend made music festival sponsorship a popular marketing communication tool.
Meanwhile, for sponsor brands, selecting the best one among abundant of festivals seems to be essential. Recent research on sponsorship focus on explaining what effects sponsorship have on consumers’ behavior (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; Johar & Pham,
consumers’ brand recall and recognition (Cornwell, Weeks & Roy, 2005), brand awareness (Rowley & Williams, 2008), brand attitude (Roy & Cornwell, 2003) and purchase intentions (Kahle & Homer, 1985; McDaniel, 1999). Researcher also found out that the brand equity of a sponsor can facilitate consumers’ perception of sponsor-event congruence (Roy & Cornwell, 2003). A majority of research on sponsorship has indicated that the outcome of sponsorship will be more positive if a high fit is found between the sponsor and sponsored event (Rifon, Choi & Trimble, 2004; Olson & Thjømøe, 2009, 2011).
Research on music festivals are mainly focused on festival success, customer motives and relations between festivals and culture or politics etc. Many factors such as festivals’ location, age, parking facilities, information services, ticket price and festival line-up will lead to consumers’ satisfaction and festival success (Hall, Basarin & Lockstone-Binney, 2010; Leenders et al., 2005). An important factor to influence festival success is the scope of audience (Leenders et al., 2005). Scholars are trying to figure out is there a difference of festival success for festivals targeting different group of audiences? Main stream festivals which trying to focus on majority of music types would attract more people whereas niche festivals which only focus on specific genre and audience could go deeper. Newer festival, especially who has a narrow scope, will achieve larger amount of visitor attendance (Leenders et al., 2005).
Some research showed that brand personality can be influential on consumers’ relationship (Aaker, Benet-Martinez & Garolera, 2001), trust (Sigauw, Mattila and Austin, 1999), and loyalty (Brakus, Schmitt & Zarantonello, 2009) towards the brand. A brand
with a strong brand personality can distinguish itself from other competitor brands, and in addition, strong brand personality will enhance the marketing effectiveness (Sung and Kim, 2010). However, study on how brand personality will function in sponsorship, and sponsor-event fit is scarce.
Since congruence and brand personality are both important area which are worth to study for music festival sponsorship, it will be meaningful to look into whether congruence level will differ between different types of music festival. However, there has been little research focus on how sponsor brand’s personality will affect the level of sponsor-brand congruence. Also, study on how the scope of music festival attenders (main stream and niche festivals) will influence the congruence level is scarce.
The research question of this study is: What would be the effect of scope of audience on sponsor-festival congruence? And how can brand personality affect the perceived sponsor-festival congruence?
The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of festival’s scope of audience and sponsor brand’s personality in forming consumers’ perception of sponsor-festival congruence. In other words, this study will investigate whether congruence level will differ from mainstream music festivals and niche festivals under different brand personalities. Relevant concepts will be discussed in detail in literature review part.
This study is mainly based on Roy& Cornwell 2004 and Leenders et al. 2005, and both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used. The main structure of the article is as follows: first there is a literature review on music festival, sponsorship and brand personality to illustrate what have already been done in the field. And a conceptual model
was formulated and followed by the description of research design. Second the methodology of this study will be illustrated. After this part, the data was analyzed, the main findings of the study were discussed. This study was ended with a conclusion of main findings, management implications, limitations and future research suggestions.
2. Literature review
In this part, the existing literature related to this study will be illustrated in order to define the research topic more precisely. Firstly, the literature about music festival and scope pf audience will be discussed. Second the literature of sponsorship and brand personality will be introduced. In addition, literature about congruence will be explained. Finally, a short conclusion will be provided.
2.1 Music festival
Over the past decades, music festival as an entertaining activity, is becoming increasingly popular among young people all over the world. As one of the earliest countries holding music festival, UK is estimated to have around 3 million people attended music festivals, and have a music festival industry that was worth £945m in 2009. In addition, festivals created a large amount of job opportunities and provided a valuable boost to UK tourism (Waltson, 2012). Meanwhile, the music festival business in USA shows a continuing boom and no sign of slowing down in the near future. Research shows 10% of Americans attended at least one music festival in the past one year (Eventbrite Harris Interactive survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers), and around 32 million people attend at least one music
therefore marketers can better reach “the coveted Millennial demographic” by this opportunity (Nielsen’s Audience Insights Report 2015). At the same time, music festival industry is also fast developing in other areas. For example, in 2013, the Indian festival market was exploding and the capacity almost doubled and several new events came out (Waltson, 2014). In 2014, the number of Chinese music festivals has been increased to approximately 40 times as compared with the year 2007 (Zhang, 2014). Several major brands, for example MIDI, Strawberry and Sound of the City, have stood out from tons of Chinese music festivals, attracting thousands of attendees each year.
So far, research about music festival has mainly covered the factors of festival success, customer motivations and relations between festivals and culture or politics factors etc. In general, consumers’ satisfaction and festival success will be influenced by multiple factors such as location, age, parking facilities, information services, ticket price and line-up of a festival. (Hall et al., 2010; Leenders et al., 2005). Study on festival success distinguish the determinants by the content features and format features (Leenders et al., 2005). In Leenders and colleagues study, scope of audience, line-up, age/editions, and whether having a theme are included in the content features. And format features include budget, ticket price, location and max visitor capacity. Result surprisingly shows that budgets, lineup, ticket price, and location, however, are not significant influncers of festival success. Other reasons would actually have larger influence on festivals.
Apart from festival success, research also focused on customers’ motivations of attending music festivals. Leenders and colleagues introduced Getz’s opinion on needs of festival attenders in their study. Three categories of needs, namely physical, interpersonal or
social, and personal visitor satisfaction, are essential for people who attend festivals. Other scholars believe that the motive of festival attenders is that they want to enjoy the "good times" at festival by meeting similar-minded people and forming "communitas". In their mind, it is the unique experience which is the most important. (Brennan and Webster, 2010).
Held both outdoors and indoors, music festivals varies by different music genres, for example classical, jazz, rock and pop etc. Different types of festivals usually have their own target consumers who are attracted in particular music genre, line-up, and/or the unique atmosphere. These target groups have their own characteristics and differ on demographic factors or personal interests (Oakes, 2003). For instance, Leenders gave an example that the Dutch Pinkpop and Lowlands festivals attract younger (mainly from 18 to 30 years old) and higher educated attenders, whereas classical music festivals tend to attract older (above 50 years old) attenders and often are more appealing to female audiences than male audiences (Leenders et al., 2005).
