The effect of sponsorship activities in the aviation sector on the corporate image: The case of Turkish Airlines Euroleague

The developments in the last three decades in the field of sponsorship have led to the sponsorship to be considered among the most important marketing and corporate communication strategies. Today, important brands make huge and long-term investments in the field of event sponsorship and especially in sports sponsorship. Increasing value of sponsorship among communication strategies fro brands is closely associated with creating a special sense of interaction with their target audiences and enabling to establish a cognitive and emotional bond with them through image transfer between sponsored activities. Thus, sponsorship is regarded as a unique communication strategy in terms of creating, developing or restructuring the brand image and corporate image. In this study, the relationship between sponsorship activities and corporate image is examined within the framework of Euroleague sponsorship of Turkish Airlines, which is one of the largest airline brands on a global scale. Within the scope of the research, a questionnaire which consisted of 33 questions and aimed to measure the relationship between the perception of sponsorship and brand attitude with the example of Turkish Airlines Euroleague was conducted. The questionnaire was answered by 115 participants and the results were analyzed by correlation method. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between corporate image. and the three dependent variables such as perception of congurence between the brand and the sponsored event, awareness of the event and positive attitude against the event.