Happy to support: Emotion as a mediator in brand building through philanthropic corporate sponsorship

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is very meaningful in a culture such as that of the Republic of Korea, where individual ethics are grounded in Confucianism, which emphasizes humanism and altruism. We examined the mediating role of emotion in the relationships among participants’ perceptions of CSR, their attitude toward philanthropic corporate sponsorship of a sporting event, and of the sponsoring company’s brand equity. We conducted a survey with 251 participants in a charitable sports event held in Seoul, South Korea, which was sponsored by a major Korean company. The results of analysis of the data collected provide an understanding of how strong brand equity of the sponsoring company was generated among participants. The findings also shed light on the mediating role of emotion in the relationship between the company’s brand equity and 2 major participant cognitive factors of attitude toward an event and perception of CSR. Results indicate that sponsoring a charitable sporting event targeted at certain types of consumers can be an effective marketing tool for a company to build brand equity.