2.2 Scope of audience
Scope of audience, is one of the content features which are deemed to influence festival success (Leenders et al., 2005). Music festivals often have their unique marketing strategies, by targeting a particular group of audience who are interested in specific music genres, the performing artists (the “line-up”), and/or the atmosphere at the festival (Oakes, 2003). The differences of the target groups are demographic factors or personal interests (Oakes, 2003). Festivals which have a comparable broader target group, provide various choices in music genres and/or entertainment. Those specialties will make the festival more appealing to a potentially large group of audience.
Research on the scope of audience has raised up abundant of managerial and academic interest. Normally, festival organizers could adopt strategies by either covering the majority of music types in order to attract maximum attenders, or going in-depth on a particular sub-genre to focus on specific group (Leenders et al., 2005). By targeting the majority of people, these mainstream festival organizers could make the group larger, thus enhance the possibility for people to attend the festival. Leenders and colleagues found that festivals which offer a wide range of entertainment tend to be more effective in attracting new visitors every year.
Apart from the advantages listed above, mainstream festivals have to “spread their attention over the many facets of their festival” (Leenders et al., 2005), and would be too distracted to make every aspect perfect at the same time. Also, mainstream festivals failed to attract the audiences who would rather looking for an event which is more
Niche festivals normally focus on specific group of people and trying to make the best in one genre, and are usually developed better in their particular genre/field compared to broad festivals. Research show that newer festivals, especially who have a narrow scope, tend to achieve better growth in aspect of visitor attendance (Leenders et al., 2005). Compared to mainstream festival, a niche festival will go in-depth on the specificsub-genre they feature. Attenders for niche festivals may be impulsive by heterogeneous leisure motives, like a passion of sports, music and/or concerts. For people who attend a niche event like extreme sports or underground music, they are demonstrating that they are having an “avant-garde consumer identity” which makes an ideological statement against mainstream popular culture (Leenders et al., 2005).
To summarize, research shows that the most important factor in determining a music festival’s success is the scope of the audience. Festivals that target on a broad target group are not as successful as niche festivals (Leenders et al., 2005). However, it is unknown yet whether scope of audience will affect music festival sponsorship.
2.3 Brand personality
Brand Personality, which is one of the components of brand equity, is a concept about how human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker, 1997). A large amount of research has been done on brand personality, especially during the last three decades, because brand personality is considered important by researchers and practitioners to increase consumer preference and usage of a brand.
Just as human beings can be differentiated by their personality traits, brands can also be differentiated by different brand personalities. For example, Coca-Cola’s brand personality traits are “cool, all-American, and real’, while its competitor, Pepsi, has a personality as “being young, exciting, and hip” (Aaker 1997). Previous research on brand personality mainly focus on three aspects, including the dimensions of brand personality (Aaker et al., 2001), the factors which can affect brand personality (Brakus et al., 2009), and the influences of brand personality.
Research on brand personality have shown that consumers attribute the personality traits of human beings to brands (Aaker, 1997; Fournier, 1998; Plummer, 2000). A brand’s overall equity will be positively affected by favorable, inimitable and strong brand associations (Keller, 1993). In addition, Maehle and Shenor (2010) provide evidence that consumers prefer brands which represent their own personalities.
Brand personality is defined as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Aaker 1997). In Aaker’s study, a theoretical framework of brand personality (shown in
divided into 15 facets and 41 personality traits. In Aaker’s study, it is shown that consumers tend to like brands which have favorable personalities to “enhance their sense of self” (Aaker, 1997).
Table I Brand personality scales from Aaker (1997)
Though Aaker’s brand personality study is one of the most well-known theory in the field, there are still some shortcomings of it. The main criticism held by researchers is whether the measurement scale remains stable across different cultural contexts while people tend to express themselves in significantly different ways. To tackle this problem, Geuens,
Weijters & De Wulf (2009) developed a new brand personality scale which can be used across different cultures and within/between product categories. Another criticism of this theory is about Aaker’s definition of brand personality which is only based on a vague definition and failed to solely cover personality traits. In addition, researchers argued that Aaker’s “Big Five” personality traits could not be replicated in the context of brands because the structure of human personality traits is different from brand personality (Caprara, Barbaranelli, and Guido, 2001). To better measure this concept, a new definition of brand personality has been developed. Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) state that ‘’brand personality is the set of human personality traits which are both applicable to and relevant for brands”.
Although researchers have several criticisms about Aaker’s study, a lot of researchers did support Aaker’s model. The “Big Five” brand personality model is still the most commonly used in various brand personality researches. Therefore, it is meaningful to adopt Aaker’s measurement in this study.
Apart from studies on brand personality scales, other researches illustrate brand personality’s positive effect on consumers’ relationship (Aaker et al., 2001), trust (Sigauw, Mattila and Austin, 1999), and loyalty (Brakus et al., 2009) towards the brand. A brand which has a stronger brand personality can distinguish itself from other competitor brands. In addition, strong brand personality will enhance the marketing effectiveness (Sung and Kim, 2010).
A large amount of existing literature showed that brand personality study is popular and important in this field. However, study on whether brand personality will influence
sponsorship is limited. Lee&Cho (2009) showed that consumers’ overall evaluation of a sponsor brand will be affected by sponsor and sport event’s personality congruence. In other words, it would be more beneficial for a sponsor brand if the sport event being sponsored is consistent with sponsor brand’s personality (Lee&Cho 2009). For example, hen paired a “sincerely” brand with a “diligence” sports event, the sponsor-event personality congruence will be largely improved, thus enhance the sponsorship success. However, how will brand personality affect the congruence of sponsor brand and festival is still unknown.
2.4 Sponsorship
Sponsorship, defined as the most commonly used term in marketing research (Cornwell & Maignan, 1998), can be seen as “the provision of assistance, either financial or in-kind, to an activity by a commercial organization for the purpose of achieving commercial objectives” (Meenaghan, 1983). Sponsorship is not only a marketing communication tool which has become increasingly important compared to traditional advertising methods (Harvey, 2001), but also a brand building tool because it is usually effective in leveraging secondary associations (Keller, 1993).
