In the present study, event sponsorship and event marketing are identified as two distinct event-related marketing communications tools. As a research field, sponsorship and event sponsorship has experienced continuous research interest for the last four decades. This in clear contrast to event marketing, which only within the last 10 years has attracted research interest from marketing scholars. However, little research has been carried out in the field of (event-) sponsorship from an organisational perspective. Thus, to the author s knowledge, the present study is the first of its kind investigating both event formats, event sponsorship and event marketing, from an organisational perspective in one study. A literature review that spans the domains of branding, signalling theory and hedonic consumption helped to differentiate between the two event formats, and to provide a theoretical grounding of the two event formats. The present study evaluates the impact of event sponsorship and event marketing on the brand and performance dimensions of brand awareness, brand attitude, brand performance and financial performance. Furthermore, brand orientation and organisational innovativeness moderate the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Moreover, this research study was undertaken from an organisational perspective. There is little evidence within the field of event sponsorship and event marketing as to how organisations evaluate the performance impact of event sponsorship and event marketing. Similarly, the more established sponsorship outcomes of brand awareness and brand attitude have yet to receive research attention within an organisational research setting. This research study follows a cross-sectional research design. A conceptual model is developed on the basis of the literature review, and is tested through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The data for this study was collected via an online survey which resulted in 226 responses. The findings indicate a negative relationship between event sponsorship and brand performance. Furthermore, organisational innovativeness was identified as moderating the event sponsorship brand performance relationship, whereas brand orientation is found to moderate the event marketing financial performance relationship.

Les systèmes de management de marque (BMS) sont d’une importance centrale pour contrôler de façon efficace le management de marque et mettre en valeur la performance de l’entreprise. Une difficulté actuelle concerne l’évaluation des pratiques des managers de marque et leurs contributions à la performance. Cette recherche doctorale tente de pallier cette limite de plusieurs manières : (1) en identifiant les pratiques saillantes et composantes du BMS ; (2) en définissant une échelle de mesure du BMS ; (3) en testant son rôle médiateur dans la relation entre le concept d’orientation marché et la performance marque ; (4) en déterminant globalement , mais aussi sectoriellement, les pratiques saillantes du management de marque qui contribuent à la performance marque mesurée de façon subjective et objective, ainsi que les effets ; (5) en étudiant le rôle de variables qui pourraient modérer cet effet médiateur. Les résultats d’une analyse de sentier auprès de 359 managers de marque confirment l’existence de l’effet médiateur du système de management de marque. Nous démontrons qu’il existe également un chemin médiateur passant par cet effet et ayant un impact sur la performance subjective de la marque puis la performance financière objective. Les analyses multi-groupes mettent en avant des différences sectorielles dans la valorisation des pratiques du management de marque et de l’orientation marché, fournissant ainsi des éléments d’information pour la prise de décision du top management. / Brand management systems (BMSs) are of prime importance to monitor an effective brand management and enhance firms’ performance. The lack of research about brand management practices makes the evaluation of their impact on performance difficult to assess. In order to fill this gap, this doctoral research tries to: (1) identify the BMS’s main practices and components; (2) define a BMS scale; (3) test the BMS mediating role in the relationship between market orientation and brand performance; (4) determine to what extent brand management systems contributes to brand performance, measured at subjective and objective levels, globally and in five sectors; (5) study the moderating effects of firms’ and sectors’ characteristics. The research was carried out with a sample of 359 managers. The results demonstrate the mediating effect of BMS on subjective brand performance to objective financial performance. Multigroup analyses show moderating effects which influence BMS and market orientation valuation, which provides relevant information for top managers’ decision making.

SMEs have been developing rapidly in Sweden since the last decade; many of them have developed a strong brand and went global. Brands can be utilized as a tool for people involved in the ecosystem to consistently communicate with the stakeholders. On the customers’ side, decisions on purchasing certain products are often made by symbolic attributes. According to studies, brand management can benefit an organization’s performance. Brand management is critical for the substantiality of SMEs. Many studies have been done on brand management in larger organizations. Only some research has been done on SMEs brand management, from which it was concluded that SMEs placed very little or no priority on brand management. In this thesis, the author studies brand management in SMEs in Sweden, by using Wong and Merrilees’s model (2005) on three archetypes of brand orientation. The aim of this study is to get insights on what brand-related activities can help with the goal of heightening brand awareness for customers. This research is done by a qualitative study based on three in-depth interviews undertaken with small-sized organizations and a supplementary desktop research with data from authority.