The concept of (in)congruence in sponsorships and the effect on sponsor's brand attitude : the moderating role of involvement

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Master's Thesis

Graduate School of Communication Master's programme Communication Science

26/06/2015

"The concept of (in)congruence in sponsorships and the effect on sponsor's brand attitude. The moderating role of involvement."

Author: Georgios Aslanidis/ Student no.: 10609911 Supervisor: Dr. Gert-Jan de Bruijn

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Table of contents

Abstract ... 3

Introduction ... 4

Theoretical Framework ... 5

Methods... 11

Design and participants ... 11

Procedure ... 12

Materials and measures ... 13

Results ... 144

Control variables... 144

Randomization check ... 15

Main analysis ... 15

Discussion and Conclusion ... 188

Effects of different levels of (in)congruence ... 19

Effects of brand involvement ... 20

Limitations and Further Research ... 22

Managerial Implications ... 233

References ... 244

Appendix ... Error! Bookmark not defined. Questionnaire ... 27

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Abstract

Even during the economic crisis, global spending of sponsorships, as promotional activities, has seen a continuous growth. Combined with the fact that peoples' relationship with the brands and therefore with brands' communication strategy is constantly changing, academics and practitioners try to deeper understand aspects of the topic. The concept of (in)congruence between sponsor brand and event is

examined, as well as the moderating role of involvement. A between subjects online experimental design with three conditions was employed. A number of 147

participants exposed to either congruent, moderate incongruent or extreme

incongruent sponsorships. Results indicated that congruent sponsorships contributed to higher brand attitude of the sponsor brand than moderate and extreme incongruent. A significant difference between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships was not found for high or low involved situation but the extreme incongruent

sponsorship significantly reported the lowest results in sponsor's brand attitude in both cases. Suggestions for further research and managerial implications are discussed.

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Introduction

Over the last few years, sponsorship has become an effective communication tool for practitioners to promote their brands (Groza et al., 2012) and stand out the competition. Due to the extreme market segmentation and the rise of digital marketing communication, practitioners try to make the most out of the various promotional activities they have, in order to maximize the profits for their brands. Despite the economic downturn of the last years, global sponsorship spending has been on continuous and stable increase, depicting its strategic importance for brands' communication plan. From 2010 until 2014 the sponsorship spending worldwide reported an increase of 10 billion dollars, with an expected increase of 4.1% in 2015 (IEG, 2015). Even in Europe which shows extremely feeble economic growth rates, a rise of 3.3% spending in sponsorship activities by European companies is expected (IEG, 2015). Therefore, a continuous investigation of sponsorship activities and their effects is important and will enable practitioners to define betters ways to attract consumers' interest.

The academic contribution is of great importance. Meenaghan (2013) stresses the fact that academic community can contribute to the development of new research methodologies for measuring the performance and the effects of sponsorships. Moreover, as a communication tool used by brands, sponsorships attract scientific attention and various research have addressed several aspects of this field. One of those, that several researchers have examined, is the role of (in)congruence between the sponsor brand and sponsored event. The topic has been in the center of discussion for its effect on consumers' cognitive and affective responses. The present study aimed at investigating those responses and specifically the effect on brand attitude.

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An important concept in communication research, that of involvement, is explored for its moderating effects. Thus, from an academic perspective, the research wants to elaborate of previous theories and results and contribute with further findings to this scientific topic.

Specifically, the study aims at examining the effects of different levels of (in)congruence between the sponsor brand and the sponsored event, on attitude towards the sponsor brand, and to what extent this relationship is moderated by brand involvement.

Theoretical Framework

Congruence has been defined as a logical relationship between a sponsor brand and the sponsored event (Weeks et al., 2008) that perceived as harmonious in peoples' mind (Speed & Thompson, 2000). Various research have revealed that congruent compared to incongruent sponsorships are more effective, resulting in more positive outcomes in terms of attitude (sponsor, event, sponsorship) (Rifon et al., 2004), image and equity (Grohs & Reisinger, 2014; Olson, 2010 ) of the sponsor brand and recall (sponsor brand, sponsorship) (Rodgers, 2003). Despite the thoroughly examined concept of congruence, little research has been made on the notion of moderate incongruity in the field of sponsorship. Moderate incongruity refers to the state when two items share some common characteristics but their congruence is not obvious. That is, the psychological situation when incongruity can be resolved by consumers through cognitive elaboration (Mandler, 1982). Therefore, moderate incongruity stands at a level between congruity and extreme incongruity. Mandler (1982) first tested "moderate incongruity" between a schema and a product and found positive effects on product and ad evaluations. Along with congruence and

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extreme incongruence, this research incorporates also the concept of moderate incongruity and aims to reveal the different effects at each of those three levels. Several underline mechanisms explain how consumers' behavior is being affected under congruent as well as incongruent situations.

