Title: Research on the Olympic sponsors' motivation for investment based on text mining

Authors: Lu-Cheng Huang, Ting-Ting Zhou

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, P.R. China. ' School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, P.R. China

Abstract: Many companies now recognise the strategic role of sponsorship and the great potential for creating value from a longer-term relationship. Therefore, an increasing number of companies seek to enter the Olympic marketing platform through sponsorship. They make significant investments in the staging and operation of the Olympic Games, seeking to maximise their return on their investment and realise their investment goals. In this study, text mining was adopted to discover sponsors| underlying motivation for investment. We collected 1,056 relevant documents through the internet. Based on text mining, we finally extracted and summarised five main reasons for their participation in the Olympics. Finally, we used a case study (Lenovo Group Ltd.) to verify the results we acquired by using text mining, and to help us better understand sponsors| Olympic strategy. The findings will help Olympic organisations effectively cooperate with sponsors to enhance their sponsorship relationships.

Keywords: Olympic Games; sponsorship strategy; Olympic sponsors; sponsor motivation; text mining; Lenovo Group Ltd; investment motivation; sponsorship relationships.

DOI: 10.1504/IJENM.2008.020638

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management, 2008 Vol.2 No.4, pp.353 - 365

Published online: 06 Oct 2008 *

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