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Dann, Stephen --- "Turn scandal to success" [2007] MonashBusRw 23; (2007) 3(2) Monash Business Review 30

Turn scandal to success

Stephen Dann

A sports star backed by a road safety sponsor gets caught drink driving. The sponsor moves to cancel the relationship but, used wisely, such a breach may reinforce the sponsor’s message, suggests Stephen Dann.

Sport sponsorships are increasingly seen as an ideal fit between social change messages for road safety, drug, alcohol and health campaigns. However, with each lifestyle sponsorship comes an increased risk of a sponsorship breach where a player from the sponsored club is publicly caught acting against the sponsor’s message.

When these breaches occur, the sponsor usually terminates the agreement without considering the potential benefits that may be gained from that incident. This research presents a model of converting sponsorship breach and the conflicting messages that arise from that breach into a strengthened social change campaign. It also provides a risk analysis of key sponsorships properties in the AFL 2007 Premiership and examines where these vulnerable sponsorships could convert scandal into success.

The social change message

‘Lifestyle sponsorship’ is here defined as the provision of financial or in-kind assistance by an organisation (usually a non-profit, government or social change agency) for the purpose of promoting lifestyle or behavioural change. The product being promoted is not a commercial one (say, Bundaberg Rum or Qantas) but calls for behaviour (the road safety anti-speeding campaign ‘Wipe off 5’), lifestyle (the anti-smoking Quit campaign) or attitude change (the anti-drink driving ‘Only a little bit over? You bloody idiot’ campaign).

In 2007, the Australian Football League (AFL) national competition has three teams engaged in significant lifestyle sponsorships.

1. Collingwood, sponsored by TAC Victoria’s Wipe off 5, is endorsing a campaign which requires drivers to reduce their driving speed from 65kph to the official limit of 60kph, changing the belief that “five kilometres over the speed limit isn’t harmful”.

2. Geelong and TAC Victoria are promoting the hidden toll campaign highlighting the 46 non-fatal injuries per day which result from car accidents.

3. WorkSafe Victoria is using their sponsorship arrangement with the Western Bulldogs to raise their profile within the geographic region where the team is based and to demonstrate return to work strategies through assisting in player rehabilitation.

Breach as opportunity

In the event of a lifestyle sponsorship breach, such as drink driving or speeding, an immediate mismatch between the actions of the individual(s) and the lifestyle messages occurs. In commercial marketing, little opportunity exists to convert an off-field indiscretion into a commercial opportunity – for example, a player involved in a police chase could not be used subsequently to endorse the performance of the sponsor’s vehicle at high speeds in difficult conditions.

However, the nature of a lifestyle sponsorship creates an unusual sponsorship dynamic, since the purpose of a lifestyle sponsorship is to promote an attitude or behavioural change where the sponsor perceives a need for a change. Where a campaign highlights a specific social problem (injuries at work) a lifestyle sponsorship breach (workplace injury) which brings media attention to the campaign can be used by the sponsor for their benefit. For example, in 2004 WorkSafe Victoria and the Western Bulldogs highlighted the workplace injury and subsequent workplace rehabilitation of a player as part of the sponsorship arrangement. Although the player’s injury occurred as a breach of one of WorkSafe Victoria’s objectives (a safe working environment), the agency leveraged this by demonstrating a secondary aspect of their product offering – workplace rehabilitation.

Resolving a lifestyle breach

Resolving a lifestyle sponsorship breach requires the sponsor to capitalise on the exposure of the problematic social issue (say, drink driving), and convert the exposure and breach into a controlled and branded communication recovery strategy. This requires: public relations damage control, marketing communication theory and the application of a mismatched schema to create a stronger, positive social change message from the incident. The following model demonstrates how to actively engage the lifestyle breach as a marketing opportunity for positive social change.

1: Assess the impact of the breach.

Undertake PR damage control and assess the communications opportunity presented by the media coverage of the breach. Consider if the breach has: changed attitudes towards the sponsor and sponsor’s image; altered the awareness of the sponsor and sponsorship; influenced recall of sponsorship and key sponsorship messages; influenced intentions to engage in behaviours supported by the sponsorship.

During the Richmond breach in 2005 (Tigers player and P-plate driver Jay Schulz was charged with speeding and drink driving) the media noted the discrepancy between the TAC anti-drink driving message and the actions of a sponsee employee. By emphasising the difference between the sponsorship message and the actual behaviour, the media increased awareness of the message, the recommended behaviour and the sponsorship.

2: Recapture the lifestyle message through reinforced commitment to the sponsorship.

Capitalise on raised awareness of the sponsorship and sponsor message. Identifying and actively reinforcing the breach is evidence of a continued need for the sponsored message. The sponsor can justify their continued sponsorship despite the apparent failure of the lifestyle message. If a Western Bulldogs player is injured at work, it demonstrates a continued need for WorkSafe products. By proactively attempting to retake control of the social message agenda through continued sponsorship, the sponsor organisation retains the opportunity to utilise the breach with a targeted follow-up message strategy.

