The moderating effect of identification on return on investment from sponsor brand integration

Purpose: The achievement of a requisite return on investment (ROI) from a brand’s investment in sponsorships of sport events is becoming increasingly important. Consequently, evolving trends in the consumption of the live television broadcasts of such events (e.g. increased usage of second screens by consumers) are an important consideration. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of second screen use during sport broadcast consumption on important marketing outcomes (i.e. brand awareness and the perceived value and intrusiveness of sponsor brand integration), and whether effectiveness is dependent on the consumer’s level of identification with the sport being broadcast. Design/methodology/approach: A 2×2 (experimental/control and high SportID/low SportID) between-subjects experimental design featuring the broadcast of a sport event as the stimuli was utilized to examine a potential interaction effect between sport identification and second screen use on three dependent variables important for sport sponsors. Findings: Results confirmed that those with a high level of sport identification realized significantly higher levels of brand awareness for sponsors integrated into the broadcast. However, when consumers were asked to engage in second screen use, the experiment revealed a moderating effect of sport identification on the impact of second screen use, for both brand awareness and the perceived value of the brand integration. Originality/value: Consumers with higher levels of sport identification are an important target of sport sponsorship activities by brand marketers. Given this, the implication that second screen use can reduce the effectiveness of important sponsorship-related outcomes such as brand awareness is a sobering result for marketers expecting a positive ROI from sponsorships of sport events.