In the past two decades, a body of literature has shown the importance of corporate event sponsorship in branding field. Early researches on sponsorship tried to investigate what role sponsorship plays in marketing communication (Meenaghan, 1983). These early studies later have been summarized into five main research streams, namely the nature of sponsorship, managerial aspects of sponsorship, measurement of sponsorship effects,
strategic use of sponsorship, and legal and ethical considerations in sponsorship (Cornwell & Maignan, 1998).
The majority of studies on sponsorship draw an emphasis on explaining how sponsorship will influence consumer behaviors (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; Johar & Pham, 2000). Researchers find out that event sponsorship can be influential to corporate image (Koo et al., 2006), consumers’ brand recall and recognition (Cornwell et al. 2005), brand awareness (Rowley & Williams, 2010) and brand attitude (Roy & Cornwell, 2003). In addition, sponsorship is found out to be significant for increasing the use of sponsor firms’ products (Bennett, 1999), and purchase intentions (McDaniel, 1999; Roth & Romeo, 1992).
Recent research focus on explaining how consumers process sponsorship message by investigating cognitive processes (Roy & Cornwell, 2003). Schema theory is frequently used to explain how consumer react to sponsorship (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; Johar & Pham, 2000). A schema, as a cognitive structure, can present an object or a domain that includes a person, event or place (Taylor & Crocker, 1981). When being stimulated by sponsorship information, people use schemas to judge whether a product-event combination is appropriate or not. It is assumed that the schema generated by a sponsorship which has incongruence conditions will be more elaborate and strong and will enhance the brand recall by consumers (Rifon et al. 2004).
A body of literature show the importance of congruence between sponsor brand and event. These theories will further be illustrated below.
2.5 Congruence
Congruence, or fit, which is the most often studied concept about how consumers process sponsorships (Cornwell, Weeks, & Roy, 2005), has been defined as the “perceived link between a cause and the firm’s product line, brand image, position, and /or target market” (Becker-Olsen & Simmons, 2002). Congruence is usually seen as an overall concept which examines the perceived link between the sponsor and the sponsored object in abundant of sponsorship literature (Olson & Thjømøe, 2011). In advertising literature, congruence has been often used to indicate how consumer perceive similarity, while in sponsorship literature it is defined more toward "relatedness" and "relevance" (Johar & Pham, 2000). Some scholars view congruence as the method to predict or influence sponsorship outcomes, such as consumers’ brand awareness (McDaniel, 1999) and attitude toward sponsorship and sponsor (Roy and Cornwell 2003).
The early studies of congruence come from the "match-up hypothesis" for brand endorsement. If there is a “fit” between the endorser and the endorsed product, the consumers will think this endorsement is effective (Kamins, 1990). Consumers’ perception of congruence between sponsor and event is connected to more positive responses toward sponsorship (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999; Johar & Pham, 2000). Later research confirmed that fit between brand and cause will enhance the effectiveness of an advertising campaign (Pracejus & Olsen, 2004). Later researcher found the similarities between celebrity endorsing and sport-event sponsoring, thus the theories of match-up hypothesis can also work in sports-event sponsorship. Even though studies focus on
examining the awareness building strategies, little research have been done concerning factors which makes sponsorship "work".
Recent research pointed out that the goal for sponsoring an event is to improve brand image (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999). As mentioned before, sponsorship as a secondary marketing communication tool, can be beneficial for corporate image and brand attitude etc. Brand image is defined as the overall brand perception which is reflected by brand associations held in consumers’ memory (Keller, 1993). It is stated in image transfer theory that a value exchange from the event to the sponsor will improve the sponsor brand’s image toward the event. For example, the purpose for those brands who sponsored in World Cup is to gain positive image such as healthy, passionate and active from the event. Research shows if the sponsor and the event image is congruence, the brand image transfer will be enhanced and the effect of sponsorship will be greater (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999).
Research on sponsorship has generally shown that higher perceived sponsor-object fit will generate more positive outcomes of the sponsorship (Becker-Olsen & Simmons, 2002; Olson & Thjømøe, 2011). A wide range of sponsorships which have been tested show that congruence will influence consumers' attitude towards the sponsor, attitude towards the event, brand recall and brand recognition (Olson & Thjømøe, 2011). Research indicates that one of the primary factors in determining consumers' attitude toward the sponsor is the perceived sponsor-object congruence (Olson, 2010). In addition, high sponsor-object congruence could improve consumer's attitude on sponsor brand (Becker-Olsen & Simmons, 2002) and enhance the evaluation of sponsor (Roy &
Cornwell, 2003). Some scholars also investigate in the gap between congruence theories and real life situations. Research on the moderating role of congruence focus on how managers view the impacts of different levels of sponsorship on brand equity and how they make real-life sponsorship decisions (Henseler, Wilson, Götz, & Hautvast, 2007). Results indicate that sport sponsorship is significantly relevant to sponsors' brand equity. In this research, sports managers' view on sponsorship, however, is in contrast with previous studies on consumers' perceived fit because managers adapt an opinion that fit will matter less under a high level of sponsorship, thus the moderating effect here is negative. This surprising result shows that managers have a bias of sport sponsorship. In conclusion, the majority of existing research shows that the congruence between sponsor and event has a more positive impact on the results of sponsorship than incongruence (Rifon et al., 2004), and it will positively influence the attitude toward the sponsor (Roy & Cornwell, 2003). But how sponsor brand’s personality will affect the congruence level between sponsor and event has not been investigated yet. Therefore it is assumed that sponsor brand’s personality will affect the congruence level.
2.6 Theoretical framework
Figure I The conceptual model
The purpose of this study is more explorative, trying to find out the following questions: Q1. Will the sponsor-festival congruence higher for the niche festival combinations than the mainstream festival combinations?
Q2. How will demographic factors such as age, gender and region influence the sponsor-festival congruence?
3. Methodology
3.1 Overview
In this research, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were conducted to explore the topic. First, an online survey was conducted to examine the relations among the variables. To get more illustrative information and ideas behind the results, a semi-structured interview was done. In order to make the research more reliable, real brands and music festivals were used. For the survey, snowball sampling was selected to reach the participants in order to avoid getting a limited student group.
