Red Bull

Julius Areska 287754

BAMMC, Bachelor Thesis 2012

Bachelor in Language and Business Communication

Author:

Degree in Marketing and Management Communication

Julius Areska

Supervisor:
Simon Lind Fischer

The Impact of Sport Sponsorship on Brand Equity
The Analysis of Red Bull GmbH

Department of Language and Business Communication
Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences
Aarhus University
May 2012

Julius Areska 287754

BAMMC, Bachelor Thesis 2012

Abstract
Recently, traditional marketing communication elements are faced with challenges of reaching increasingly fragmented consumer markets. The companies are forced to find new communication ways due to the highly cluttered market environment. Consequently, corporate sponsorship of sports has become an increasingly popular and one of the fastest growing marketing communication tools which bypasses media clutter and provides the environment where a brand can differentiate itself from the others. Red Bull sponsors various kinds of sport and athletes and through the years became the representative brand of ‘extreme sports culture’ social identity. Therefore, the paper focuses on the Red Bull sport sponsorship and strives to investigate its possible effects and reveal its impact on different aspects of brand equity. Throughout the paper several theories within the fields of cognitive and behavioural learning are applied. First part of the analysis investigates sponsorship through the spectrum of cognitive learning mechanisms whereas second part explores Red Bull’s sponsorship from the behavioural perspective. Achieved findings identify seven specific effects concerning company’s sponsorship. Furthermore, several researches within the field of brand equity assist to relate sponsorship effects to the different elements of brand equity. During the analysis
David A. Aaker’s proposed brand equity model is used in order to underline different elements of brand equity. The

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