Sport sponsorship as distinctive competence

Presents the results of an analysis of 28 national and multi-national Canadian firms that had been involved in sport sponsorships at the national or international levels. Detailed interviews were conducted with senior marketing personnel in each company to determine how sponsorships were created and managed. Suggests that those firms which were successful had, either knowingly or fortuitously, developed their sponsorship into a distinctive competence and made it an intrinsic part of the overall marketing and communications mix. By contrast, those that were unsuccessful entered into sponsorship agreements on a more piecemeal basis with little thought of building a coherent marketing image. Sport sponsorship involves the allocation of scarce resources with the intent of achieving certain organisational objectives (Slack and Bentz, 1996). Consequently, it has frequently been described in the marketing literature as a strategic activity (Carter, 1996; Gilbert, 1988; Otker, 1988). The use of recent developments in the strategic management literature to provide insights that will further our understanding of sport sponsorship, as has been the case in the wider marketing field, therefore appears logical and germane. Unfortunately,