3.2 Procedure
3.2.1 Pre-testTo enhance the reliability of this study, three steps were needed before conducting the survey. First, mainstream and niche festivals for this study were chosen based on factors about the festival size, ticket price, history, genre to insure that the results are mainly from the variables instead of from other factors and reduce the bias. Information on major mainstream/niche festivals were gathered mainly from Wikipedia and official websites. See detailed information in Appendix 1.
For this study, Glastonbury as the mainstream festival, and Hellfest as the niche festival were selected because they are both European festivals, and having a comparable size and ticket price but distinctive scope of audience. Below is a comparison of the two festivals.
Table II Basic information about Glastonbury and Hellfest festival
After two music festivals for this study were chosen, the following step is to choose different industries which are more related to respondents. Usually music festivals are sponsored by brands from industry such as Beverage, Media, Technology, Alcohol, and traveling etc. In order to make results more reliable, Beverage & Technology brands were chosen because they are more closely related to respondents. ten brands, five from each industry, were selected based on Forbes world’s most valuable brands ranking (2015) because it will provide convincible. They were Coca Cola (#4), Pepsi (#29), Nescafe (#31), Redbull (#76), Sprite (#98), and Apple (#1), Microsoft (#2), google (#3), Samsung (#7), and Ebay (#50).
Once the festivals and brands were selected, the next move was identifying brands which have distinctive brand equity to form brand-festival linkages. A questionnaire was used to test respondents’ opinion of brand personalities. In the questionnaire, Aaker’s five dimensions of brand personality was briefly explained. Respondents were asked to rank
Festival name Country Genre Ticket
price Duration Attendence Lineups
Glastonbury UK
Rock, Pop, Indie, Folk, Electronic
etc.
£225,00 5 135000
Florence and the Machine,, Kanye West, Motorhead, Suede, The Who etc.
Hellfest France
Nu Metal, Metalcore, Thrash Metal, and Viking Metal
etc.
€180 3 140000
Slipknot, Scorpions, Faith no more, Judas
Priest, Slash, Motorhead, Alice Cooper, Korn etc.
the 5 dimensions based on their view of these brands’ personality. See the questionnaire in Appendix. In total 30 respondents participated in this survey.
After the pre-test, Coca-cola is deemed to be an exciting brand (Mean=4.13), whereas Redbull tends to be more rugged (Mean=4.37). For technology industry, Microsoft is seen by customers as a competent(Mean=4.6) brand, meanwhile Google is seen as a more exciting (Mean=4) brand (Table II). Therefore, these four brands were suitable for the survey. The four sponsor brands and two festivals were combined to form eight sponsor-festival linkages as shown in table III. The purpose of this step is to enable an analysis of sponsor-festival combinations in terms of festival’s scope of audience with different sponsors’ brand personality.
Table III Perceived brand personality mean value
Brand&personality Coca1Cola Pepsi Redbull Nescafe Sprite Apple Microsoft Google Samsung Ebay Sincerely 2,93 3,40 1,93 3,00 3,87 2,37 2,93 2,97 2,97 3,73
Excitement 4,13 4,07 3,57 2,17 3,97 3,13 2,17 4,00 2,60 3,43
Competence 2,53 2,37 2,47 3,50 2,10 4,13 4,60 3,37 4,10 2,93
Sofistication 1,03 1,20 0,93 3,47 1,53 3,13 2,63 1,83 4,00 1,80
Ruggedness 2,30 2,10 4,37 1,00 1,90 0,87 0,90 1,07 1,07 1,37
Scope of audience Brand-festival
combination Industry
Mainstream festival group
Coca-Cola-Glastonbury Beverage Redbull-Glastonbury Google-Glastonbury Technology Microsoft-Glastonbury
Niche festival group
Coca-Cola-Hellfest Beverage Redbull-Hellfest Google-Hellfest Technology Microsoft-Hellfest
3.2.2 Survey
The questionnaire was divided into three main parts: 1. introduction; 2. questions about sponsor-festival congruence; 3. demographics and participants’ information. Firstly, subjects were shown with short introduction of Glastonbury festival and Hellfest metal festival on size, genre, ticket price and time etc. After reading the instruction, respondents gained the idea that the two festivals have the similar size, length and ticket price and the main difference between them is Glastonbury is a mainstream festival and Hellfest is a niche festival. After this procedure, subjects were exposed to sponsor-festival stimuli by reading information about sponsor brand’s personality. And they were asked to react to a set of the sponsor-festival congruence measurement scales. The introduction and questionnaire are presented in the Appendix. Subjects were asked to complete a sponsor-music festival congruence scale for the eight sponsor-festival combinations when they finished reading the questions.
To improve the accuracy of answers, all variables were measured on 7-point Likert scales with answer categories from 1 – “strongly disagree”, to 7 “strongly agree”. Sponsor-festival congruence was measured with the question: “How do you think of the fit between Cola as a sponsor and the music festival?”
3.2.3 Interview
Since brand personality is not a variable in the quantitative part, it will be necessary to get further explanations on how participants process sponsor-festival congruence. How
brand personality work in the formulation of perceived sponsor-festival fit? Interviews with the respondents could also help to get insights for further studies.
A method of semi-structured interviews was used to gain a better insight regarding the research topic. 8 interviewees were reached by the email address they filled in the questionnaire. Due to the special time of the study, the interview was not limited to face-to-face, but also including skype and telephone methods to reach interviewees. In a semi-structured interview, a list of themes or questions will be covered during an interview, but these themes and questions can vary per interview. (Saunders et al, 2007) This method gives the flexibility to alter questions during an interview, or between interviews, as to approach the topic better. Yet, the structured part of the interview enables the researcher to compare interviews with each other without having to interpret too much, which reduces the bias an interviewer might have.
3.3 Variables
3.3.1 Sponsor-festival congruence
Cornwell and Roy (2003) investigated how sponsor’s brand equity influence consumers’ perceived sponsor-event fit. In this study the same measurement for this variable was used due to the similarities between two studies. Perceived congruence were measured by a nine-item scale using semantic differentials on a seven-point scale. To decrease the The nine scales are: negative-positive, favorable-unfavorable (reverse-coded), bad-good, consistent-inconsistent coded), complementary-not complementary
(reverse-coded), inappropriate-appropriate, illogical-logical, well matched-poorly matched (reverse coded), well suited-poorly suited (reverse-coded).
