Brand Image Congruence Through Sponsorship of Sporting Events: A Reinquiry of Gwinner and Eaton (1999)

Does brand sponsorship of sporting events lead to more congruence in consumers' images of sponsoring brands and sponsored sporting events? If so, what factors affect the extent of increase in image congruence? Results of a study with three sporting events (replicate stimuli) and nonstudent participants confirm Gwinner and Eaton's ( 1999 ) finding that brand sponsorship increases image congruence. Further, there is a greater increase in image congruence when functional similarity between sponsoring brands and sponsored events is high (versus low). But contrary to Gwinner and Eaton ( 1999 ), the present findings do not indicate that the increase in image congruence is moderated by high (versus low) image-based similarity.