Attitude Toward a Specific Event Sponsor (ATES)

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward a Specific Event Sponsor (ATES) scale is a concise, tri-item psychometric instrument designed to evaluate consumer evaluative dispositions and affective orientation toward commercial entities or corporate brands that engage in event sponsorship. Originally adapted and operationalized in empirical consumer psychology by Henderson, Mazodier, and Sundar (2019) within the context of professional baseball team sponsorship, the scale captures the valenced, summary evaluation that an individual holds regarding a designated corporate sponsor following exposure to sponsorship stimuli. Operating as a unidimensional construct, the ATES measures the degree of positive or negative regard a consumer directs toward a sponsor, distinguishing corporate-level attitudes from broader event attitudes or domain-specific brand perceptions. Administered typically on a seven-point semantic differential or Likert-type scale, the instrument provides an efficient metric for identifying changes in sponsor equity, perceptual congruence, and affective transfer. Psychometrically, the measure demonstrates robust internal consistency, exhibiting Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding standard thresholds (α ≥ .85 to .92 across marketing and sponsorship studies), as well as strong convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity in relation to consumer behavioral intentions, brand recall, and purchase intentions. Because of its brevity, the ATES minimizes respondent fatigue in field settings, such as intercept surveys in sports stadia or retail environments, while preserving the structural rigor necessary for structural equation modeling (SEM) and experimental designs in consumer behavior and sports marketing.

2. Keywords

Attitude Toward a Specific Event Sponsor, ATES, event sponsorship, consumer attitude, sports marketing, visual congruence, affect transfer, psychometrics, brand attitude, sponsor equity

3. Authors

The ATES scale was adapted and validated in its present event-sponsorship form by:

• Conor M. Henderson — Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States. Specialized in relationship marketing, sponsorship analytics, and brand partnerships.
• Marc Mazodier — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, ESSEC Business School, Cergy-Pontoise, France. Recognized authority on sponsorship effectiveness, advertising memory, and longitudinal brand equity.
• Aparna Sundar — Independent Scholar / Research Strategist (formerly Assistant Professor of Marketing, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States). Expert in visual design aesthetics, consumer sensory perception, and brand identity congruence.

The empirical deployment of the instrument in event sponsorship research is documented in their benchmark study examining visual congruence in sport settings published in the Journal of Marketing (Henderson et al., 2019).

4. Purpose

The overarching purpose of the Attitude Toward a Specific Event Sponsor (ATES) scale is to isolate and quantify the directional valence (positive versus negative) and intensity of an individual’s evaluative schema toward a specific corporate sponsor within the framework of an event partnership. Sponsorship investments represent billions of dollars in global marketing expenditure, yet measuring direct commercial return on investment (ROI) remains historically fraught due to confounding brand exposures and ambient environmental noise. The ATES satisfies an imperative methodological need in both applied market research and fundamental consumer psychology by providing a brief, highly sensitive instrument capable of isolating the sponsor-specific cognitive and affective response directly attributable to event alignments.

From a theoretical perspective, the scale measures whether sponsorship assets effectively alter or reinforce consumer evaluations of the commercial sponsor. It allows researchers to investigate boundary conditions such as team-sponsor visual congruence, thematic fit, commercialization backlash, and consumer altruistic attribution. When corporate logos are integrated into team apparel, stadium naming rights, or broadcast graphics, consumers engage in rapid heuristic processing. The ATES provides the empirical metric needed to determine whether visual manipulations (such as altering sponsor logo chromatic properties to match team uniform palettes) foster heightened brand favorability or risk alienating consumers through perceptual incongruence or diminished brand distinctiveness.

In applied and field-research contexts, the instrument is engineered for rapid deployment. Traditional multi-item brand equity batteries often contain upwards of twenty to thirty items, rendering them unviable for intercept sampling in busy environments such as sports arenas, festival concourses, or shopping malls. The tri-item composition of the ATES ensures that researchers capture the essential variance of sponsor attitude without inducing respondent fatigue, survey abandonment, or straight-lining response patterns. Furthermore, the instrument serves as a critical mediating or dependent variable in structural models evaluating how sponsorship affects downstream commercial objectives, including sponsor product purchase intentions, willingness to recommend, and active brand loyalty.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct measured by the ATES is sponsor-focused consumer attitude, conceptualized within contemporary social and cognitive psychology as a relatively enduring, unidimensional summary evaluation of an identifiable commercial entity acting as an event benefactor. Rather than evaluating the event itself (e.g., attitude toward the Olympic Games, a music festival, or a professional baseball franchise) or assessing general sentiment toward corporate sponsorship as a commercial practice, the ATES isolates the specific evaluative disposition directed at the designated partner firm.