3.3.2 Control variables
Considering other factors might also influence the result, age, gender and Region (European or Chinese) were used as control variables in this study. When it comes to sponsorship issues, age can be an important factor. The perception of the world could differ significantly between youngsters and older people. For example, teenagers mostly have not gained the full picture of what things should be like, while older people have more experience about life. Besides, different generations would hold different perceptions on a sponsor brand’s personality, image, and attitude etc. However, younger generations may have much more knowledge and interests about music festivals than older people. Therefore, it would be meaningful to take age into consideration.
Apart from age, gender is another important factor in information processing. Theoretically, sponsorship cues can be seen as associations and subjective cues, which might lead to completely different responses between different genders. Therefore, it can be meaningful to see how different genders will react to the sponsor-festival combinations.
In addition, region is also an interesting factor to take into account. Recent years, Chinese music festival market is newer than western’s and is growing rapidly. Considering the huge cultural differences, Chinese audiences might hold different views of music festival sponsorship. Besides, there are only a few literatures on music festival sponsorship
based in Chinese market. Therefore, it will be interesting to explore whether the congruence level will differ between Chinese and European groups.
4. Results
This chapter includes quantitative and qualitative parts. In quantitative part, data from the online survey was analyzed using SPSS software. In qualitative part, a content analysis which is used for analyzing and interpreting narrative data was done.
4.1 Quantitative analysis
4.1.1 DescriptiveBy using snowball sampling, in total 185 participants were reached for this study and 147 participants finished it. Participants were reached by an online survey on qualtrics.com
and had an age range from 16 to older than 31. The gender balance was 40.1% male and 59.9% female. Participants came from 17 countries, 57.8% of participants were from China and 40.1% were from Europe. The rest of participants (2.0%) came from other countries, for example South Africa, Thailand and Egyptian etc.
Characteristic No. of respondents % Age 16-20 7 4,76 21-25 95 64,63 26-30 33 22,45 31 or older 12 8,16 Gender Male 59 40,14 Female 88 59,86 Region China 85 57,82 Europe 59 40,14 Others 3 2,04
4.1.2 Data preparation
Data from the questionnaire was prepared before analyzing. Variables which represented manipulation checks consisted of multiple items. These items were asked in a 7-point Likert scale, varying from strongly disagree to strongly agree. In order to test the reliability, some items needed to be recoded, because they were contradicting each other. Recoding items included favorable-unfavorable, consistent-inconsistent, complementary-not complementary (reverse-coded), well matched-poorly matched and well suited-poorly suited.
After the variables were recoded, the 9 scales of measuring congruence needed to be put together to form new variables. To do this the internal validity of the variables had to be checked. This was done by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha. First some of the variables were recoded into the same direction and new variables were computed. After conducting a reliability check, the survey was found reliable (Cronbach’s α=0.760) (see Appendix 4).
4.1.3 Hypothesis
First I want to explore whether niche festival will have higher perceived sponsor-festival fit rating from subjects than mainstream festival. The influence of scope of audience on perceived sponsor-festival fit has been conducted through a comparison of the mean perceived sponsor-festival fit ratings of the mainstream festival with ratings of the niche festival. Thus one independent sample t-test was conducted to explore the hypothesis. Result of this analysis is presented in Table below.
Table VI Independent samples t-test of mainstream and niche festival groups
Overall, the perceived congruence level for mainstream (Mean=4.2294) and niche(Mean=4.2360) are almost of the same level, with niche festival slightly higher. From the result we can see it was not assuming equality of variance (Sig.=.009<.05), so the second line showed this difference for the group means which was not significant (p=.942>.05). Therefore, no significant difference was found between the congruence level of mainstream and niche festival groups.
However, if we see the result in a more detailed way, we can still find some evidence (Figure II). In the table on mean value of congruence of each brand-festival combination, Redbull as the sponsor and Hellfest as the festival has the highest fit (mean=5.12) and Redbull as the sponsor and Glastonbury as the festival was the second highest (mean=5.01). Microsoft as the sponsor and Hellfest has the lowest fit (mean=3.30) and Microsoft-Glastonbury has the second lowest fit (mean=3.60).
Figure II The congruence level of each brand-festival combination
When focusing on beverage brands, it shows that the perceived congruence level is higher when the brands are combined with niche festival. However, for technology brands, the perceived congruence level is higher when the brands are combined with mainstream festival. Here it is assumed that industry could be an influencer for sponsor-festival congruence. Hence, an independent sample t-test was done for the industry groups. The result showed that it was not assuming equality of variance (Sig.=.015<.05), so the second line showed this difference for the group means was significant (p=.000). Therefore, there is a significant difference between the congruence level of beverage and technology brand groups.
Table VII Independent samples t-test of beverage and technology brand groups
5.12 5.01 4.61 4.24 4.07 3.92 3.60 3.30 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 Me a n
4.1.4 Control variables
In this study, age, gender and region were taken as the control variables in order to test whether they are influential to the congruence level.
a.! Age
Firstly, the variable age was divided into two age groups: 16-25 as the younger group and 26-30 together with older than 31 was the older group. I took an independent sample t-test to check if age is an influencer to the sponsor-festival congruence. The results of independent sample t-test showed that there is no significant difference (p= .808>.05). Therefore, no significant statistical difference was found between younger and older age groups.
Table VIII Independent samples t-test of two age groups
I further took two other independent sample t-tests, one for mainstream and niche groups, the other one for beverage and technology groups, trying to find whether age will be influential. The results were not significant either. The detailed results are in appendix. Therefore, the results showed no significant differences of sponsor-festival congruence of younger and older groups.
26-30 years old people tends to rate higher for the congruence of niche festival. 31 years and older participants think the congruence of Redbull-Hellfest festival extremely high. No significant preference was found among 21-25 years old group.
Table IX The congruence level of different age groups
b.! Gender
Gender could be an important influencer to this survey. Here I took an independent sample t-test to check if men and women will react different towards sponsor-festival congruence. The results of independent sample t-test showed that there is no significant difference between male and female groups. Therefore, here is a lack of significant statistical difference between male and female groups.