According to the spreading activation model, consumers' memory is a network of interconnected nodes where each one represents a concept (Anderson, 1983). When a link between those concepts is presented, nodes are activated and this activation spreads in memory, in order for consumers to process the information (Rodgers, 2003). This model is closely related to the notion of schemata. Consumers hold specific associations in their mind for the brands. Brand schemata are preexisting concepts and knowledge (Yi, 1990) stored in people's minds about the brands as a result of previous processing that the consumer engaged with the brand (Dahlen et al., 2008). Dahlen (2008, p. 58) states that "when consumers encounter new information about a brand, the brand schema is activated and information is interpreted in light of it". Therefore, when consumers exposed to sponsorships, associations immediately retrieved in mind in order to process information regarding the sponsor brand and the sponsored event. Consequently, when consumers encounter congruent sponsorships it is easier for them to establish a connection between the sponsor and the "sponsee", since the preexisting associations for both match, and the purpose of the sponsorship seems logical to them. The fit provides a cognitive consistency (Lacey & Close, 2013), which will lead to favorable evaluations since it conforms with peoples' expectations and predictions (Mandler, 1982), in contrast to incongruent condition.

In addition, as derived from Rodgers (2003, p. 69), "highly accessible attitudes are more likely to influence brand evaluations than less accessible attitudes". It that case, congruence between the sponsor brand and the sponsored event will facilitate

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the accessibility of the attitude and thus will generate more positive attitudes compared to incongruent sponsorship.

Moreover, theories and empirical findings from the advertising research give further support to the advantage of congruent over incongruent conditions in the field of communication research. In the field of advertising, Yi (1990) found that context affect the persuasive impact of the advertisement (Ab, Aad) through cognitive and

affective priming. Cognitive priming is "the degree to which media context primes information that related semantically with the ad or the advertised product" (Janssens et al., 2012, p. 581). Therefore, placing a print ad in a thematic congruent magazine can prime the content of the advertisement. The match between the ad and the

magazine will be easier (Fazio et al., 1986; Wentura, 1999) but besides that, the most important point is that the match is seen as valuable because it comes in harmony with the consumers interests (Aaker & Brown, 1972; Cannon, 1982). From the sponsorship perspective, the event can be the context in which the sponsor brand is included. In congruent sponsorships, event will prime information about and the brand itself, and that could lead to more positive attitudes toward the brand.

According to the schema congruity theory (Meyers-Levy & Tybout 1989) extreme incongruity is difficult to put in agreement with consumers' existing

associations. Such inconsistencies in consumers' memory network, further complicate the cognitive processing (Groza et al., 2012) and thus lead to frustration and

ultimately in negative evaluations (Mandler 1982). The sponsor brand shares no common characteristics with the sponsored event and therefore no connection can be established between them. Additionally, the lack of similarity minimizes the

possibilities that consumer would have to resolve the incongruity. Contrary to extreme incongruity, in moderate incongruity, as mentioned previously, sponsor brand and the

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sponsor event appear a certain level of association. Under that circumstances, it is possible that moderate incongruity can be resolved resulting in more positive attitudes towards the sponsor brand (Mandler, 1982). Thus, the moderate incongruent sponsors can benefit at some point from their level of similarity with the sponsored event but still their outcomes are not as effective as that of a congruent sponsor.

Carefully consider the theories as well as the empirical findings discussed, it is expected that:

H1. Congruent sponsorships will produce more positive attitudes towards the

sponsor brand than extreme and moderate incongruent sponsorships.

H2. Moderate incongruent sponsorships will produce more positive attitudes

towards the sponsor brand than extreme incongruent sponsorships.

