Marilyn Giroux

The role of perceived brand personality in promotion effectiveness and brand equity development of professional sports teams

In the highly saturated sports industry where sport teams represent a complex offering loaded with intangible and tangible attributes, it is important to implement appropriate marketing strategies that will ultimately contribute to the development of strong brand equity. In this paper, the authors focused on the relationship between brand variables and marketing activities on the development of brand equity. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to study the impact of brand personality on the evaluation of marketing promotional activities and the impact on the brand equity.,Respondents (2,400) were recruited through an online survey and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.,The survey revealed that the congruence between the brand personality and the promotional activities has a positive impact on its evaluation and on brand equity. In addition, the results showed that consumers who consider the financial strength of the team as an important factor evaluate more positively the value of congruent and incongruent promotional activities.,Brand managers should maintain consistency between their brand personality and their promotional activities in order to maintain and increase their brand equity.,The results contribute to the literature by investigating the impact of brand personality on the evaluation of promotional activities. Also, it examines an important factor (financial consciousness) that could influence how fans react in front of an incongruent promotional activity. This research brings a better understanding of the impact of brand personality on marketing strategies and brand equity.

Sustainability Marketing Strategies: How Self-Efficacy and Controllability Can Stimulate Pro-Environmental Behaviors For Individuals

Sustainability has become a movement with tremendous influence in the way organizations and policy makers design their strategies (Griskevicius et al. 2010). Despite the wide availability of pro-environmental options, barriers to adopting pro-environmental behaviors are still common (Dietz et al. 2003), and past strategies undertaken by government and nonprofit organizations to encourage such behavior have achieved only limited success. This research aims to better understand what motivates consumers to express sustainable intentions and what factors interfere in their decisions. This research evaluates under which conditions diverse factors (perceived support H1a, green attitude H1b, self-identity H1c, and perceived control H1d) may have a more significant effect on green behavior. In addition, this paper explores how the impact of these four factors will vary depending on the perceived degree of difficulty of the behavior (H2). Indeed, the more difficult is the behavior, the more we expect factors other than attitude to influence individuals’ behaviors.

Is CSR Important for All Types of Fans?: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility in Sport

In the past years, corporate social responsibility gained a lot of popularity from researchers and managers around the world. Its influence on consumer behavior has made it an element of strategic importance for the diverse companies that compete on the market. This situation is not different for sport professional teams that are embracing a multitude of forms of socially responsible activities (Irwin et al. 2003). Professional teams leaders have built CSR strategies for both social and commercial purposes (Mintzberg 1984). Although CSR practices have been a growing part of marketing literature, investigation in relation with the sport domain is quite limited and recent. Given this perspective, this research examines the impact of the perceived social responsibility of a specific team on consumers’ responses. In addition, the authors want to demonstrate the moderating effect of the type of groups of fans on the benefits stimulated by a team’s CSR initiatives.

Internationalisation of sports teams brands: the consumers’ perspective

This paper tries to explain how consumers (fans) deal with an increasing offering of sport brands that tend to internationalise. In particular, we aim at better understanding how fans’ brand’s perceptions are affected by the internationalisation process of their favourite sports team. Building on previous studies and using an empirical qualitative data collection performed among sports fans from three teams at various internationalisation stages and from different countries, emerging themes are presented. Results are also analysed and discussed.

What did Ryan Lochte do? The double-edged sword of endorsers behaving badly

Endorsement deals are a key contributing factor for companies to gain brand recognition and positive brand associations from consumers. However, endorsement relationships can be risky for firms in the event of an endorser’s bad behavior or involvement in scandals. The purpose of this paper is to examine how brands can use endorsement exit strategies to minimize and even benefit from negative situations involving its endorser.,After a review of celebrity endorsement literature, the paper investigates the Rio Olympic Games robbery scandal involving American swimmer Ryan Lochte as a detailed case. By studying the timeline of sponsor-related activities, relevant theories and brand outcomes through Google Trends, indications of a calculated and strategic exit from the endorsement relationship emerge.,The case analysis establishes that sponsors can successfully leverage the negative associations toward a disgraced endorser. Based on the process of meaning transfer, this case proposes that sponsors can benefit from its public dissociation from the endorser and gain awareness from this separation.,This paper is the first study to examine the positive impact of a celebrity endorsement scandal. It highlights the need for managers to actively prepare endorsement exit strategies in the event of negative associations or endorser actions. The timing and scope of the exit strategy can both limit negative meaning transfer, and leverage the situation creating positive perceptions of integrity and ethics for the sponsor.

Activating Multiple Facets of the Self: Identity-Signaling and Brand Personality

With the growing importance of branding strategies, it is important for companies to connect more with consumers and to create emotional brand connections (Malar et al. 2011). In the past years, one strategy that companies widely used to stimulate brand connections was the symbolic and self-expressive purposes of their brands. Products present utilitarian and symbolic functions (Park et al. 1986) and consumers use and buy products to construct, confirm, and express their personal and social self-concepts (Kleine et al. 1993). Past research has demonstrated that individuals can use brands to identify with a specific reference group (Escalas and Bettman 2005), to differentiate themselves from undesired groups (Berger and Heath 2007; White and Dahl 2006) and to boost their self-esteem (Sirgy 1982).

“I Can’t Stand My Team, but I Can’t Live Without It”: Ambivalence Among Highly Identified Sports Fans

Highly identified fans are often the focus of brand strategists as they are usually investing time and money to follow the team (Richelieu and Pons 2009). However, highly identified fans represent some challenges for sports teams since they sometimes have mixed emotions toward the team and can engage in dysfunctional behaviors such as the use of abusive language, excessive drinking, and constant complaining of team decisions (Wakefield and Wann 2006). This study focuses on the latter manifestation among these dysfunctional fans and aims at better understanding the mechanisms that explain why these fans experience such strong conflicting emotions toward their favorite sport team. Another goal is to provide a typology of these fans using their rationales and motives to adopt such behaviors.