Psychologically, the construct comprises two intimately related components that coalesce into a single latent factor:

• Cognitive Evaluation: The consumer’s rational or utilitarian appraisal of the sponsor’s merit, competence, and role. This reflects judgments regarding whether the sponsoring organization is deemed “good,” “favorable,” or “desirable” based on available information, including its perceived alignment with the sponsored property, perceived altruistic motivation versus commercial exploitation, and intrinsic corporate reputation.
• Affective Valence: The emotional tone, positive feeling, or sympathetic resonance elicited when the consumer encounters the sponsor’s brand identity within the event context. This component captures whether exposure to the sponsor generates positive emotional valence (e.g., pleasantness, goodwill, approval) or negative emotional states (e.g., annoyance at commercial intrusion, perceived corporate greed, or dissonance generated by color/thematic clash).

Because cognitive appraisal and affective reaction in rapid-exposure settings merge into an integrated evaluative stance (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), the ATES does not parse these elements into distinct subscales. Instead, it measures the integrated latent attitude along a single bipolar continuum spanning from highly unfavorable/negative to highly favorable/positive. For example, an individual who observes a local financial institution sponsoring their favorite athletic team may evaluate the sponsor through an integrated lens: cognitively recognizing the financial support enabling the team’s success, while affectively experiencing warmth toward the institution for demonstrating community commitment. The ATES captures the net resultant magnitude of this psychological reaction.

6. Theoretical Framework

The ATES is grounded in several foundational paradigms of cognitive psychology, social cognition, and marketing theory:

Balance Theory and Cognitive Consistency

Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory provides an explanatory framework for how sponsor attitudes evolve. In a triadic relationship consisting of the Consumer (P), the Event or Team (O), and the Commercial Sponsor (X), the consumer strives to maintain psychological consistency among the relational links. If a consumer maintains a strong positive sentiment toward the event (a positive P-O unit relation) and perceives that the event has endorsed or formed an alliance with the sponsor (a positive O-X sentiment relation), cognitive balance requires the consumer to form a positive attitude toward the sponsor (inducing a positive P-X relation). The ATES serves as the empirical assessment of the resulting P-X sentiment link.

Associative Network Memory Model and Affect Transfer

Under John R. Anderson’s ACT-R and associative network theory, memory consists of nodes linked by semantic and affective associations. When an event and a sponsor are co-presented, activation spreads from the well-established node of the event to the sponsor node. Through the affect transfer hypothesis, the rich, positive emotional associations residing within the sports team or cultural event are transmitted across cognitive pathways to the sponsor’s node. The ATES measures the magnitude of this transferred affective equity, assessing whether the sponsor successfully absorbs the halo of positive sentiment generated by the sponsored property.

Meaning Transfer Model

Extending beyond simple affect, Grant McCracken’s Meaning Transfer Model posits that cultural properties possess conventionalized meanings (e.g., grit, prestige, heritage, youthfulness). Sponsorship acts as a vehicle whereby these symbolic meanings transfer first from the event to the sponsor brand, and ultimately from the sponsor brand to the consumer. The ATES measures the valence of the initial stage of this transfer process, determining whether the symbolic integration enhances or impairs overall brand evaluation.

Congruence Theory and Visual Processing Fluency

As investigated directly by Henderson, Mazodier, and Sundar (2019), sponsor attitudes are mediated by cognitive fit and processing fluency. According to processing fluency theory, stimuli that are processed with ease generate positive affective reactions that are unconsciously misattributed to the stimulus itself. When visual congruence between a sponsor and a team is optimized (e.g., through harmonic chromatic adaptation), visual processing fluency rises, thereby elevating the scores registered on the ATES.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ATES has been established through construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related testing across multiple consumer contexts:

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by strong, statistically significant factor loadings in confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models. In the validation study conducted by Henderson, Mazodier, and Sundar (2019, Study 2), adult consumers evaluated a real commercial sponsor of a Major League Baseball team. Standardized factor loadings across all three scale items exceeded .80, indicating that each item accounts for a substantial proportion of shared variance within the underlying latent construct. Convergent validity is further supported by an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) consistently exceeding the recognized .50 benchmark (typically reaching .70 to .80), signifying that the shared variance among the items is substantially greater than variance attributable to measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

The ATES demonstrates robust discriminant validity against related yet conceptually distinct constructs in sponsorship research, such as:

• Attitude toward the sponsored team/event: Consumers readily distinguish their feelings toward the athletic or cultural property from their attitude toward the corporate entity funding it.
• Perceived sponsor-event fit: While perceived congruence reflects a cognitive appraisal of relatedness, the ATES measures overall evaluative valence; correlation matrices consistently demonstrate that the square root of the AVE for the ATES exceeds its inter-construct correlation with perceived fit (satisfying the Fornell-Larcker criterion).
• General attitude toward commercial sponsorship: The scale differentiates a consumer’s idiosyncratic feeling toward an individual enterprise from their generalized, cynicism-laden appraisal of corporate sponsorship as an advertising medium.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is substantiated by the scale’s predictable relationships with downstream marketing metrics. Empirical modeling indicates that scores on the ATES positively predict:

• Sponsor product purchase intentions (β typically ranging between .35 and .55, p < .001);
• Favorable brand word-of-mouth (WOM);
• Sponsor patronage behavior in post-event choice tasks.

Furthermore, in experimental manipulations of sponsor logo visual congruence, the ATES successfully captured subtle shifts in consumer evaluation driven by chromatic adjustments, proving its sensitivity to visual and thematic marketing manipulations.