Little evidence has been found on the effects of involvement on the

relationship between the fit of the sponsorship and consumers attitude towards the sponsor brand. Some research addressed activity (Grohs & Reisinger, 2014) and event involvement (Mazodier & Quester, 2014) but not the actual involvement with the sponsor brand. This research investigates the moderating role of involvement with the sponsor brand among congruent, moderate and extreme incongruent sponsorships. When it comes to persuasion, involvement holds a prominent position and research have been shown that brand involvement, which is the case in this study, affects the attitude toward the brand (Petty et al., 1983; Phelps & Thorson, 1991). Involvement determines consumers' motivation to engage in cognitive activities and thus

elaboration of several messages and information (Petty et al., 1983). Therefore, involvement will also have an effect on how people perceive different levels of fit in sponsorships and their subsequent reactions.

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In low involvement condition people do not engage in thorough elaboration of the information presented (sponsorship). In that case, preexisting knowledge and structures in peoples' mind about the brand (brand schemata) will be activated in order to retrieve information easily without much cognitive effort, as previously mentioned. Peripheral cues are crucial determinants of evaluations in low involvement conditions (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983). In that case, congruent sponsorship will serve as a peripheral cue to activate these semantic networks of sponsor and "sponsee" according to the notion of priming (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002). Consumers, even though low involved, can easily identify the connection and associate the sponsor brand with the event. They experience a sense of satisfaction, by understanding the sponsor - "sponsee" connection without much cognitive elaboration and meeting their memory expectations. This satisfaction could result to more positive evaluations of the sponsor brand. On the other hand, it seems impossible for consumers, especially the low involved, who encounter extreme incongruity sponsorships to identify a connection in these pairings. Those people have no intention to seek or process information, and they will soon abandon any cognitive processing of this extremely irrelevant sponsorship, because they don't have a clue to establish a logical connection between sponsor and event.

Peoples' evaluations according to the fit level conditions are changing as their need for cognitive elaboration is changing from low to high involvement. Highly involved people tend to engage in effortful information processing and thus may be more keen on processing (moderate) incongruent conditions (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). In high involvement situation where thorough elaboration takes place,

(moderate) incongruence will attract consumers attention due to unexpectedness (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002). Thus, (moderate) incongruent sponsorships, will probably be

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seen as interesting and innovative since they challenge existing brand associations. Consumers may perceive those sponsorships as a new and entertaining way that brands use in order to revitalized their relationship with them (Sjodin & Törn, 2006) These thoughts could possibly lead to positive attitudes regarding the sponsor brand. Moreover, peoples' extensive elaboration on the (moderate) incongruity in order to identify the relationship between the parts of the sponsorship, will generate positive attitudes, since people in highly involved conditions enjoy this kind of intellectual challenging processes (Halkias & Kokkinaki, 2011). At this point, it has to be

mentioned that the previous rationale, just discussed, applies only to moderate and not to extreme incongruent sponsorships, because only in the moderate incongruent situation, the sponsor brand and event share some common characteristics which can be connected with existing associations and enhance the cognitive elaboration in order for consumers to resolve the incongruity.

In highly involved conditions, extremely incongruent sponsorships might have undesirable effects for the sponsor brand. Since consumers elaborate more on the information presented, in that case of sponsorship, it is possible that they will generate thoughts regarding the underline motives of the sponsor brand to engage in such activity. Several studies revealed that when consumers realize underline commercial motives of sponsor brands their evaluation is much less reduced (Rifon et al., 2004). As for the congruent sponsorships, will continue to have a positive effect but less than moderate incongruent since they may not be perceived challenging enough when people are highly involved. Consequently, hypotheses were formulated as follows:

H3. In case of low brand involvement congruent sponsorships will produce

more positive attitudes towards the sponsor brand than both extreme and moderate incongruent sponsorships.

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H4. In case of high brand involvement moderate incongruent sponsorships

will produce more positive attitudes towards the sponsor brand than congruent sponsorships.

H5. In case of high brand involvement extreme incongruent sponsorships will

produce the most negative attitudes towards the sponsor brand.

Methods

Design and participants

A sample of 147 participants was gathered over a period of 8 days (21/05 - 29/05) at the end of May 2015 and randomlyexposed to one of threemanipulations. Participants were contacted through online social media platforms and personal messages to their email addresses. The study sample consisted of 61.9% men and the mean age was 27.5 years old (SD= 5.4). A between subjects experimental design with three different conditions was used, in which advertisings of sponsorships were depicted, representing the three types of sponsorships (congruent, moderate incongruent, extreme incongruent) examined. Each condition includedonly one sponsorship and the brand was the same across all conditions, in order to ensure the reliability of the results and avoid that reactions were generated due to the variety of brands. A pre-test was also conducted to identify the effectiveness of the

manipulations. During the pre-test participants were randomly assigned to three conditions. Each condition (congruent, moderate incongruent, extreme incongruent) depicted two sponsorship advertisings with the same brand among all conditions. One sponsorship from each condition that was identified as the most suitable and effective, used for the main experiment.

