What drives sponsorship effectiveness? An examination of the roles of brand community identification, brand authenticity, and sponsor–club congruence

This research examines the influence of brand community identification (BCI) on three measures of sponsorship effectiveness—brand advocacy, purchase intention, and sponsor-brand choice. Additionally, we investigate the psychological mechanism and the moderators between BCI and sponsorship outcomes. We collected data from members of two brand communities, across four experiments (2 × 2 between-subject designs), during soccer league events. Our findings demonstrate that BCI increased brand advocacy and purchase intention. It shows a novel psychological mechanism (brand community engagement) between BCI and brand advocacy; both brand authenticity and sponsor–club congruence serve as boundary conditions. Counter-intuitively, our study revealed that both high-congruent and low-congruent sponsor brands could be effective, depending on consumers' identification with the brand community. Our research makes several meaningful theoretical and practical contributions. Sports clubs and sponsors must cultivate consumers' identification with the club's brand community, which offers two-fold benefits; it leads to greater effectiveness, measured in terms of club brand engagement and sponsor-brand advocacy. Moreover, our research demonstrates that consumers, regardless of their identification with the brand community, will stop supporting a sponsor brand if they perceive it as less authentic.