Consumer Behavior Knowledge for Effective Sports and Event Marketing

Lynn R. Kahle,Angeline G. Close

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136917905
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Commerce
• Sous-sujet: Comportement du consommateur

The growing complexity and importance of sports and event marketing has pushed scholars and practitioners to apply sophisticated marketing thinking and applications to these topics. This book deals with the professional development in the sense that sports marketing can be viewed as an application of consumer behavior research. Readers will learn about new opportunities in using consumer behavior knowledge effectively in the areas of: influencing behaviors in society and sports; building relationships with consumers through sports and events; and providing services to consumers through sport and event sponsorships. This book, by a superb group of authors, includes comprehensive reviews, innovative conceptual pieces, empirical research and rigorous attention to data.

1 Introduction: The Study of Sports and Events Consumer Behavior

Jesse King, Lynn R. Kahle, and Angeline G. Close

The integration of marketing principles and theory in the study of sport and sport event consumption and sport promotion has generated an increasing number of insights. Coinciding with this budding union, a mounting volume of literature has begun to detail the special aspects inherent in the sport and sport event consumption experience. This research is now more important than ever as the amount of money spent on sports, events, and sports marketing has escalated over the last several decades to position the sports industry as a major segment of the U.S. economy ("Advertise With Us,” 2009).

In this introduction, we first consider the special attributes that distinguish sport and sport event consumption from a consumer perspective. An accompanying discussion outlines the theoretical underpinnings that give rise to these distinctions. The second section focuses on the status of sport consumer behavior research. Evidence shows that the study of sport consumption has the potential to contribute to consumer behavior knowledge in general, but that it also warrants study as a discipline in its own right. The third section presents a conceptual overview of the use of sport and sporting events as a promotional tool. After reviewing current sponsorship theory, we conclude that the particular attributes that help to define sport consumption also underlie its capacity to be employed in event marketing and the promotion of other goods and services. Current research into the impact of event sponsorship on brand image and firm value is also considered. Recommendations for advancing the study of sport and sport event consumer behavior are interspersed throughout the text. Finally, we introduce the sections of this book.

Attributes That Characterize Sport Consumption

Sports and Sporting Event Consumption: Intensity and Self-Definition

A number of dimensions separate sports and sporting event consumption from other consumption experiences. Fundamentally, sport is a form of nonfiction entertainment that unfolds in real time. The consumption of sport encompasses both the viewing of sports action in the attendance of a live event and the consumption of sport through traditional and new media (Shoham & Kahle, 1996). In addition, the concept includes actual participation in sporting activities (cf. Funk, 2008). This broad definition encompasses participation in sporting competition against rivals, such as in cycling, tennis, or soccer, but it also includes a fan’s participation in or viewing of sporting activities, such as snowboarding, skiing, hunting, climbing, and rafting, that challenge the participant but whose challengers are often intrinsic or ambiguous (Shoham, Rose, & Kahle, 1998).

Sports can be distinguished from other forms of consumption, less in form than by degree. Although the sporting experiences share common elements found among other forms of experiential consumption and entertainment, they differ in magnitude along two primary axes. Both the level of emotion and depth of affiliation found in sport consumption often transcend other types of consumption. Sports have the potential to fuel our fantasies and dreams (Jensen, 1999; Preuss & Troelsen, 2010). Because of these differences, the study of sport consumption deserves more focused research in its own right (Kahle & Riley, 2004).

Self-Concept, Sports, and Sporting Events

A particular person’s self-concept can be composed of many components. For example, a person’s profession, faith, and gender each have a varying influence on how a person defines who he or she is. Further, the contribution of each influence may fluctuate depending on the context. This patchwork of social memberships and the importance given to each influence underlies many of the conceptions individuals have about who they are and how they should behave (Hogg & Abrams, 1988). Few associations inform an individual’s self-concept to the extent found in sports. Only fundamental affiliations such as professions, family, and culture rival the importance of sport in many people’s lives. Fans define themselves as supporters of teams and as individual athletes. Self-definition through sports is apparent in the many significant social categorizations related to sports affiliations. Consider the importance to many people of defining themselves as a hunter, cycler, fisher, runner, NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) fan, football fan, snowboarder, or skier. This self-realization often begins in childhood or adolescence. Evidence of the importance sport consumers place on these associations can be found in the broadcast images of fans with letters painted on their chest, the prevalence of team logos affixed to supporters’ cars, and the multitude of team and athletic merchandise purchased each year by sport consumers ("Advertise With Us,” 2009). Whole patterns of values and lifestyles can cluster around sports and fan bases (Kahle, Duncan, Dalakas, & Aiken, 2001).