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Procedure

Participants were recruited through online social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) and their email addresses by receiving a short message, with a link

attached, requesting their participation. The message was kindly asking participants to fill out a questionnaire for a research project, without being specific in order to avoid awareness of the people that took part and could possibly affect their answers.

The experiment took place online. By clicking on the link attached, participants redirected to Qualtrics market research software interface, where the experiment took place. The first block of questions that all participants had to answer referred to some demographic facts such as age, gender and educational level. After that, each participant was randomly assigned to one of the three conditions

(congruent, moderate incongruent, extreme incongruent) examined.

Each of the conditions included an advertising stimulus that was depicting the sponsor brand and the sponsored event. People exposed to the congruent condition saw the brand "Coca-Cola" sponsoring a food and drink event and those exposed to the moderate incongruent presented with "Coca-Cola" being the sponsor of a marketing festival. In the end, the extreme incongruent condition showed "Coca-Cola" sponsoring a congress regarding the diabetes.

The same process was followed for all the three conditions. Before being exposed to the stimulus material, participants were asked a question regarding their involvement with the brand "Coca-Cola". Involvement was reported in the beginning of the experimental process in order to remain unaffected from the exposure to the sponsorship.

After the exposure to the several sponsorship conditions participants had to fill out a question referring to their attitude towards the brand "Coca-Cola". A final

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question was asking participants to report any thoughts that they had regarding the study. The purpose of the question was to identify if any of the participants was aware of the aim of the research and exclude him/her from the database to avoid bias in the results. Once all questions were completed, respondents were debriefed and thanked for their participation. For ethical reasons an email was sent to the participants who asked for it during the study, with the purpose of informing them about the real aims and results of the experiment.

Materials and measures

The concept of congruency and its different levels were presented through print advertisements of the respective sponsorships. For the purpose of the research the well known brand "Coca-Cola" was employed. According to McDaniel (1999) respondents familiarity with the brand enhances the generalization of the results and therefore the ecological validity of the study since "sponsorship tends to be a strategy employed by mature brands; therefore sponsorship research employing a fictional or unknown brand would have little applied value" (McDaniel, 1999, p. 174).

In the congruent condition "Coca-Cola" was presented to sponsor "ife - the international food and drink event" in London. As for the moderate incongruent condition, "Coca-Cola" appeared to be the sponsor of the "FESTIVAL OF

MARKETING" also taking place in the British capital. Last but not least, the extreme incongruent sponsorship was that of "Coca-Cola" sponsoring the "IDF 2015 -

Vancouver world diabetes congress". All the advertisements were presented with the photo of the event followed by the same short slogan, "Sponsored by Coca-Cola" in order to avoid any bias in respondents' answers that could rise because of slogan differences.

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Brand involvement. The level of participants’ brand involvement has been assessed through the revised version of the personal involvement inventory (PII) proposed by Zaichkowsky (1994) and proved to be reliable α > .90. Subjects were asked to evaluate the brand on a seven-point scale, for each of the nine bipolar items, which were as follows: "Unimportant/important", "Irrelevant/relevant",

"Meaningless/meaningful", "Worthless/Valuable", "Unexciting/exciting", "Unappealing/appealing", "Unfascinating/fascinating", "Not needed/needed",

"Boring/Interesting". Response options close to 1 in the measurement scale indicated the low levels of brand involvement whereas higher scores (closer to 7) represented a stronger brand involvement.

Brand attitude. Participants were asked to give their general impression of the brand with a 5 seven-point semantic differential item scale, where 1 represents the low and 7 the high brand attitude, as derived from Spears and Singh (2004) research. The scale consisted of the 5 most representative items generated from a marketing literature review and consequent exploratory and confirmatory studies in order to be selected. The aforementioned selected items were respectively: “Unappealing/appealing” (α=.95) “Bad/good” (α=.91) “Unpleasant/pleasant” (α=.91) “Unfavorable/favorable” (α=.95) “Unlikable/likable” (α=.90).

Demographics. Participants were asked to fill out their gender, age and educational level in a set of open as well as close questions with preselected options.