Table X Independent t-test of different gender groups
c.! Region
In this study, region is assumed to be an influencer to the perceived sponsor-festival congruence. The main reasons of this assumption are because European and Chinese
Age CocaCola&Glast onbury Redbull&Glaston bury Google&Glasto nbury Microsoft&Gla stonbury Coca7 Cola&Hellfest Redbull&H ellfest Google&Hel lfest Microsoft&H ellfest 16720 4,2540 5,3333 4,4921 3,9683 3,8571 5,1905 3,7937 2,7619 21725 4,0550 5,0082 4,0959 3,6094 4,6725 5,0819 3,8632 3,4386 26730 4,1313 5,1044 4,4848 3,8956 4,6902 4,9192 4,1145 3,5185 31DorDolder 3,9444 4,5185 4,6111 2,4444 4,2870 5,8889 3,9074 1,9352
consumers tend to have huge cultural difference, distinctive music preferences and brand knowledge. Besides, the size and history of music festival market are also different. Therefore, in this study, the difference between Chinese (mainland) and European groups were investigated. Table IV shows the statistics of region.
By comparing the means of congruence, it is showed that apart from the congruence between Coca-Cola and Glastonbury festival, all the congruence level valued by European participants are higher than those by Chinese participants. In other words, European tend to hold more positive opinion on congruence level than Chinese.
To sum up, by doing SPSS analysis, 5 results were found in this part. First, even though no significant difference was found between the congruence level of mainstream and niche festival groups, by comparing the means, a significant difference of the congruence level between beverage and technology brand groups was proved. Second, no significant
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 Me a n Chinese European
divided into old and young groups. In addition, gender is proved not to be an influencer to the independent variable. About region as a factor, European participants tend to hold positive opinion on congruence level than Chinese participants. Therefore, the control variables have not been found to be significantly influential to the congruence level.
4.2 Qualitative analysis
To analyze the data gathered with the semi-structured interviews, a content analysis which is used for analyzing and interpreting narrative data was done. The interviews were made into a word-for-word transcript (see appendix 4). In this part, in total 8 interviewees, four Chinese and four European, were interviewed. Interview questions were made of two parts: the general questions and questions on congruence and brand personality. For the first part, interviewees were asked on their music preference and whether they like to go to festivals. The second part was based on these following sub-questions: what do you think of the sponsor brand personality? What do you think of the festival’s brand personality? And how do you process congruence level of sponsor-festival?
First the data are examined thoroughly in order to discard any biased or useless data. The analysis was done by focusing on a topic and comparing how the different respondents reacted on this topic. Similarities and differences that stood out were analyzed, and after all topics were covered, the topics were compared with each other and interpreted. After interpretation the research results were linked back to the theory and conclusions were formulated.
The first thing which was examined was how interviewees think of sponsor brands’ personality. As shown in the table below, Interviewees hold a various of opinions of one
brand’s personality. For Coca-Cola, the frequent appeared personality traits are energetic (Frequency=2) and young (Frequency=2). For Redbull, they are muscular (Frequency=4), sporty (Frequency=2) and Brave (Frequency=2). Interviewees perceived Google as creative/innovative/full of ideas (Frequency=5), and energetic (Frequency=2). However, the opinions towards Microsoft were quite different. Microsoft was seen as old (fashioned) (Frequency=5), stubborn (Frequency=2) but reliable (Frequency=2).
The second thing was to examine how interviewees think of music festival’s brand personality. All of the interviewees think the two festivals also have brand personality. Interviewee 4 hold the opinion that since festivals also have brand, therefore they definitely have brand personalities. When asked about how they think of the brand personality of Glastonbury and Hellfest, Interviewees expressed similar ideas. For Glastonbury, four interviewees think it is energetic, young, and two interviewees think it is out-going. When it comes to Hellfest metal festival, interviewees tend to consider it as rebellious (4) and rugged (3).
In addition, Interviewees were then asked if one brand’s personality is stronger than the others. six out of eight interviewees did not agree that there are any differences in the strength of brand personality among these four brands. Interviewee 7 considered Redbull as the brand with the strongest brand personality while Microsoft could rank the second because it is impressively stubborn.
After answering brand personality questions, interviewees were required to show how they process the sponsor-festival congruence level. The majority of interviewees agreed that they judge the congruence by the match of their brand personalities and target
customers. Interviewee 7 said he mainly took 2 factors into consideration: the brand personality and target consumer group, of both the sponsor brand and the festival, to see if they fit each other. He gave an example that Redbull and Hellfest have the highest fit, which is not only because Redbull’s ruggedness is perfect for sponsoring Hellfest, but also because the brand and the festival have the similar target group. Interviewee 3 basically held the same opinion by giving an example that “if Mecedez Benz sponsored Midi festival (a famous and most popular rock festival in China), that would be worse than Harley Davidson sponsoring Midi festival”. Because from interviewee 3’s perspective, Mecedez Benz represents upper-class and targets on wealth people while Midi festival is mainly targeting on young groups who love rock music and less wealthy. When asked about if beverage brands have higher congruence level than technology brands, interviewee 1 said it depends on brand personality, by giving an example that “if Fristi’s gonna sponsor Paaspop, it could be a bit weird. But if it’s coca-cola, I think then it will have no problem”. Therefore, it is shown that the match of sponsor and festival brand personality is essential to the sponsor-festival fit.
Apart from the reasons mentioned above, the congruence level might also be affected by how familiar of the audience to the sponsor brand and festival. interviewee 3 thinks the familiarity to the sponsor brand and festival could also affect the perceived sponsor-festival congruence. Besides, data on interviewees’ favorite music genre were also collected. Interviewee 8 said “if the brand and the festival are my favorite, then probably the fit will be higher." But based on the majority of answers, no significant cue was found between music preference and perceived sponsor-festival fit.
