Experiential sponsorship activation at a sports mega-event: The case of Cisco at London 2012

Purpose: The application of event design principles in the creation and execution of effective experiential sponsorship activations (ESAs) by B2B brands is explored. Challenges posed by the sponsorship context to sponsors seeking to create ESAs are examined, with potential solutions proposed. Design/methodology/approach: A case study of Cisco’s ESA activities as part of its London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games sponsorship activation is developed, drawing on interviews with key Cisco employees and secondary sources of data, both internal and external to Cisco. Findings:Blending the event design principles typically associated with B2B events with those more commonly found in corporate hospitality or B2C events, enables sponsors to address the cognitive needs of attendees as business representatives while also satisfying their needs as individuals seeking more sensorial experiences. Effective use of event design principles, creative marketing and promotion, and collaboration with other sponsors allows brands to overcome constraints placed on them by the unpredictable nature of sponsorship, sponsorship rights agreements and the increased clutter in the sponsorship environment. Research limitations/implications: Existing knowledge on sponsorship activation is extended, drawing on principles of event design to offer a sponsor-focused perspective on the creation and execution of effective ESAs for B2B brands. Existing thinking around B2B event design is challenged and augmented when considering its application to ESA design. Practical implications: Inter-sponsor collaboration and the blending of cognitive and sensorial elements of event design are important for sponsors seeking to create and deliver effective ESAs. Social implications: Originality/value: The paper draws on event design literature to appraise the execution of ESA by B2B brands within the context of event sponsorship

The importance of context in understanding football fans’ reactions to corporate stadia naming rights sponsorships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore fans’ reactions to corporate naming rights sponsorship of football club stadia and identify a range of contextual factors impacting these reactions. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative, quasi-ethnographic research design is adopted, focusing on three football clubs in North West England. Data are gathered through online message board discussions, focus groups and auto-ethnographic approaches. Findings – Geographic, image and functional dimensions of sponsorship fit are noted as contextual factors in determining fans’ reactions to corporate stadium names. It is also proposed that some forms of fit (in particular geographic fit) are more important than others in this regard. Beyond issues of fit, three additional contextual factors are identified that potentially influence fans’ reactions to corporate stadium names: prior involvement with the club by the sponsor; fans’ perceived impact of the sponsorship investment; and whether the stadium is new or long-established. Research limitations/implications – Future research might examine the relative importance and implications of the identified contextual factors, alongside seeking other potential areas of contextual framing. Practical implications – Sponsorship naming rights negotiations need to be sensitive to a variety of contextual factors. Furthermore, sponsors would do well to have a good awareness of their own brand image and its congruency with the identity of the club and fan base. Originality/value – This nuanced, qualitative analysis extends existing, quantitative-based research by identifying a range of contextual factors which shape fans’ reactions to corporate stadium namin

The queuing experience at large events

There is an established body of literature on queuing, largely focused on operations management and service operations (e.g. Maister, 1985; Katz et al., 1991; Taylor, 1994). This research often positions queuing as a negative experience and focuses on how to make waiting less unpleasant. A smaller body of work notes the potential positive impacts of queuing, including signalling product quality (Giebelhausen et al., 2011) or value (Koo & Fishback, 2010), and stimulating positive word of mouth through social encounters (Krishen et al., 2020). The average Briton spends 47 days of their life queuing (Independent, 2019) and the Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the prevalence of queuing in our lives (e.g. queuing for vaccines). Extant research has examined mundane queuing settings, such as public transport (Durrande-Moreau & Usunier, 1999), using experimental methods to assess queuer response (Taylor, 1994). However, not all queues are mundane in nature, and we therefore contend that it is time to look again at queuing, but through an experiential lens. This will shed light on the experience of queuing and the factors impacting on it. Our research explores the experiences of fans queuing for tickets for The Wimbledon tennis Championships. The Wimbledon Queue is integral to this event and has arguably become a brand in its own right. It is also very different from more mundane queuing contexts; for example, it includes fans who have queued and camped overnight, and in some cases for multiple nights. We undertook a quasi-ethnographic study (Murtagh, 2007), living in and with the Wimbledon Queue for one day and one night in June 2019. Informed by these ethnographic insights, we undertook eight focus groups and five interviews with fans who had queued at Wimbledon (with a combined total of 54 participants). Ethnographic field notes alongside interview and focus group transcripts were combined into a corpus of textual data, which we analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Our data allowed us to probe deeply into rich and ‘thick’ insights from queuers (Geertz, 1973), unearthing a series of key findings about the experience of queuing for large events: (1) Fans experience moments of anxiety associated with different phases of queuing; (2) Opportunities to interact with fellow queuers and a spirit of sharing within the queue are important factors in making queuing a pleasant experience; (3) Sponsor activations have the potential to enhance the queuing experience but often fail to deliver what fans want; (4) Queuing plays a significant anticipatory role for the wider event and can enhance the overall event experience by building excitement; (5) The act of queuing can become an expression of fans’ commitment to their passion. In unpacking these findings, we extend the body of work on queuing by exploring the experiential character of queues and how they can be leveraged as part of a wider consumption experience. Central to this is the pivotal role of the queuers themselves, through their (inter)actions within the queue and their interpretations of the queuing experience as part of a wider fan identity