Sport consumption serves as a means of self-definition partly because sport presents challenges that help individuals determine their own limits while providing accessible comparisons to others. Through participation in games and sports as children, we begin to develop an understanding of our relative strengths and weaknesses; however, the role of sports in an individual’s social self-concept is not limited to actual participation. Fans also view and attend sporting events and reference their affiliations to specific teams, sports, and athletes to inform their self-concept (Funk, 2008; Kelley & Tian, 2005; Madrigal, 2004; Madrigal & Dalakas, 2008). The affiliation consumers have to the sports they view or consume can act to fulfill needs for inwardly directed feelings of belonging and self-understanding as well as outward social expression of distinctiveness (Brewer, 1991; Troelsen, 2007).

The intensity of consumer affiliation with sports and sporting events exists along a continuum. As fans become more involved with a sport, the consumption experience can become increasingly prominent in their definition of self. Funk (2008) presented a hierarchy of sports consumption stages by which a consumer first becomes aware of a sport, then develops an attraction to the sport. As the hierarchy progresses, consumers become increasingly attached, defining themselves in terms of their relation to the sport. In the final level, the consumer forms an allegiance to the sport, internalizing the values of the sport, and continuously draws on his or her relation with the sport in the course of everyday life.

A similar pattern has been developed, using functional theory (Kelman, 1958), to understand fan motives and attitudes (Bee & Kahle, 2006; Kahle, Kambara, & Rose, 1996). Initially, weakly associated fans may turn out in support of local sports teams as an act of public compliance or internal obligation. The early stages of affiliation with a sport are often the result of normative social expectations of a desired group. As fans develop positive attitudes toward the sport over repeated exposures, their relation to the sport undergoes a transition. Fans progress from attending events because of private feelings of obligation to support a team and public displays to the broader community to which they feel affiliated, into an intrinsically rewarding part of their self-concept. The internalization of a fan’s membership among a group of supporters or participants leads many sport consumers to use that membership as an outlet for distinguishing themselves as an individual. Thus, a consumer’s involvement with sports can function for identification as a means of self-understanding, of fostering intragroup relationships, and of expressing one’s self as a special individual by emphasizing intergroup differences.

Identification and Internalization

The functional model of sport fan motivation (Kahle et al., 1996) also describes internalization of the values of a sport by which consumers adopt a common set of beliefs and values shared by members of the particular sport consumption community (Jones, Bee, Burton, & Kahle, 2004; Shoham & Kahle, 1996). These attributes and the meanings they convey about a member’s identity are created in sport from the ongoing communal development of sport narrative. All sports have dramatic histories shaped by stories of accomplishments, misfortunes, and intrigue among teams, coaches, and individual athletes (cf. Deighton, 1992). For highly identified and internalized fans, access to these meanings is gained with an increasing knowledge of the past history and present challenges that exist in their favored sports (Kelley & Tian, 2005). As a consequence of developing an understanding of the symbolic meanings affixed to particular players, teams, and sports, consumers employ these meanings to develop their own self-definitions (Kahle et al., 1996) and to express desired attributes to others.

Consumers rely on their affiliations with sports to express aspects of their self-concept to others. The sporting equipment and licensed paraphernalia industries totaled $47.76 billion in 2008 in the United States ("Advertise With Us,” 2009), with many of those sales for items not actually used in sport competition. Fans wear jerseys and other sports-related merchandise both to express their membership to a group of supporters and to distinguish themselves as individuals with special preferences and characteristics. The meanings conveyed by using such symbolic attire extends beyond the current standings of the team during the season. The dramatic decline and eventual discontinuance of jersey sales following allegations of illegal behavior by Michael Vick (Weisman, 2003; WSBTV, 2007) demonstrated that the image consumers associate with athletes extends beyond their athletic performances.

