Research Proposal Details

Does brand sponsorship contribute to attendance at the Hip-Hop International Russia 2009?

Executive summary

The research is going to cover the issue of brand sponsorship of the event and its correlation with public attendance. This topic has a true-to-life background and will be based on analyses of the event “Hip-Hop International Russia -2009”. The contribution of the brand sponsorship to attendance at the Hip-Hop International Russia 2009 will be analyzed during the event. The emphasis of this analyze will be in defying the correlation between public attendance and brand sponsorship. This research seem to be relevant for current event environment due to fact that the majority of events need sponsors and brand sponsorship of the events is crucial for the event’s success. This topic has not observed previously in academic’s researches, so it can be valuable addition to brand sponsorship in events.

More detailed information about my dissertation is given in my research proposal but unfortunetally there is no enough space to post all of it. If you are interested and want more just let me know and I'll send it to you!!!!

Thanks everyone for helping me in developing my dissertation topic and giving valuable advices!!!!!!!!

Hope I'll reach all my goals!

Small Changes lead to the best

I met my superviser once more time. And we came up with a new topic. It's not really different from what i had but it gives more ooportunities to write about. Is there a connection between between public attendance and brand sponsorship at the HHI 2009? It's my dissertation question. I would like to find out whether brand sponsorship contributes to attendance at the HHI 2009. Do people choose to visit the event just because of the brands who sponsor this event? By next meeting with Franc, i have to read as many journal articles about sponsorship, brand awareness, attendies attitude as possible. Moreover, i have to come up with questions for my questionnaire. Sounds possible, doesnt it? (still have to write case-study, portfolio and research proposal)

Move forward

Before the break I met my supervisor and we slightly changed the topic of my dissertation. Our current topic is "The percieved public attitude to sponsors as a correlation to event success at the Hip Hop International Russia 2009". I would like to find out if there is any connection between person’s level of event satisfaction and his attitude to the event sponsors. What if person’s awareness of event sponsor depends on his attitude to the event? Imagine that person doesn’t like the event and gets only negative emotions that would bring to his negative attitude to sponsor (The event is bad and thus its sponsors are rubbish as well). Or opposite experience: person spent excellent time on the event and has marvelous mood so that he automatically likes everything what is connected with the event including sponsors. In my paper I would make a hybrid of quantative and qualitative research where there would be self-structured questionnaires for audience of Hip Hop International Russia and semi-structured interviews of event sponsors and organizer of the event. The results would show if there is any connection or not and what event manager and sponsors of the event think about this connection. For me this topic is very interesting but difficult at the same time.

First steps

Well, i was so perplexed with that question about Hip-hop dancing if it was considered to be a sport or an art. So that I decided to ask people who somehow connected to dancing and find out their opinions. The results were very interesting. People who dance hip-hop mostly said that it's a sport while people who just like dancing look at hip-hop like an art. Main arguments for being an art are creativity. expression, show and presence of meaning and sense. But arguments for sport are set of rules, good physical training, competitions, marking criteria, restrictions and limitations (age, time, size of performance area, moves and so on), presece of sport rating/classes. It's similar to Figure Skating, Ballroom Dancing and ryththmic Gymnastics and they are all sports!!! Moreover, one article offered a view to it like an adventure sport or action sport (Puchan H., 2004 Living ‘extreme’: Adventure sports,media and commercialisation). Acording to that author, hip-hop dancing can be a young sport phenomenon. "Adventure sports are often described as lifestyle sports" (Puchan H., 2004, p.171). I would try to find more academic proofs that hip-hop dancing is A SPORT!!!

Is hip-hop dancing a Sport or an Art?

During my presentation I was asked a question: "Is hip-hop dancing a sport or art?". In my opinion it is definitely a sport. And now I'll try to explain why i think so. Let's look at definition of SPORT in dictionary: a physical activity that is governed by a set of rules and often engaged in competitively. Sports commonly refer to activities involving physical exertion and skill and where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing). There are Hip-Hop competitions that have their own rules and regulations which must be followed by teams that take part their. (So this is an activity with a set of rules). Also all hip-hop dancers train a lot and have good physical skills that help them to reach better results. All competitions in this fields have strict marking criterias. Referees have their papers with all the categories where they mark a performance of the team according to those criterias. And of course a team that earned more points wins. So all the points from SPORT's definitions are included in Hip-hop that makes me think that Hip-hop dancing is a SPORT. If it was ART there wouldn't be competitions; the effort would be made for making estetic product and to performe it. No referees, no marks, no rules...That's not about a Hip-hop. Do I sound convincing?

I've done my first presentation on my topic. Haven't got any feedback yet, I can't be sure that I'm on the right way. But anyway that is what I have so far. I’d like to look at creativity and innovations in sponsorships. How to make the event attractive to the sponsor? What are core components of sponsorship and event that makes companies to take that sponsorship? These questions I'd like to look at. I found a few books about sports sponsorship such as Skinner Bruce E. “Events Sponsorships"; Allen J.“Festivals and Special Event Management” and Yeoman I. “Festival and events Management”. Also I've got articles devoted to events sponsorships in such journals as Managing Leasure, Journal of Advertising Research and Events Management Journal. As a methodology I'm going to read and analize the information in that resources, made a questionnaire to potenial sponosors of the event and interview the event manager of the following event. I'd like to base my work on the Hip-Hop International Russia. This is annual national competition in dancing that include competitions, seminars and trainings, final performance of winners and famouse invited dancers.

Thoughts about my dissertation topic

Hello everyone!!!
I'm completely lost in my own ideas about my dissertation topic. There are so many things that I'm interested in and that I'd like to write about. I can't put them together and make something similar to dissertation topic. Well, I'd like to write about sponsorships, mainly in sports or dance festivals. May be focus on innovations and new technologies in attracting sponsors. Or aims of sponsors and ways of returning invested money. I have found a lot of interesting articles about sponsorships in mega-sporting events. I would be grateful if anyone suggested some ideas!!!