This thesis reports findings from a study that analyzed the sponsorship strategies, objectives, and
benefits of the Canadian Hockey Association's women's ice hockey support program. There has
been a notable increase in recent years in the number of women sport spectators and sport
participants in ice hockey, which has increased the sport's potential for sponsorship. Women's
ice hockey is Canada's fastest growing sport with approximately 40,000 females registered from
coast to coast - an increase of over 400% in the last 10 years. (http://www. canadianhockey.ca).
Although small in size compared to the men's program, (Women= 37,700, Men= 470,714) these
numbers suggest that women's hockey is a good candidate for targeted sponsorship marketing
approaches such as direct marketing and relationship marketing.
Relationship and direct marketing are approaches to marketing and business communications
that have emerged recently in the literature and can be used to enhance the benefits of
sponsorship. Relationship marketing can be described as an integrated effort to identify,
maintain, and build a network with individual customers and to continuously strengthen the
network for the mutual benefit of all parties involved (McDonald and Milne, 1997). Direct
marketing methods can be used to help identify, build and maintain relationships with customers
and prospective customers using database technologies. According to Shani (1997), database
marketing is a necessary tool to implement relationship marketing and involves the collection of
information about past, current, and potential customers to build a customer database.
The thesis study was designed to assess the marketing and sponsorship activities of thirteen
major corporate partners involved in the women's program at the premier ($500,000+),
broadcaster, or associate/program ($100,000+) levels. Eight corporate partners participated in the
study. Interviews were conducted, in each case, in the offices of the respective corporations.
Each interview was recorded and transcripts were prepared of the tape recordings. In addition to
the audio recordings and transcripts, observations were made on-site and a wide range of
sponsorship-related promotional materials were collected. The data were analyzed according to
the corporate objectives, strategies and benefits obtained and the marketing & sponsorship
methods that were utilized.
Four major sponsorship objectives were found, ranging from traditional goals such as brand (and
corporate) image & awareness and community involvement to more innovative objectives in
sales and integrated promotions and advertising. Nine core corporate programs offered to the
sponsors by the CHA are outlined in the thesis including: the Initiation Program; Skills
Development Program; Experience a Dream; Fun Days; Medals of Achievement; Schools
Program; PlayRight; the Coaching Certification, Development and Rewards Program; and
Women in Coaching and Role Model Seminars. The research found a number of benefits of
these core programs for the sponsors, including opportunities for relationship marketing, direct
marketing, and niche marketing. Although for the most part CHA sponsors were very optimistic
and supportive of the women's ice hockey program, there were a number of barriers and issues
that concerned them. This research shows, however, that corporate partners for the most part
were able to overcome these barriers and that they felt it was important to support the women's
game of ice hockey in Canada.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10556 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Westgate, Melissa Lynne |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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