Exploring user sentiment towards sponsorship and ambush marketing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer attitudes towards ambush marketing and official event sponsorship through the lens of sentiment analysis, and to examine social media users' ethical responses to digital event marketing campaigns during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a sentiment analysis, examining Twitter users' utilization of sponsor and non-sponsor promotional hashtags. Statistical modelling programme R was used to access Twitter's API, enabling the analysis and coding of user tweets pertaining to six marketing campaigns. The valence of each tweet - as well as the apparent user motivation underlying each post - was assessed, providing insight into Twitter users' ethical impressions of sponsor and ambush marketer activities on social media and online engagement with social media marketing. Findings The study's findings indicate that consumer attitudes towards ambush marketing may be significantly more positive than previously thought. Users' attitudes towards ambush marketing appear significantly more positive than previously assumed, as users of social media emerged as highly responsive to creative and value-added non-sponsor campaigns. Originality/value The findings affirm that sentiment analysis may afford scholars and practitioners a viable means of assessing consumer attitudes towards social marketing activations, dependent upon campaign objectives and strategy. The study provides a new and invaluable context to consumer affect and ambush ethics research, advancing sponsorship and ambush marketing delivery and social sponsorship analytical practice.