The three main ascending levels of involvement in functional theory—compliance, identification, and internalization—correspond to the three macrotheories of psychology: behaviorism, neopsychoanalysis, and humanism. The fact that different fans relate to sport at different levels implies that dealing with those fans may require different theories. The way to reach fans whose connection with a sport is based on compliance will require different approaches and different theories from dealing with internalized fans.

The Social Role of Sports Consumption

Consumption of sports is often a social activity. Sports bring people together in supporting a team with the common goal of winning. During the consumption of a sport experience, the presence of others is important for enjoyment of the game and in the production of the overall experience (Deighton, 1992; Kelley & Tian, 2005). The collective cheers and admonishments of a crowd amplify the suspense of a competition. Sport provides an opportunity to socialize with others and to work together in the production of a shared experience (Kahle, Aiken, Dalakas, & Duncan, 2003). These shared experiences further provide fans common ground for establishing and maintaining relationships. The stories that result from sports dramas provide ubiquitous topics of conversation, about which almost all members of society have at least some knowledge (Kahle, Elton, & Kambara, 1997).

The social aspects of sports help define both inter- and intrapersonal relationships. Fans who support the same team may feel a bond with other fans of that team. People united at tailgate parties or skyboxes use sport to activate their interpersonal relations and business dealings (Kahle et al., 1997). The golf course can sometimes replace the boardroom as the preferred venue for negotiating a contract.

Sports and Self-Esteem

The level of affiliation sports consumers feel toward the teams, sports, and athletes they support have implications for the attributions that are made about the events that unfold on the field. A long-standing finding is that fans of winning teams tend to bask in the reflected glory (BIRG) of the team’s accomplishments (Cialdini et al., 1976). Following a victory, Cialdini et al. (1976) found that fans are more likely to wear team paraphernalia and refer to the accomplishment in inclusive, first-person terminology, such as “We won!” Conversely, the opposing phenomena of cutting off reflected failure (CORF) occurs when a favored team suffers a loss (Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986). Fans CORF in an effort to disassociate and to protect themselves from the loss. As such, those fans affiliated with losing teams are more likely to reference the team in the third person (e.g., “They lost!"; Cialdini et al., 1976). The BIRGing and CORFing phenomena have been conceptualized as methods of enhancing and protecting self-esteem, respectively (Cialdini et al., 1976; Dalakas, Madrigal, & Anderson, 2004; Snyder et al., 1986).

The extent to which sport consumers BIRG and CORF further appears to be moderated by the level of affiliation felt toward a team. Wann and Branscombe (1995) demonstrated that, although highly self-defined sports fans engaged in more BIRGing behavior than fans with lower levels of identification following a win, those same highly identified individuals did not CORF to the same extent as lesser-identified fans following a loss. Several possible explanations have been suggested for this result. In one view, more highly identified fans hold their relation to the team as an integral part of their self-concept. These fans use BIRGing as a way to boost self-esteem by reinforcing their association with the winning team; however, CORFing is a devaluation of the team, and any distancing by highly identified fans would be equal to a devaluation of the self; hence, such actions are circumscribed. Only people who hold a weak attachment with a team would be likely to CORF because such distancing poses little risk to their self-concept (Wann, 1990). A complementary explanation holds that highly identified fans of a defeated team may refrain from CORFing because they see the potential for their team to improve in the future (Madrigal, 2004). Additional differences in the perception of inter- versus intragroup members and the attributions assigned to team actions are also moderated by the level of team identification (see Madrigal, 2004; Madrigal & Dalakas, 2008; Wann & Branscombe, 1995). Overall, it appears that as a sport becomes a more important part of a person’s self-concept, individuals have greater difficulty distancing themselves from the fates that befall their team. For people who are more highly identified fans, evaluations and attributions regarding their favored team appear to become biased as if they were evaluations of the self rather than evaluations of a separate other. This merging of self-identity with that of the team has a number of interesting research implications, which could greatly benefit from continued empirical investigation.

Sports, Sporting Events, and Emotion

The hedonic and emotional nature of sports has been repeatedly documented in research. Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) reported on the fantasy, multisensory, and emotive nature of hedonic experiences and noted that each of these aspects is readily found in sports consumption. In many respects, attendance at sporting events and participation in sport serves as the prototypical representation of experiential consumption. The close association many fans feel toward the teams they support combined with the inherently competitive nature of sport meld to produce strong emotions among fans. This extreme emotional intensity is another aspect that separates sport consumption from other forms of consumption.