Results

Control variables

In order to see if age and gender of the participants were significantly correlated with the attitude toward the advertised brand, Pearson's and Spearman's

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correlation coefficients were conducted. Both age (r = -.129, p = .120) and gender (rs

= -.129, p = .120) showed non-significant result in their relationship with brand attitude and therefore there was no need of controlling for these variables in our analysis.

Randomization check

An analysis of variance was conducted and showed that age (F (2,144) = .513, p = .600) and gender (F (2,144) = 1.327, p = .268) were equally distributed within the conditions.

Main analysis

A two way analysis of variance was conducted in order to investigate the effects of congruency concept on brand attitude as well as the effects of involvement on that main relationship. The first and the second hypothesis stated that congruent sponsorships will generate more positive attitudes towards the sponsor brand than moderate incongruent and extreme incongruent sponsorships. The results showed a significant main effect of the congruency concept (condition) on participants' attitude toward the sponsor brand. Specifically, the results showed that people tend to have more favorable attitudes toward a brand in case of congruent sponsorships, followed by moderate and extreme incongruent (F (2,141) = 26.6, p < .001, Mcongruent = 4.73,

SD = 1.41; Mmoderate incongruent = 3.83, SD = 1.40; Mextreme incongruent = 2.66, SD = 1.35)

and therefore the hypotheses were accepted. A post-hoc test revealed that the differences between all the groups were significant (p< .05).

Table 1. Results of a two way analysis of variance (N=147)

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Table 2. Results of one way analysis of variance for brand attitude between the conditions

Mean Standard Deviation N

Congruent 4.73 1.41 48

Moderate incongruent 3.83 1.40 50

Extreme incongruent 2.66 1.35 49

A significant interaction effect (F (2,141) = 3.27, p = .041) between brand involvement and the different types of sponsorships (congruency concept). In order to examine the accuracy of the hypotheses, further analysis was conducted within low and highly involved participants.

The third hypothesis stated that in case of low brand involvement congruent sponsorships will produce more positive attitudes than moderate and extreme

incongruent sponsorships. Within the low involvement situation, attitude towards the brand was higher for those exposed to the congruent sponsorship (Mcongruent = 3.20, SD

= 1.23) than those in the moderate (Mmoderate incongruent = 2.92, SD = 0.670) and extreme

incongruent sponsorship (Mextreme incongruent = 2.17, SD = 1.16). However, the

hypothesis was partially confirmed. A post-hoc test revealed that attitude towards the

Condition 59.83 2 29.92 26.6 <.001 .27

Involvement 114.32 1 114.32 101.66 < .001 .42

Involvement*Condition 7.35 2 3.67 3.27 .041 .04

Error 158.57 141 1.13

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sponsor brand did not differ between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships (Mdifference = .27, p = 1), but the difference was significant between

congruent and extreme incongruent (Mdifference = 1.02, p = .007) and between moderate

and extreme incongruent sponsorships (Mdifference = .75, p = .022).

The last two hypotheses refer to the high involvement situation. The fourth hypothesis, in contrast to the third in the low involvement condition, stated that attitude towards the sponsor brand will higher for those exposed to the moderate incongruent than the congruent sponsorship, followed by the last hypothesis which stated that extreme incongruent sponsorship, just as in the low involvement situation, will produce the most negative attitudes towards the sponsor brand. Within the high involvement situation, attitude towards the brand was higher for those exposed to the congruent sponsorship (Mcongruent = 5.43, SD = 0.81) than those in the moderate

(Mmoderate incongruent = 4.99, SD = 1.23) and extreme incongruent sponsorship (Mextreme

incongruent = 3.36, SD = 1.31). However, only the last hypothesis confirmed. A post-hoc

test revealed that attitude towards the sponsor brand did not differ between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships (Mdifference = .45, p = .434), but the difference

was significant between congruent and extreme incongruent (Mdifference = 2.08, p <

.001) and between moderate and extreme incongruent sponsorships (Mdifference = 1.63,

p < .001).