Co ca %Co la Re db ull Go ogl e Mi cro so ft Gl ast on bu ry 6 He llf est Inte rvie w ee 61 Du tc h 20 Mal e Ro ck/an d/ Te chno/ yo un g,/ soc ial ,/ Am eric an / spir it Mas cu lar ,/ spo rty funny ,/ inn ovati ve/ an d/fg ee ky Old/ fas hio ne d yo un g,/ en erg eti c dar k,/ ru gged ,/ crazy ,/an ti@ soc ial CG MH "I th in k I d id n’t th in k to o mu ch o n i t. Ju st a g en era l fe eli ng , yo u kn ow , if th ese tw o t hin gs fe el go od to p ut to ge th er" Inte rvie w ee 62 Chine se 24 Fem ale Chine se /pop hap pin ess / an d/s har ing En erg eti c,/ de ligh tfu l cre ati ve,s m ar t,/ har dw ork in g Old/ fas hio ne d,/ reli ab le en erg eti c,/ pas sio nate ,/ po siti ve ru gged ,/ dis tin cti ve CG MH " ") "(((") Inte rvie w ee 63 Chine se 20 Mal e Me tal co re,/ Me tal ,/o ld/ Chine se /pop/ mu sic en erg eti c,/ po sti ve/ atti tu de ,/ yo un g wild ,/m an ly reli ab le,/ do wn /to / ear th ,/ co m pe te nt/ im ag inati ve,/ ef fici en t po pu lar ,/ ou tg oin g,/ fak e cool ,/ de te rm ine d ,/sel f/ de sc ipline d RH MH "T he first th in g w hich w as in my mi nd w as th at if t he ima ge o f tw o b ra nd s fit w ell . If yo u sa y Me ce de z Be nz sp on so rin g Mi di fe st iva l, t ha t w ou ld b e w orse th an H arl ey D avi dso n sp on so rin g Mi di fe st iva l. Be ca use fo r me Be nz is mo re u pp er-cl ass an d t arg ete d o n ri ch g uys w hil e Mi di fe st iva l is ma in ly fo r yo un st ers w ho lo ve ro ck mu si c an d mo st ly no t ri ch . Be si de s I th in k th e f ami lia rity to th e sp on so r bra nd a nd fe st iva l co uld a lso a ffe ct my id ea s. " Inte rvie w ee 64 Ru ssian 26 Mal e Pin k/F loy d/an d/ Pe ar l/Jam ,/m etal po pu lar /an d/ en erg eti c Ou td oo rsy ,/ str on g,/ ag gre ssiv e yo un g,geek y,/ cu riou s,i nn ovati ve se lf@ de sc ipline d m ain str eam ,/ar ty ,/ en erg eti c,/ cu t/e dge pas sio nate ,/ brav e/an d/ m as cu lar RH MH "I th in k th e ch oice s co uld b e ve ry co nfu si ng , fo r exa mp le , I co uld n’t re all y te ll t he d iffe re nce b etw ee n “w ell-ma tch ed ” an d “w ell-su ite d”. So mo st o f ti me I j ust sco re th em by in st in ct . " Inte rvie w ee 65 Chine se 24 Fem ale Me tal /an d/Jazz op en ,/e as y@ go ing Brav e,/ pow erful no t/ tal kati ve,/ dis tan ced ,/ kn owl ed ged trad itio nal ,/ old, /sk illful So cial ,/ ou tg oin g tru stw orth y ,/re al GG MG " "(co la is mo re co mmo nly se en in re al life & ta rg et cu st ome rs& bra nd p erso na lity) Inte rvie w ee 66 Chine se 23 Fem ale Fo lk,/i nd ie,/tr ip@ hop ou tg oin g,/ tal kati ve,/ pas sio nate / an d/ im ag inati ve m as cu lar ,/ dum b, / bor ing full/of/ne w/ ide as ,/o pe n/ to /ne w/ th ing s stu bb orn ,/ old, / res po nsib le,/ reli ab le yo un g,/ frie ndly ,/ eas y@g oin g reb ellio us,/ dis tan t,/ alc ho ho lic CH RG "W ell I mi gh t b e n ot re ally ra tio na l, co z I d on 't like R ed bu ll, th us I th in k R ed bu ll is no t su ita ble fo r be in g a sp on so r fo r fe st iva ls. Bu t ju st p erso na l" Inte rvie w ee 67 Du tc h 23 Mal e Po p/an d/ro ck Co m pe te nt, / reli ab le risk @tak ing ,/ brav e,/ m as cu lar en erg eti c,/ cre ati ve/ an d/y ou ng stu bb orn ,/ old, bossy yo un g/an d/ en erg eti c,/ no t/sp ecial reb ellio us,/ ag ain st/ th e/ val ue /of/ m ajo rity ,/ cool RH MH "t he b ra nd p erso na lity an d t arg et co nsu me r gro up , o f b oth th e sp on so r bra nd a nd th e f est iva l. I w an t to se e i f th ey fit ea ch o th er. F or exa mp le , I th in k R ed bu ll a nd H ell fe st h ave th e hig he st fit , w hich is be ca use R ed bu ll’s ru gg ed ne ss is pe rf ect fo r sp on so rin g H ell fe st . Al so I t hin k th ey’ re so rt o f ta rg eti ng th e si mi la r gro up o f co nsu me rs/ au die nce s. " Inte rvie w ee 68 Briti sh 32 Mal e Jazz, /ro ck,/ po st/ ro ck Che erful, / succe ssful/ Sp orty ,/ m as cu lar ,/ pas sio nate ,/ ac tive inte llig en t,/ funny ,/ en erg eti c ar rog an t,/ old@ fas hio ne d yo un g,/ ope n@ mi nd ed ru gged ,/ ag gre ssiv e,/ reb ellio us RH MH "I t w ill ma in ly de pe nd o n my un de rst an din g o f b oth b ra nd s an d f est iva ls. Be si de s, if th e b ra nd a nd th e f est iva l a re my fa vo rite , th en p ro ba bly th e f it w ill be h ig he r. " No. Ag e Mu sic 6 Preferen ce Co mb ina ti on6 w ith6 hig he st6 fit Co mb ina ti on6 w ith6 low est6 fit How6to6j udge 6congr ue nc e Gen der Nationality Percei ved 6b ra nd 6p erso na lity
Apart from all the possible factors discussed above, the different level of perceived fit might also come from some (personal) irrational factors in consumers’ minds, like personal preference. For example, Interviewee 7 said the reason why she didn’t consider Redbull as the higher fit sponsor was purely because she did not like the brand at all (for the unhealthiness of the product). Therefore, she thought Redbull could not be a good sponsor. Obviously the underlying logic is irrational, but it is existing. At last, all of the interviewees agreed that brand personality is essential in forming high sponsor-festival congruence.
