Sponsorship of case study competitions and impact on brand equity-an exploratory study in the UAE higher education sector

This exploratory article aims to evaluate the effectiveness of case study competitions in promoting the brand equity of sponsors and organizers. The article compares the managerial objectives with the responses of participating students who are the targeted audience of the marketing communications of the sponsors and examines the alignment between managerial objectives and the perceptions of participants. The quantitative data using surveys is collected from sponsors and organizers, and participants in the competition. The data is analysed using frequency tables, descriptive statistics, F-tests for equality of variances and T-tests for equality of means. The findings suggest that managers attach high importance to brand awareness (cognitive aspect), brand images and attitude (affective aspect) and less importance to brand loyalty (behavioural aspect) to enhance brand equity through sponsoring academic competitions. However, participants' responses indicate that the brand awareness aspect is not effectively realized as compared to other brand equity dimensions