Table 3. Results of one way analysis of variance for brand attitude between the conditions in low involved participants

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Table 4. Results of one way analysis of variance for brand attitude between the conditions in highly involved participants

Mean Standard Deviation N

Discussion and Conclusion

The present study focused on examining the effects of the congruence concept between a sponsor brand and the sponsored event on consumer's attitude towards the brand and the moderating role of brand involvement. For the main relationship between the three different levels of congruence and the attitude towards the brand, the results showed that effects of congruence are significantly higher than those of moderate and extreme incongruent. Participants of the online experiment that indicated a low involvement with the sponsor brand, showed a difference in their attitude towards the brand between the congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorship, but the results were not significant. However, under the same low involved situation the difference between congruent and extreme incongruent as well as that of moderate and extreme incongruent sponsorship on brand attitude was found to be significant. Additionally, in the high involvement condition the excepted

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sponsorships existed but were not significant, in contrast to the extreme incongruent sponsorship which again had the most negative effect on attitude towards the sponsor brand with significant difference from moderate incongruent and congruent condition.

Effects of different levels of (in)congruence

In line with the theoretical propositions congruent sponsorship proved to be the most effective, followed by moderate and extreme incongruent sponsorship. This finding is in line with theories and previous research applied to sponsorships about the positive effects of congruency (Rifon et al., 2004; Grohs & Reisinger, 2014; Rodgers, 2003), as well as in the field of advertising research (Aaker & Brown, 1972; Cannon, 1982; Fazio et al., 1986; Janssens et al., 2012; Wentura, 1999). Theories about brand schemata (Yi, 1990) and the spreading activation model (Anderson, 1983), support this finding. People hold specific associations about brands in their mind from previous engagement with them. Therefore, in every exposure to the brand, associations are activated and consumers elaborate on the information they see according to these associations (Dahlen et al., 2008). In case that these information are consistent with brand schemata, it is easier for consumers to formulate a logical explanation for brand's presence within a specific context and some of the brand's activities. This satisfaction of the expectations, results to more positive attitudes towards the brand (Mandler, 1982). This is why in that research Coca-Cola's

sponsorship of the food and drink event revealed the most positive reactions on brand attitude. It was cognitively easy for consumers to associate the leading beverage brand with a drink and food event. On the other hand, information incongruent to the

consumers' existing schemata are difficult to interpret. People face difficulties during this elaboration process to establish a coherent relationship between their existing brand associations and the new information they encounter for the brand. Thus,

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cognitive frustration appears which leads to negative evaluations (Mandler, 1982). Indeed, the results proved this point. Attitude towards "Coca-Cola" was the worst when appeared in the extreme incongruent sponsorship. It is also very interesting to see that our initial assumption regarding moderate incongruence justified. When the brand shares some common characteristics with the sponsored event and the

difference is not extremely obvious, it is possible to benefit from that situation by getting more positive responses than extreme incongruent sponsorships.

Effects of brand involvement

Among the participants who reported low involvement with "Coca-Cola" , the mean difference of brand attitude between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships, was not significantly different. In case of low involvement consumer's use, evaluation and intention to purchase a brand is habitual and based on sensory gratification (Vaughn, 1980). They want to reduce the time they spent as well as the brain activity regarding to information about the brand. Therefore, consumers do not focus on attributes of the brand and engagement with the brand (e.g. evaluation, purchase) is habitual and mostly based on their senses. Since consumers' concern about the sponsor brand was not high, this could be a possible explanation on why congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships did not differ significantly on their effect on participants' attitude towards "Coca-Cola", as it was hypothesized.

Furthermore, consumers process information from a stimuli with different levels of attention (Janssens et al., 2012). There is the possibility, for instance, in case of low involvement, were the elaboration likelihood is low (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), that peoples' attention to the stimuli presented (sponsorship ad), and therefore to the brand, being reduced and so their attitude remains unaffected without significant difference between the two conditions (congruent - moderate incongruent). Although, attitude

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towards "Coca-Cola" did not differ significantly between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships, our expectations regarding the extreme incongruent

conditions confirmed. Even in low involvement situation, where people do not engage in effortful thinking and their can easily attention be distracted, the unexpectedness of an extreme incongruent sponsorship is capable to attract consumers' attention.

However, since no connection can be found between the sponsor brand and the event, evaluation of the brand turn to be significantly more negative than the other types of sponsorships, as also revealed from this study.