The consumption of sports is inexorably laced with emotion. Anxiety, beauty, uncertainty, hope, and the drama associated with a struggle to achieve the restricted outcome of winning or witnessing a win underlie the appraisals that drive the often-intense emotions that fans experience during and subsequent to sport consumption (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982; Jones et al., 2004; Madrigal & Dalakas, 2008). These emotions cover a wide gamut of both positive and negative emotions. The ability of the sporting context to elicit emotion has attracted consumer behavior researchers investigating the pathology leading to their elicitation. The inherent richness of sporting contexts has been exploited to study fan rage, shame, joy, euphoria, awe, pride, gratitude, suspense, schadenfreude, anger, fear, and relief, among others. Sporting events have also been used as a context for exploring distinctions in the role of attributions and appraisals in the elicitation of emotions (Madrigal, 2008).

Suspense fuels much of the emotional intensity that surrounds sport consumption. Conceptually, suspense arises from a fan’s concern over the possible outcome of an unresolved event (Zillmann, 1996). The enjoyment that fans experience from suspense may be the direct result of relief felt following the successful resolution of a contest. Thus, the emotions experienced during sport consumption and at sporting events are partially responsible for the enjoyment of the experience. Winning by a preferred team or the personal accomplishments of an athletic participant can trigger feelings of enjoyment and euphoria resulting from relief. In contrast, disappointment, anger, and frustration can arise following defeat or witnessing defeat.

Although the role of emotion in sport is well documented, less-empirical evidence surrounds the heightened intensity of emotions experienced from sports consumption in contrast to other products; however, conceptualizations of sport consumption consistently suggest that the emotions experienced by fans during and following a sporting event can be extremely intense (Madrigal, 2004). Evidence of these emotional extremes can be seen in the requirements for security features enacted during live events. Large professional sporting events routinely hire security personnel and often implement physical barriers, such as moats, in an effort to separate fans from each other and from the action on the field. For example, there are moats surrounding soccer fields in Brazil and Germany. As another example, the University of Georgia football stadium has “the Hedges” to separate emotional fans from the athletes.

The competitive nature of sports often requires an antipodal assignment of victory and defeat. Riots and citywide celebrations following important victories suggest that the intense emotion experienced from viewing a sporting event continues well beyond the confines imposed by the game clock, although more research is needed to understand fully why the intensity of these emotions often transcend the ones found in other consumption contexts. The key to effective sports and event marketing is to harness this arousal and direct it to rub off onto sponsors’ agendas.

The valence of emotions experienced during and following a competition depend on the team (or athlete) a consumer chooses to support. These contrasting expressions of emotions, between those fans supporting winning versus losing teams, demonstrate the dramatic influence of appraisals on the elicitation of emotion.

The BIRGing and CORFing phenomena appear prevalently in sports because of a combination of elements special to the sport consumption experience. First, expressions of BIRGing and CORFing are driven by appraisals based on a fan’s affiliation with each team or performer. The stronger an affiliation, the more identified the fan, the stronger the BIRGing phenomena after a win, and the weaker the CORF following a loss (Wann, 1990). Second, BIRGing and CORFing arise from emotions experienced as a consequence of winning or losing (Dalakas et al., 2004). Individuals tend to distance themselves from negative emotions and seek positive emotions. Supporters of winning teams have elevated moods following a game (Hirt, Zillmann, Erickson, & Kennedy, 1992) as well as greater reported happiness (Slone, 1989). An opposite pattern of emotions has been observed in fans following a losing performance, with increased anger and suppressed mood evidenced even on the physiological level.

Summary: Special Aspects of Sport Consumption

Sport consumption is a special form of consumption distinguished both by the intensity of emotions and by the heightened level of self-definition found among followers. This section has outlined research documenting both of these distinguishing aspects. The next section suggests that these same attributes that differentiate sport consumption also create two opportunities for researchers. First, sport and sporting events usually provide a powerful context for developin...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword “Consumers: Alpha and Omega of Marketing”
• Preface
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• 1 Introduction: The Study of Sports and Events Consumer Behavior
• Section I: Influencing Behaviors in Society and Sports
• Section II: Building Relationships With Consumers Through Sports
• Section III: Providing Service to Consumers Through Sports and Event Sponsorship