Branding Influences Censorship

Branding definitely influences sponsorship because sponsors want to associate their company to a brand so they can reach out towards a broader audience of people and reach a specific target market. A motive that companies have to sponsor sporting events or programs is to enhance or reinforce the brand association with the their company (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 2014, pg. 172). When people start gravitating towards a brand, that’s when sponsors come involved because they feel that if people become attached to a brand then those people will also become attached to their product or service if they were to sponsor that brand. A lot of companies have become sponsors of a specific sport to promote unique product features or technological innovations or applications and they target technologically rich sports to appeal to that audience with their products and services (Mullin, Hardy, Sutton, 2014, pg. 172). A lot of brands use sponsors as a way to fund events such as Linda Hollander who created the concept of the Women’s Small Business Expos and she got companies such as Citibank, Hansen’s, IBM and Wal-Mart to sponsor her by selling them the idea of offering the women’s market to them

Fit is very important in the context of sponsorship because the more a brand and sponsorship share in a relationship, the more people that will become easily attracted to the sponsor. An example of a good sponsorship fit is the fit that the NFL and Wilson football has. During the World War II and Postwar Era, Wilson created the Wilson Duke football and soon after they became the official ball of the NFL and are still the official ball for the league (Funding Universe.com, 2016). Another example of a good fit is Nike and NFL, which Nike designs and creates the jerseys for the NFL, so when fans by jerseys of their favorite teams, they are getting the same quality and style of jerseys their favorite players