The last decades sport sponsorship has grown into a massive industry. This has given marketers unique opportunities and challenges to develop their brand strategy in order to stay competitive. Although the increasing research made within sport sponsorship, marketing researchers is just in the beginning of understanding the full effects of it. There is still a gap within this research field in Sweden and the rest of Europe. Though, researchers have found common desired brand objectives for using sport sponsorships which are called the sponsorship portfolio. The purpose of this study is to investigate companies’ perception and use of sport sponsorship. The purpose will also be to investigate how well companies’ use of sport sponsorship match with their customers perceptions of it. This study is based on a qualitative multiple case study using a semi-structured interview technique. Two companies, Craft and Team Sportia, were interviewed with five different managers to investigate their perception of sport sponsorship. Two focus groups, one on each company, where conducted in order to compare the results of the interviews. The study will be limited to the Swedish sport sponsorship market. In the case of Craft, findings indicate that Crafts sport sponsorship strategy is in overall congruence with the most important brand objectives using sponsorship in the theory. Though are the focus group perception of Crafts sport sponsorship and their brand not quite as consistent as company want to reflect. Results from the case of Team Sportia reveal that they could be seen as a company with a positive brand image. The brand itself is perceived as less strong than their competitors by the focus group due to weak perceived brand awareness. New findings in this study are Crafts product development through sport sponsorship as well as the message of brand familiarity through Team Sportias sport sponsorship.

Idrottssponsring är den marknadsföringsmetod som växer snabbast på marknaden. En organisation som har anammat denna marknadsföringsmetod och lagt ner stora resurser genom att expandera sin skidsponsring, är det statligt ägda elbolaget Vattenfall. Att mäta och utvärdera effekter och resultat av genomförda sponsringssatsningar har visat sig vara en utmaning. Då det råder brist på relevanta utvärderings- och mätmetoder. Med denna explorativa studie var avsikten att undersöka och beskriva hur organisationen Vattenfall utvärderar och mäter effekter av sin skidsponsring. Vidare hade vi för avsikt att ta fram ett kompletterande mått för att kunna mäta och utvärdera resultatet och effekten av Vattenfalls skidsponsring. Det empiriska materialet har samlat in med hjälp av intervjuer med anställda inom Vattenfall, som arbetar med idrottssponsring. Vår studie visade på brister i kommunikationen och tillvägagångssättet vid utstakandet av mål för skidsponsringen, vilket resulterade i en svårighet att utvärdera på ett relevant sätt. Vidare finner vi en avsaknad av försäljningsmål relaterade till sponsringen. Vår slutsats blev där meden en rekommendation att Vattenfall kan använda ett kompletterande mått i form av Return on investment (ROI), som grundas i försäljningsmål.

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