| dc.description.abstract | Many companies make investment to sponsor the big sports events such as Olympics, world
Cup and popular sports games. Effective promotional strategy involves strategic decisions
about five factors target audience, objective of the promotion effort, nature of the product,
stage in the product life cycle and amount of money available for promotion. The general
objective of the study was to establish the effects of sports sponsorship on performance of
Kenyan firms. The study sought to analyze the effects of status of sports sponsorship, target
market’s awareness, demand of the sponsor`s products and services, corporate reputation and
consumer loyalty on performance of Kenyan firms. The study adopted a descriptive survey
design to collect information from the sample drawn from the population of the study. The
target population was 87 companies involved in sports sponsorship in Kenya. Eighty two
companies were selected to represent eighty seven companies involved in sport sponsorship
in Kenya. One senior respondents was selected from operations or marketing department,
thus a sample size of 82 respondents. Questionnaires were preferred because they are
effective data collection instruments that allow respondents to give much of their opinions in
regard to the research problem. A pilot study was carried out to pretest and validate the
questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer software was
used for analysis to generate data array that would be used for subsequent analysis of the
data. SPSS has descriptive statistics features that would assist in variable response
comparison and give clear indications of response frequencies. Inferential statistics was also
used to analyze the statistical sample. The data was coded to enable the responses to be
grouped into various categories. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data. This
included percentages and frequencies. Tables and other graphical presentations were
appropriately used to present the data that was collected for ease of understanding and
analysis. The study used regression analysis to establish the relation between the study
variable and ANOVA to test the research hypothesis. The study revealed that connecting the
company brand through sponsorship, helps to develop a link in the minds of the target
audience that the company is responsible. It was found that sponsorship generates awareness,
or raise levels of knowledge of a company’s products and services, product lines. It was
established that sponsorship improves company or brand name by connecting them to an
event or organization that is highly valued by target consumers. The study also found that
customer loyalty has positive impact on performance of Kenyan firms and there is need for
the management of companies to consider evaluating their customers’ choice of sports. From
the regression analysis the study revealed that there was positive significant relationship
between status of sport sponsorship, corporate reputation, target market awareness, customer
loyalty and demand of the sponsor’s products and services and performance of the company. | en_US |
