The Impact of Sports Sponsorship on Brand Equity Dimensions: A Case of Castle Lager Brand in Zimbabwe

Sports sponsorship involves huge sums of money whose return should be accounted for. The paper focuses on the Castle Lager soccer sponsorship (Castle Lager premier soccer league) in Zimbabweand strives to reveal its impact on three brand equity dimensions (brand awareness, brand loyalty and perceived quality). The three brand equity dimensions are based on Yoo and Donthue brand Equity model. Causal research design was used to determine the impact of sports sponsorship on brand equity dimensions. A sample of 200 respondents was selected from a total of 710 000 soccer fans from Dynamos, Caps United, Highlanders and Harare City Football clubs. The data was collected in Harare (the capital city of Zimbabwe) only. A combination of judgmental and convenience sampling was used in stadia to identify soccer respondents. Structured questionnaires were used to gather data. Data was analyzed through correlation analysis using SPSS version 16.0. The obtained results indicates that Castle Lagersport sponsorship programs generate severalpositive outcomes on the three brand equity dimensions that are brand awareness (R square =0.839), brand loyalty (R square=0.668) and perceived quality (R square=0.573). Therefore, castle lager sports sponsorship could be seen as an effective marketing communication tool in order to achieve brand objectives. The authors recommend firms to invest in sponsorship programs so as to boost their brand equity.