Sponsorship

The first three articles have been provided open access. Some links require journal subscription access which may be available through your university.

Lamont, M. and Dowell, R. (2008), A process model of small and medium enterprise sponsorship of regional sport tourism events, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 253–266. http://jvm.sagepub.com/content/14/3/253

The idea that small firms only sponsor for philanthropic and non-strategic reasons is dispelled in this article. According to the authors, small scale sports tourism events have been adopted by regional communities as part of an economic diversification strategy in response to industrialisation and urbanisation whereby sponsorship is often the only means available for financial support. The paper offers a conceptual model of the processes and interactions in sponsorship agreements which are intended to serve as a platform for further research.

McAllister, M.P. (2010), Hypercommercialism, televisuality, and the changing nature of college sports sponsorship, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 10, pp. 1476–1491 http://abs.sagepub.com/content/53/10/1476.

This article looks at commercial intrusion in the US national college football champion television broadcasts. The article concludes that there has been an increase in advertising-free broadcast time directly as a result of the increased use of screen graphics with commercial iconography and that there are implications for the use of hypercommercialism of sports and broadcasting as opposed to other areas such as fine arts or politics.

Saha, A. (2007), Changing ambivalences: exploring corporate sponsorship in the new culturally diverse artistic practices, Journal of Creative Communications, Vol. 2, Nos. 1&2, pp. 23–41 http://crc.sagepub.com/content/2/1-2/23

This article looks at the commodification of difference in the context of corporate sponsorship of a particular photography exhibition Changing Faces, a collection of images of British Asian youth that challenged stereotypical representations of Asian youth cultures. According to the author the counter-hegemonic potential was undermined by the sponsorship (O2). This article adopts a cultural economy approach and suggests elaborate and entangled relations through which culture is mediated.

Scherer, J. (2007), Globalisation, promotional culture and the production/consumption of online games: engaging Adidas’s ‘Beat Rugby’ campaign, New Media Society, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 475–496.

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/9/3/475

The author is interested in the little-explored context of the production and consumption of online games. The study looks at a free downloadable rugby game and a parallel website for Adidas’s sponsorship of the New Zealand All Blacks (Beat Rugby). This was meant to articulate the brand as globally cool with the company-wide target known as Jeeks (male, sports-loving, computer-literate 12–20-year-olds). The game and the electronic community facilitated a range of consumption and communication experiences for a transnational audience in a branded environment.

Steiner, T.J. (2008). Ethical issues arising from commercial sponsorship and from relationships with the pharmaceutical industry – report and recommendations of the ethics subcommittee of the International Headache Society, Cephalalgia, Vol. 28, No.1, pp. 1–25. http://cep.sagepub.com/content/28/3_suppl/1

This is an authoritative report for the ethics subcommittee of the International Headache Society on ethical issues in relation to commercial sponsorship within the pharmaceutical industry. The report makes two recommendations: first, that sponsors’ behaviour, which is controlled elsewhere, should be set within standards in relationships with sponsors that the International Headache Society should expect of its members; secondly, that IHS members do not give support or legitimacy to any marketing activities of companies that do not conform to the Society’s objectives that lead to meeting patients’ needs

Marketing Communications Management

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Sponsorship

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