Concerning the highly involved participants, we also saw that attitude towards "Coca-Cola" did not differ significantly when the brand presented to sponsor either a congruent or a moderate incongruent event. It was expected that subjects who

reported high involvement with the sponsor brand would be interested and see as something challenging "Coca-Cola's" initiative to sponsor a moderately incongruent event, but prospects of the study were not satisfied. One explanation of this result could be the average level of involvement reported from subjects in this research which was relatively low on the seven point scale that the variable was measured. The fact that part of the highly involved participants were not so "explicitly" highly

involved, could have caused an effect. At that point, it would be also interesting to stress the fact that attitude towards "Coca-Cola" is significantly more positive in high than low involvement condition. Results of the post hoc showed that sponsor brand attitude differences between congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships among high and low involved subjects were significant (p< .001). That difference could be the outcome of higher elaboration that takes place in high involvement conditions (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). According to the theoretical propositions made, in high involvement, moderate incongruent sponsorships will be seen as a good alternative

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and interesting new strategy of the brand (Sjodin & Törn, 2006) which will lead to positive results. Consequently, there is a potential that this mechanism is applicable and explains the difference between sponsor attitude in low and high involvement but it did not work within the high involvement situation for instance because of the average overall level of involvement, as mentioned above. Last but not least, it is worth to notice that extreme incongruent sponsorships produced, just as in the low involvement condition, the most negative attitudes towards "Coca-Cola" with statistically significant difference from both congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships.

Limitations and further research

The study incorporated some interesting concepts and managed to reveal useful scientific and practical results. However, there are things that can be improved in order to facilitate future researchers that are willing to further investigate this research topic.

One crucial part that needs to be discussed and might have had an effect in the results is the moderator, "brand involvement". Nowadays, significantly more than the past people develop specific relationships with brands, both the one's they consume and those they don't. More and more brands are actually trying to do "branding" and develop brand communication strategies. Those changes in the last few years make the development of a "modern" scale of involvement necessary. A scale that will take into account all the aspects of involvement and depict consumers' involvement in a most effective way. The scale of Zaichkowsky (1994) used in this research is reliable but it might miss some aspects of the relationship that consumers develop with the brands in our days.

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In this research the brand "Coca-Cola" was used. "Coca-Cola" is a very common and well known brand. According to Lange and Dahlén (2003) it is difficult to change attitude towards familiar, since brand schemata are well established. Nevertheless, the experiment managed to prove some changes in consumers' attitude through different types of sponsorships and involvement conditions. The use of a less familiar brand would be better for future studies since it could reveal some more significant results especially in the terms of the moderating role of involvement.

Based on that, it would be a good proposal for future researchers to test the moderating role of involvement with brands coming from niche markets. Involvement could work better with less known brands from niche markets especially because the distinction between high and low involved people would be more clear compared to high and low involved consumers with common brands. This is something that might had an effect also in this research.

In this study almost 90% of the participants had obtained at least a bachelor's degree. This makes them familiar with research projects and their answers could be unconsciously biased. Although, those who reported that understood the concept of the study were excluded from the sample, future research should focus on obtaining participants with different backgrounds, in order to enhance the generalization of the results.

Another thing that could enhance the generalization of the results is the use of a more complex set in terms of the research design with more brands and events included from different fields in order to further examine the applicability and effectiveness of the model.

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The study provides useful information to a broad spectrum of practitioners including communication strategists, marketing and brand managers, advertisers as well as media planners. When it comes to decision making process in order to define a specific strategy priority should be given to congruent sponsorships as promotional tool able to generate positive attitudes towards a brand. In any case, and regardless the target group practitioners engaged with a brand's promotional plan should avoid sponsorships that appear to be extremely incongruent with the sponsored event.

The present research indicated through significant results that extreme incongruent sponsorships are responsible for the most negative effects on sponsor's brand attitude. When it comes to involvement and specific target groups practitioners are able to use both congruent and moderate incongruent sponsorships in order to achieve better brand attitude towards their brand, but only after careful consideration. In that case, it has to be proposed that thorough market research about the most suitable moderate incongruent event should be conducted before managers take any decision regarding their promotional activities. More scientific research needs to be done in the concept of moderate incongruence to ensure trustworthy results regarding the effects on brand attitude and other cognitive and affective responses to a brand.

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Appendix Questionnaire

Introduction block

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank for participating in this research for a Master's thesis.

The study is performed under the responsibility of the Amsterdam School of

Communication Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. You are therefore guaranteed that your demographic information and data will be processed anonymously and will not be distributed to third parties. Participation occurs voluntarily, meaning that you can withdraw yourself from participation at any time before or during the survey, or revoke your participation within 24 hours after the survey. Furthermore, you will not be exposed to explicit materials and there will be no willful deception, risks, or inconvenience involved in participation.

