Memory of Sponsorship-Linked Marketing Communications: The Effect of Competitor Mentions

Corporate sponsorship value is brought into question when false recognition of foils suggests confusion regarding true sponsors. While an indicator of confusion, recognition false alarms do not tell the entire story regarding memory for sponsor-event relationships. Two free recall experiments show relatively good memory for sponsors and also that under certain conditions, the mention of direct competitors can actually facilitate recall of true sponsors and events. The findings point to the importance of understanding the memory-based characteristics of measurement as well as to the memory-supported decision-making tasks that sponsorship information might eventually influence.