Old and exciting? Sport sponsorship effects on brand age and brand personality

Brand managers often use sport sponsorship to position a brand in terms of human-like personality traits (e.g., exciting or sophisticated) and demographic characteristics (e.g., young or masculine). Yet, little is known why, how, and under which conditions such associations transfer from a sport property to a sponsor brand. The present study introduces spontaneous trait transference as a mechanism and explicates that its properties can account for such associative transfer effects in typical sport sponsorship contexts with unintentional exposure and limited control. Two experiments show that, consistent with spontaneous trait transference predictions, (a) sport sponsorship transfers only the sponsored sports’ focal traits (but no general evaluative halo) to the sponsors, (b) spontaneous trait transfer occurs for both sport personality and age traits largely independent from each other, and (c) transfer effects occur for unfamiliar brands, but also (to a lesser extent) for familiar brands. Practical implications of these findings for the selection of sponsorship properties, the design of sponsorship communication, and for targeting specific consumer segments with appropriate sponsorships are discussed.