3: Lifestyle breach as non-event functional similarity relevance.

Initial reaction to a lifestyle breach is to withdraw the sponsorship based on damage to the image-based similarity of the sports sponsorship. For example, if a Collingwood player is in breach of the road safety sponsorship, there is a conflict between the sponsor message and the sponsee behaviour. This creates a negative image – if the sponsorship was effective, would the player transgress? Critics say no, but marketers know that some Coca Cola employees will drink Pepsi at home, without it causing a crisis for Coke. In social cause sponsorship, the transgression creates an opportunity for a far more relevant secondary lifestyle sponsorship. The player’s behaviour creates a level of relevance between the off-field activity (penalised for inappropriate behaviour) and the sponsor message (avoid inappropriate behaviour to avoid penalties). A player who has breached a lifestyle sponsorship can be used to publicly disavow their inappropriate behaviour as an element of a planned multi-media extension of the sponsorship rather than simply reading a prepared statement at a club press conference. The multiple engagement of the player in redeeming the breach would also arguably have a greater impact on his and his peers’ future behaviour than a one-off punishment or sponsorship sanctions at the corporate level which ultimately have a greater impact on management than the players.

4: Create a schema mismatch endorsement.

The sponsor should create a new communications campaign to support the lifestyle sponsorship whereby the player who has breached the sponsorship message actively disendorses their behaviour. This approach will create a schema mismatch between the actions of the sponsee and their endorsed message. Schema mismatch theory is based on the notion that a mild deviation between the expected sponsorship message and the actual content results in the consumer thinking harder about the message to close the gap between their expectation and the message. This is used in commercial sponsorships where controversial celebrity role models are used for product endorsements (most notably in Australia, the use of underworld hitman Mark ‘Chopper’ Read to endorse sunglasses) for the express purpose of increasing the level of thought required to process the advertisement. When used successfully, the increased amount of effort spent on thinking through the advertising leads to a stronger association with the brand.

The match between the promise of the social message (road safety) and the spokeperson’s experience (consequences of unsafe driving) creates a positive schematic match. Where there is a good fit between the expectation and the message, the schema is congruent and this results in positive attitudes towards the sponsored product.

The sponsee in breach can become the celebrity endorser of the failed message. This creates a mild schema mismatch between the endorsed message and endorser’s action. By endorsing a modified version of the campaign, the player in breach has credibility (having engaged in the negative behaviour), expertise (has experienced the breach), trustworthiness (voluntary admission of breach and involvement) and empathy (has felt the emotional consequences of the breach). These factors have been identified as key influences on the effectiveness of a celebrity endorsement of product or message. WorkSafe Victoria’s use of the injured Western Bulldogs player as a celebrity endorser of the workplace rehabilitation program provides a precedent for the successful endorsement of a breach recovery campaign.

Schema mismatching is not a risk-free strategy. Additional processing which leads the respondent to conclude that there has been a mismatch will result in far stronger negative feelings than an immediately recognised mismatch. However, in the case of the lifestyle sponsorship, a mild schema mismatch exists between the audience’s acceptance of the lifestyle sponsorship’s relevance of sponsoring off-field player behaviour. Leveraging off the transgression to demonstrate a link between the sponsorship and the sponsee’s behaviour creates a demonstrable relevance for the sponsorship.

5: Reinforce the need for the sponsored message.

Use the existence of the breach as proof of continued relevance for the sponsorship message. If someone so close to the message can still be adversely affected by the issue then continued spending on reinforcing the message becomes essential and not a waste of the tax payer’s money. As part of the damage control and damage recovery, the lifestyle sponsor will need to reinforce the need for the sponsorship to continue as the sponsee’s breach indicates a continued problem that needs to be addressed and which is being addressed by the organisation’s commitment to the sponsee.

Lifestyle sponsorship failures will attract negative media attention for the sponsorship, sponsor and campaign. Common responses to message failures include questioning the value of the sponsorship if the sponsee failed to comply with the sponsor’s message. In commercial marketing, unmet market demand is rarely regarded as a reason to cease promoting a product. In social change marketing, high profile message failures such as the Richmond case are demonstrable proof that the market has not fully complied with the message and, as such, still requires further reminding, persuading and communications.

Sponsorships at risk


Table 1 Alcohol sponsorships


Table 2 Mobile phone sporsorships


Table 3 Automobile sponsorships

MBR subscribers: to view full academic paper email mbr@buseco.monash.edu.au

Public access: www.mbr.monash.edu/full-papers.php (six months embargo applies)

Cite this article as

Dann, Stephen. 'Turn scandal to success'. Monash Business Review. 2007.; Monash University ePress: Victoria, Australia. http://www.epress.monash.edu.au/. : 30–33. DOI:10.2104/mbr07023

About the author

Stephen Dann

Dr Stephen Dann is Senior Lecturer in the School of Management, Marketing and International Business, College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University. He is also a former consultant for Australian sports arts and entertainment sponsorship ratings agency Sparten, where he produced the Sparten Ratings Guide for AFL sponsorships.


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