I Am Happy to Support: Gauging Role of Emotion in an Enterprise's Sponsoring Charitable Sport Events

Woo-Young Lee (University of Central Missouri), Youngjin Hur (University of Central Missouri), Minjung Sung (Chung-Ang University)  

Abstract: Researchers have argued that integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) into marketing strategies can help enterprises to create positive outcomes (Piercy & Lane, 2009). Specifically, the concept of CSR is more significant in Korean society where an individual’s ethics have been founded on Confucianism which emphasizes humanism and altruism (Bae, 2010).  Thus, Korean social norms have long emphasized affection for others. This is known as ‘Jung’, and is an individual’s ethical foundation. The current study examines the mediating role of emotion on the relationship among participants’ perception of CSR, event attitude, and the sponsoring company’s brand equity.

Data were collected from 251 participants of a pink ribbon marathon sponsored by a Korean major cosmetic company held in South Korea. The results provided a greater understanding of how participants of a charitable sporting event (i.e., pink ribbon marathon) generate strong brand equity of the sponsoring company. Further, the current study shed light on the mediating role of emotion on the relationship between two major cognitive factors (i.e., event attitude and perception of CSR) and event participants’ brand equity. Finally, results also indicated that sponsoring a philanthropic sport event targeted at certain types of consumers such as charity event participants can be a considerable marketing and communication vehicle.