‘To us it’s still Boundary Park’: Fan discourses on the corporate (re)naming of football stadia

This paper explores how the corporate (re)naming of football stadia and their urban environs is negotiated through fans’ toponymic discourses and associated commemoration. Critical toponymy research emphasises oppositional toponymic tensions between sovereign authorities and citizens, which can result in competing inscriptions of space. Adopting a quasi-ethnographic approach, we reveal a more complex picture by exploring the variegated toponymic discourses of football fans. The findings demonstrate intricate entanglements in how fans reluctantly accept a corporate stadium name, yet also actively resist it through counter-performative utterances, often imbued with commemorative intent. Alternatively, fans passively ignore a corporate stadium name, using a former toponym in quotidian and habitual speech. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for the influence of corporate power in urban toponymic inscription

Naming rights, place branding, and the tumultuous cultural landscapes of neoliberal urbanism

In recent decades, urban policymakers have increasingly embraced the selling of naming rights as a means of generating revenue to construct and maintain urban infrastructure. This practice of “toponymic commodification” first emerged with the commercialization of professional sports during the second half of the 20th century and has become an integral part of the policy toolkit of neoliberal urbanism more generally. As a result, the naming of everything from sports arenas to public transit stations has come to be viewed as a sponsorship opportunity, yet such naming rights initiatives have not gone uncontested. This special issue examines the political economy of urban place naming through a series of case studies that consider how the commodification of naming rights is transforming the cultural landscapes of contemporary cities. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the geographies of toponymic commodification as an emerging research focus within the field of critical urban toponymies and propose several theoretical approaches that can enhance our understanding of the commodification of naming rights as an urban spatial practice. We then discuss the main contributions in this special issue and conclude by exploring potential directions for future research on the geographies of urban toponymic commodification

Stakeholder communication in 140 characters or less: a study of community sport foundations

Community sport foundations (CSFs), like other non-profit organizations, are increasingly employing social media such as Twitter to communicate their mission and activities to their diverse stakeholder groups. However, the way these CSFs utilize social media for communicating such practices remains unclear. Through a mixed-method approach of content analysis of tweets from 22 CSFs established by English professional football clubs and interviews with key individuals within these CSFs (n = 7), this study examines the extent to which CSFs’ core activities are being communicated through Twitter and identifies the strategies employed for doing so. Reflecting the target audiences CSFs are seeking to reach through Twitter and the challenges associated with communication about projects involving marginalized groups, tweets largely concern programs related to sports participation and education. The most frequently employed communication strategy is to inform, rather than interact or engage with stakeholders. However, CSFs with higher organizational capacity attempt to go beyond mere informing towards engaging with stakeholder groups that relate to their social agenda, highlighting the importance of trained and dedicated social media personnel in optimizing CSFs’ use of Twitter for communication

Success interrupted: Exploring how supporters interpret their team’s success in a postponed competition

Research purpose: This study has two aims: (1) to explore how supporters evaluate success when their team’s objective performance record does not change but subjective features of the context do change (e.g., competition format, potential league cancellation); and (2) to explore why winning a championship is important to evaluations of in-group status – in addition to a large points advantage. Research methods: We conducted a netnographic study of Liverpool Football Club supporters during the COVID-19 postponement of the English Premier League. In total, we analysed 15,193 forum posts added between March 11th – June 3rd, 2020, using a theoretical thematic analysis. Results and Findings: Three themes emerged from our interpretations of the data. First, winning the championship had value—in addition to the club’s 25-point advantage—because supporters felt it would immortalise their status as the best team in 2019-2020 permanently. Second, supporters’ perceptions of success reduced when it was perceived to occur in a structure that did not conform to shared expectations for league completion. Third, supporters perceived that winning the championship would enable a moment at which players, coaches, and supporters could experience complete solidarity as their shared goal became reality. Implications: Our analysis shed new light on the ways in which context relates to the evaluation of intergroup status in sport. Furthermore, we reveal why winning championships adds value beyond objective advantages

Modelling the organisational socialisation of volunteers in English associational golf clubs

Research question: The research considers the organisational socialisation process for volunteers in associational golf clubs. Research methods: Constructivist grounded theory method was used, with qualitative data collected through 28 semi-structured interviews with volunteers at English associational golf clubs. Results and Findings: The article develops a model for the organisational socialisation of golf club volunteers. The model highlights an extended period of organisational socialisation, which locates assimilation during club membership before volunteering begins. This prior period of assimilation allows individuals to acquire organisational knowledge and make informed decisions about whether to volunteer. It also shapes their actions as volunteers and the meanings they derive from volunteering. Our findings emphasise the importance of participation among members as a precursor to volunteering. They also highlight how, in the absence of orientation support from the club, movement through the socialisation process depends on individuals’ biographical assets. Implications: The model should help golf clubs, and potentially other voluntary sports clubs, manage their organisational socialisation process to develop established members, improve volunteer recruitment and produce long-term volunteers. Improved management of this process could also enhance the diversity of both members and volunteers