Awareness as a measure of sponsorship effectiveness: the Adelaide Formula One Grand Prix and evidence of incidental ambush effects

In a study of the Adelaide Formula One Grand Prix, a number of hypotheses relating to corporate objectives and management practices as well as consumers' perceptions of sponsors were tested. The results from a corporate survey and a three-wave consumer survey showed that, as expected, sponsors rated awareness objectives highly but that they often failed to measure performance on this dimension adequately. The sponsors' names, respondents' attendance to the event and time were all found to influence significantly both the unaided and aided awareness of consumers with little or no interaction effects. Significantly, there was evidence that non-sponsors may also gain from the event in terms of awareness but that this may be the result of a genuine mistaken attribution, thus suggesting that incidental ambush effects may exist.