LAUSR

Abstract Sports sponsorship is a core element of brand communication and one of the most effective and demanded tools in marketing. In the context of football, jersey sponsorship agreements dramatically increased over the last decade in terms of deal volume. Another current brand communication trend is the brand strategy of placing brands into entertainment media, especially in video games, so called in-game advertising (IGA). Against that background, the current study addresses the short-term effects of IGA on consumer’s implicit and explicit brand knowledge after the sponsor brand has been exposed in a video game. The findings of the laboratory research showed that the IGA exposure of sponsor brands, which was simulated in the current study as a virtual consumer-brand interaction within a playfully football game, was primarily effective to enhance brand-related associations on an implicit level, but not on an explicit level.