Sport Sponsorship and Its Effect on Brand Attachment and Customer Loyalty: A Case Study on Kaleh's Volleyball Team

This research aimed to investigate the effect of sport sponsorship on brand attachment and loyalty of Kale's customers.
The research method was causal and descriptive. The statistical population was the students in university of Guilan that 525 of them are selected as sample through a random sampling. A structured questionnaire with 42 questions was used to gather data. Its content and face validity were confirmed by the professors of marketing and experts of sport sponsorship. The reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha using SPSS19 (alpha was above 0.70 for all constructs). Finally, gathered data was analyzed through structural equation modeling by Smart PLS.
Results showed that sport sponsorship had an effect on both brand attachment and customer's loyalty. Also, brand attachment had an effect on customer's loyalty.
Considering the results, sport sponsorship is a powerful tool for companie's marketing and serves them in reaching profit and market share goals. Also, sport sponsorship, as part of corporate social responsibility, has a double effect on customer's loyalty and their attachment toward brands.