Sports Marketing Definitions

Описание: To consider marketing related to sports we really need two terms for clarity. We need a term "sports marketing" that is the marketing OF sports. We need a second term for marketing VIA sports, thus, I coined the term "sponsorship-linked marketing." These both fit under the broad umbrella of marketing.

My LinkedIn post on definitions in sports marketing has garnered more interest than expected in comments and messages. Let me offer that I coined the term “sponsorship-linked marketing” because I needed it to clearly identify the marketing phenomenon.

Sport marketing is like wine marketing, or tourism marketing, et cetera - the marketing of something. Sports brands or properties (property rights holders) sell many things including rights to sponsors. This sale can still be considered sport marketing but what happens with that sale (and the contract over time) becomes a different form of marketing: sponsorship-linked marketing.

My argument is that it is not fruitful to argue that sport marketing is distinctive from other forms of marketing -it isn’t - but what is helpful is distinguish this additional form of marketing, sponsorship-linked marketing, and how it works with sport marketing (or music marketing, or festival marketing or anywhere else one finds sponsoring). This is where the sport brand works with the sponsor brand to orchestrate marketing activities. This is a truly fascinating, continuously evolving space in marketing.

Since then, sponsorship-linked marketing has been central to many of my publications with many coauthors. For those interested here are a few of those papers.

Cornwell, T. B., Weeks, C. S., & Roy, D. P. (2005). Sponsorship-linked marketing: Opening the black box. Journal of Advertising, 34(2), 21-42. https://lnkd.in/gAbBeEfN

Cornwell, T. B., Humphreys, M. S., Maguire, A. M., Weeks, C. S., & Tellegen, C. L. (2006). Sponsorship-linked marketing: The role of articulation in memory. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(3), 312-321.
https://lnkd.in/gFptp2-W

Cornwell, T. B. (2008). State of art and science in Sponsorship-linked marketing. Journal of Advertising, 37(3), 41–55.
https://lnkd.in/g-YY5d_n

Cornwell, T. B. (2019). Less “sponsorship as advertising” and more sponsorship-linked marketing as authentic engagement. Journal of Advertising, 48(1), 49-60.
https://lnkd.in/gZB635va

Cornwell, T. B., & Kwon, Y. (2020). Sponsorship-linked marketing: Research surpluses and shortages. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48, 607-629. https://lnkd.in/gKQYnYXD