To sum up, the way how consumers perceive the sponsor-festival congruence mainly is to judge the match of their brand personalities and target customers. Apart from that, factors such as familiarity to the sponsor/festival and irrational personal brand preference might also affect consumers’ perceived congruence level. The strength of brand personality, however, is not a significant influencer to the congruence level.
5. Discussion
This research was designed to investigate the relationship between scope of audience and sponsor-festival congruence, and how brand personality intervenes in it. Three major findings emerged from this study, whom have several theoretical contributions and managerial implications. This section will discuss these findings, as well as the limitations of the research and suggestions for future research.
5.1 Findings
Starting with the hypothesis one, no direct effect was found for scope of audience’s influence on sponsor-festival congruence. The hypothesis that niche festivals have higher perceived sponsor-event fit than mainstream festivals were not proved. In other words, it is not scope of audience which take charge of the sponsor-festival congruence.
However, Industry was found influential in sponsor-festival congruence. Result showed that for beverage industry, congruence level for niche festival is higher than mainstream festival. But for technology brands, congruence level for mainstream festival is higher than niche festivals. Results showed a significant difference between the congruence level of beverage and technology brand groups. However, the result is not from the industry itself, but from the different brand personality. It might because if the match of brand personalities between sponsor and festival is low, mainstream festivals will bring higher congruence because they are attractive to larger group of people. This question was further investigated in the interview. The results shown that beverage brands which have been chosen for this study tend to have personalities like young, energetic, or
personalities as well. But for some technology brands which have personalities such as stubborn and old-fashioned will not fit well with festivals’ personality. Therefore, instead of industry difference, the way how consumers perceive the sponsor-festival congruence mainly is to judge the match of their brand personalities and target customers. Apart from that, factors such as familiarity to the sponsor/festival and irrational personal brand preference might also affect consumers’ perceived congruence level.
In this study demographic factors were also tested. Age and region were found influential to the congruence level but gender is found not influential to this study. 16-20 years old youngsters have the highest perceived congruence level for mainstream festival, while 26-30 years old people tend to rate higher for the congruence of niche festival. 31 years and older participants think the congruence of Redbull-Hellfest festival extremely high. No significant preference was found among 21-25 years old group. Youngsters prefer mainstream festivals in sponsorship probably was because they think the broader target the festival is, the better effect for the sponsor brand will be. Also because mainstream festivals are designed for the majority, it would be more acceptable for youngsters to accept the brand-event combination. Older people already gained deeper understandings of the world and more ideas about the brands, thus they tend to hold stronger opinions. It might be the reason why they think Redbull-Hellfest has very high congruence. The research showed European tend to hold positive opinion on congruence level than Chinese. It might because of the festival market in Europe is more mature than in China, and customers in Europe have deeper understanding of music festival. It might also because of the distinctive music taste between European and Chinese group. Because
in China people tend to listen to mostly pop music. The true music lover for niche music such as metal, experimental and shoe-gaze is scarce.
5.2 Contribution and implications
The findings of this research overall contribute to the literature on scope of festival audience, sponsor-festival congruence and brand personality. The stream of literature on how scope of audience and brand personality work on congruence is relatively new and still remains limited. In addition, this research provide evidence that brand personality is the major influencer to festival sponsorship.
This research has several managerial contributions. First, it is meaningful for brand managers who want to enhance the brand recognition, brand loyalty, and consumers’ attitude by sponsoring music festivals. This research provided guidance for them to pick up festivals which have better brand personality fits with the brand itself. Whether to choose mainstream or niche festivals will depend on the match of brand personality: if the match is poor, mainstream festival will be a safer choice. But in total, mainstream or niche will not make a dramatic difference in congruence level.
Accordingly, for festival organizers, this study also provides guidance on how to pick up the suitable sponsors. Sponsorship as a marketing communication tool is playing a significant role for festival organizers (Harvey, 2001). Meanwhile, for sponsor brands, selecting the best one among abundant of festivals seems to be essential. This study suggest festival organizers choose brands which have higher brand personality match with the festival.
5.3 Limitation and further study
This research also has a few limitations which need to be improved. The first limitation is about the design of theoretical model. If a scale on brand personality will be developed to make brand personality as an independent variable, then more results would be found. The second limitation is about the survey design. First, this thesis is written in English, but more than half of the participants and interviewees were Chinese. Therefore, questionnaires and interview questions were translated into Chinese when needed. Even though key words and measurements were translated based on Chinese theoretical literature, this could still infer translation problems. Second, only 147 out of 185 participants finished the survey. The reason might because of the length of the survey which stopped people from finishing the questionnaire or get bored. The boring aspect could come from the same scales used for the eight questions. It might also because some participants were not interested in this topic at all. Third, for participants, the reverse-coded scales on congruence could be somehow misleading. During answering the survey, participants might not notice that some of the scales are reversed, thus resulting in potential bias of the results. This can be improved by announcing in the beginning of the survey.
The third limitation is about the sample. The sample contains 57.8% of Chinese and only 40.1% European. And for the age group, the majority of participants are aged under 30. More efforts should be done to reach more participants to decrease the potential bias of samples. For further study, it will be meaningful to get more data about both Chinese and European festivals and audiences, and make them into comparison.
The last limitation is about the data. In this study, due to the limits of time and budget, data was gathered only through an online questionnaire and interview, instead of gathering first hand data from music festivals. And the sponsor-brand linkages were not real. I assume it would be meaningful if gathering data of real sponsor-brand linkages from several festivals for further studies. Besides, only four sponsor brands and two festivals were selected to form the brand-festival linkages. It would be more convincing if more brands and festivals could be taken into consideration.
5.4 Conclusion
The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between scope of audience and sponsor-festival congruence, and how brand personality intervenes in it. Few study have been done on this gap. This study mainly based on Roy and Cornwell (2003) and Leenders et. al (2005)’s work. To answer the research question and test the hypotheses, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. Perceived sponsor-festival congruence, age, gender, and region were taken as the variables. In total 147 participants took part in the online survey.
Three major findings arise from the research. The first one is that scope of audience is not influential to the sponsor-festival fit. The second one is brand personality matters in sponsor-festival congruence. The better match of the brand personalities between sponsor and festival, the higher sponsor-festival congruence it will be for the sponsorship. If the match is poor, it will be safer for sponsors to look for mainstream festivals instead of niche festivals.
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