Nonetheless, if you would have any remarks or complaints about the followed procedure, please contact a member of the ASCoR Ethical Committee at the

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following address: ASCoR Secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐525

3680; ascor‐secr‐fmg@uva.nl. Your complaints will be handled confidentially. For more information about the research and the invitation to participate, you are welcome to contact the project leader Georgios Aslanidis

(georgios.aslanidis@student.uva.nl) at any time.

Demographics

Q1. What is your gender?

o Male o Female

Q2. What is your age?

Q3. What is the highest level of education you have completed?

o Less than High School o High School

o Bachelor's Degree o Master's Degree o Doctoral Degree

Conditions (After the demographic questions each participant exposed to only one of

the following conditions)

Congruent condition

Q4. On scale from 1 to 7 buying "Coca-Cola" for me is:

Unimportant |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Important Irrelevant |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Relevant Meaningless |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Meaningful Worthless |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Valuable Unexciting |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Exciting Unappealing |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Appealing Unfascinating |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Fascinating

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Not needed |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Needed

Boring |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Interesting

Q5. Please carefully look at the following sponsorship

Q6. On a scale from 1 to 7, how do you evaluate "Coca-Cola"?

Bad |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Good

Unappealing |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Appealing

Unpleasant |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Pleasant

Unlikeable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Likeable

Unfavorable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Favorable

Moderate incongruent condition

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Q8. Please carefully look at the following sponsorship

Q9. On a scale from 1 to 7, how do you evaluate "Coca-Cola"?

Bad |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Good

Unappealing |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Appealing

Unpleasant |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Pleasant

Unlikeable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Likeable

Unfavorable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Favorable

Extreme incongruent condition

Boring |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Interesting

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Q12. On a scale from 1 to 7, how do you evaluate "Coca-Cola"? Bad |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Good Unappealing |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Appealing Unpleasant |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Pleasant Unlikeable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Likeable Unfavorable |____|____|____|____| ____|____|____|Favorable

Q13. Please write down if you have any comments regarding the study.

Thank you very much for your participating in the research.

Pre-test measures and results

In order to measure the congruence between the brand "Coca-Cola" and the sponsored events, a seven-item, 7-point scale as proposed by Becker-Olsen and Hill (2006), was used. Participants asked to rate the level of congruency on seven bipolar items which were as follows: dissimilar/similar, inconsistent/consistent, atypical/typical,

unrepresentative/representative, not complementary/complementary, low fit/high fit, does not make sense/make sense (Cronbach’s α = .99). Response options close to 1 represent low fit in contrast with answers close to 7 which represent higher levels of congruence.

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A two way analysis of variance revealed that the three different conditions (congruent, moderate and extreme incongruent) indeed have an effect on peoples' perception regarding the fit.

Specifically, the results showed that people indeed perceive the sponsorships

according to our initial predictions (F (2,141) = 643.40, p < .001, Mcongruent = 6.45, SD

= 0.27; Mmoderate incongruent = 4.1, SD = 0.28; Mextreme incongruent = 1.45, SD = 0.32) and

therefore the hypotheses were accepted. A post-hoc test revealed that the differences between all the groups were significant (p< .001).

Since the manipulations proved to be successful further analysis was conducted in order to identify the most effective in each condition. Paired samples t-tests were conducted.

In the congruent condition the two sponsorships, congruent 1 (M = 6.44, SD = 0.28) and congruent 2 (M = 6.45, SD = 0.35) did not differ significantly (t(9) = -.14, p = .891, 95% CI [ -.24, .21]).

Moreover, in the moderate incongruent condition the two sponsorships, moderate 1 (M = 4.1, SD = 0.31) and moderate 2 (M = 4.05, SD = 0.32), also did not differ significantly (t(7) = -.53, p = .612, 95% CI [ -.18, .29]).

At last, in the extreme incongruent condition the two sponsorships, extreme incongruent 1 (M = 1.25, SD = 0.33) and extreme incongruent 2 (M = 1.66, SD = 0.39), proved to have a significant difference (t(7) = 3.75, p < .05, 95% CI [ .66, -.15]).

Therefore, since the extreme incongruent 1 sponsorship was significantly different from extreme incongruent 2 and was the only one across the 3 conditions, the first block of sponsorships was used for the main experiment.