8. Reliability

The ATES exhibits high internal consistency and scale reliability across diverse samples and experimental conditions:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In the benchmark investigation by Henderson et al. (2019, Study 2), administered to 126 adult consumers intercepted in a naturalistic mall setting, the three-item instrument demonstrated an internal reliability coefficient exceeding α = .88. In broader applications of classic three-item attitude measures within sports marketing literature (e.g., MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989; Speed & Thompson, 2000), internal consistency coefficients for analogous tri-item evaluative batteries routinely fall between .87 and .94.
• Composite Reliability (CR): In structural equation modeling contexts, composite reliability for the ATES regularly surpasses the conservative threshold of .70, typically achieving values between .88 and .93, confirming that the indicators reliably represent the single latent construct without excessive measurement error.
• Test-Retest Stability: While attitudes toward commercial brands can fluctuate based on environmental cues, longitudinal designs evaluating sponsorship tracking across pre-event, immediately post-event, and delayed intervals (e.g., Mazodier & Merunka, 2012) establish satisfactory temporal stability in the absence of exogenous shocks, yielding test-retest correlation coefficients generally above r = .75 across brief test intervals (two to four weeks).

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive factor-analytic evaluations of tri-item attitude inventories in consumer psychology confirm that the ATES conforms strictly to a unidimensional measurement model.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

When evaluated via confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation, a single-factor structure demonstrates excellent fit parameters across sponsorship studies. Standard model fit statistics consistently align with or exceed strict psychometric criteria:

• Model Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom (χ²/df): Typically non-significant or maintaining a ratio ≤ 2.0. (Because a 3-item single factor model possesses exactly zero degrees of freedom when just-identified, empirical testing incorporates the ATES within a broader measurement model including event attitude, fit, and purchase intent).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values consistently ≥ .98, indicating near-perfect baseline model comparison.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Values consistently ≥ .97.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates typically ≤ .05 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .078).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Estimates consistently ≤ .03.

Factor Loadings

All three items load heavily and uniformly onto the latent sponsor attitude factor. Standardized factor loadings (λ) routinely exceed .80, with individual squared multiple correlations (R²) showing that 65% to 85% of each item’s variance is directly explained by the underlying evaluative construct, leaving minimal residual error.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The ATES is structured as an efficient, self-administered survey scale. Its standardized parameters are summarized below:

• Instrument Type: Standardized psychometric self-report rating scale.
• Measurement Format: Typically administered as a 7-point semantic differential scale or a 7-point Likert agreement scale anchored by bipolar evaluative adjectives.
• Item Count: Exactly 3 items.
• Target Population: Adult consumers, sports spectators, event attendees, or experimental subjects exposed to event sponsorship signage, apparel, or promotional collateral.
• Administration Modality: Paper-and-pencil intercept questionnaires, computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI), online consumer panels, or mobile field surveys.
• Administration Time: Approximately 30 to 60 seconds, minimizing participant burden.
• Scoring Procedure:
  • Each item is scored from 1 (most negative/unfavorable anchor) to 7 (most positive/favorable anchor).
  • All items are framed in a consistent direction; if reverse-worded polarities are deployed to guard against response sets, they must be reverse-coded prior to analysis.
  • An overall continuous index is calculated by computing the unweighted arithmetic mean across the three items:
    
    ATES Index = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3
  • Higher mean values (approaching 7.0) represent an exceptionally positive, favorable attitude toward the sponsor, whereas lower values (approaching 1.0) denote an unfavorable, negative disposition.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Formal Operationalization: 2019 (within the benchmark visual congruence study by Conor M. Henderson, Marc Mazodier, and Aparna Sundar in the Journal of Marketing).
• Commercial Availability & Licensing: The scale is an academic measurement paradigm adapted from established consumer attitude traditions. The specific empirical operationalization published in the Journal of Marketing is subject to standard academic copyright (American Marketing Association / SAGE Publications).
• Fee: Free for non-commercial, academic, educational, and pure scientific research purposes, under fair use conventions. Commercial marketing research firms seeking proprietary commercial utilization should consult the original authors and the American Marketing Association regarding licensing and attribution requirements.

12. References

• Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1037/10628-000
• Henderson, C. M., Mazodier, M., & Sundar, A. (2019). The color of support: The effect of sponsor–team visual congruence on sponsorship performance. Journal of Marketing, 83(3), 50–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919831998
• MacKenzie, S. B., & Lutz, R. J. (1989). An empirical examination of the structural antecedents of attitude toward the ad in an advertising pretesting context. Journal of Marketing, 53(2), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298905300204
• Mazodier, M., & Merunka, D. (2012). Achieving brand loyalty through sponsorship: The role of fit and consumers’ evaluations of sponsorships. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(6), 807–820. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-011-0285-y
• McCracken, G. (1989). Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(3), 310–321. https://doi.org/10.1086/209217
• Speed, R., & Thompson, P. (2000). Determinants of sports sponsorship response. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(2), 226–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070300282004

13. Items of the Scale