MASTER THESIS
A Journey on the value of Promotional and Experiential Marketing regarding Intention of Sport Participation within different Market Segments.
University of Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Business
Master of Science in Business Administration Track: Marketing
First supervisor: Drs. Ing. Antoon Meulemans Second reader: Drs. FR. Slisser
By:
Student: Brenda Hernández Fernández Student number: 11086106
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Brenda Hernández Fernández who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
ABSTRACT
Sport participants are influenced by numerous factors affecting the decision of which sport to practice. In this study, the aim is to understand the influence of brands on consumers’ decision making. Specifically, the point of the conversation focuses on the different impact that marketing approaches, Promotional and Experiential, have across marketing segments using the US VALS as tool of measurement.
An online experimental survey was designed in order to present different videos, regarding Promotional or Experiential Marketing to participants. After being exposed to six different videos, respondents were asked to answer specific questions related with their videos preference and intention to practice sport. In order to know their values and lifestyles, respondents were asked to answer an external survey already available on Internet.
Using data from international participants (N=114, SD=.499), it was found that there is no difference in Marketing stimuli on intention to practice sports. However, either Promotional or Experiential Marketing encourages people to have stronger intentions to participate in sports. According to their Values and Lifestyles, it was found that Primary Motivations do not influence intention to practice sport after being exposed to marketing stimuli p>.05. However, Resources do affect p<.05, showing that for people with low resources Promotional Marketing is more effective in increasing intention to practice sports while for high Resources, Experiential Marketing works better to achieve this same goal. The study represents a footstep ahead on current theoretical framework. Despite the fact that major limitations constrained the results of the test, it still exposes the reader to an insightful journey across the topic by identifying the best practices for consumers with low and high Resources.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my infinite gratitude to the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Merit Scholarship committee that have made possible to attain my Masters Degree in Business Administration: Marketing. I would also like to thank Drs. Ing. Antoon Meulemans for being my supervisor and taking me through the learning process of this master thesis, for his useful feedbacks and remarks.
Furthermore, I would like to thank my family because they have always helped me to achieve and pursuit all my goals and dreams. I am completely grateful with Paolo, my life companion, who has been by my side every day of this journey and lastly, to my friends who have been supporting me all the time.
I will be grateful forever,
Brenda Hernández Fernández
TABLE OF CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION ... 8
2. LITERATULRE REVIEW ... 11
2.1 Marketing Stimuli-Brand Stimuli ... 11
2.1.1. From Promotion to Information ... 11
2.1.2. Promotional Marketing ... 13
2.1.3. Holistic Marketing ... 14
2.1.4. Interactive and Experiential Marketing ... 16
2.2. Consumer Stimuli ... 18 2.2.1. Consumer characteristics ... 19 2.2.1.1. Cultural ... 19 2.2.1.2. Social ... 19 2.2.1.3. Personal ... 20 2.3. Consumer Psychology ... 22 2.3.1. Motivation ... 22 2.3.2. Perception ... 23 2.3.3. Learning ... 24 2.3.4. Memory ... 24 2.3.5. Attitudes ... 25
2.4. Consumer Psychographic: VALS ... 26
2.5. Consumer Intention ... 29
2.6. Research Question ... 30
2.7. Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses ... 32
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ... 34
3.1. Sample ... 34 3.2. Research Design ... 34 3.2.1 Measures ... 35 3.3. The Procedure ... 37 3.3.1. Pre-test ... 37 3.3.2. Main Study ... 37
4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ... 39
4.1. Preliminary Analysis ... 39
4.2. Reliability of Scales ... 39
4.3. Descriptives ... 40
4.4. Analysis Results ... 41
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ... 46
5.1. Discussion ... 46
5.2. Overall conclusion ... 50
5.3. Academic Implications ... 52
5.4. Managerial Implications ... 52
5.5. Limitations and future research ... 54
REFERENCE ... 57
APPENDIX ... 62
I Online Survey ... 62
II VALS ... 68
III Pre-test (1) Videos vs Printed ads ... 73
IV Pre-test (2) Time length ... 75
V Marketing Stimuli Preference and Motivations ... 76
INDEX OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1 Holistic Marketing ... 14
Figure 2. Three Hierarchy of Effects Models Marketing ... 25
Figure 3. US VALS Framework ... 27
Figure 4. Conceptual Framework ... 32
Figure 5. Marketing Stimuli Preference and Resources ... 44
Table 1. Motivational Factor for evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets ... 23
Table 2. Level of Intention to practice sport by group ... 42
Table 3. ANOVA between Subjects effect- Resources Main effects and Interaction effects ... 43
1. INTRODUCTION
Exchange of information, emotional attachment, identification and feeling of belonging, this is the relationship between brands and consumers in the third millennium; a relationship as if your favorite brand was your lifetime friend.
Contrary to traditional research, interactive marketing and, with that, experiential marketing, has allowed brands to get closer to consumers by building strong relationships, providing solutions and experiencing those together. Innovative researchers have caught up on analyzing these trends that have driven change in the mindset of brands given the increased expertise of their consumers. Still, traditional practices remain in place in certain, if not all, markets.
The sport environment has seen a greater application of both promotional and experiential concepts, but little is known on the influence that marketing stimuli have towards the intention to participate in sports. Forget, for one moment, product attributes, and look into the deepest understanding of what triggers consumers participation from an inspirational and experiential point of view. By not neglecting consumer’s lifestyle and values, the research provides a unique profile on how and which marketing approach offers greater influence in sport participation by linking together promotional theory of McCarthy (1960), and its evolution to the SIVA marketing mix (Chekitan & Schultz, 2012), more inspirational driven compared to the past, with the five modules of experiential marketing exhibited by Schmitt (1999) and consumers distinctiveness offered by the VALS methodology (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). It also provides pragmatic insights coming from consumers on which approach they believe it works the best. In that sense, it will be an explicit request to brands on how to wisely activate a specific response.
With that said, the research question of this exciting topic is the following: To what extent Promotional is different from Experiential marketing on intention to practice sports? How does this relationship differ by taking into consideration consumer Values and Lifestyles?”
To answer the above interrogation, an online experiment was run to expose interviewees to specific videos by testing their preference towards inspirational and promotional communication versus pragmatic experiences. On top of that, they were divided in market cluster, segments, according to the VALS, so their value and lifestyle as moderator effect, between marketing stimuli and intention to practice sport, was assessed. The sample consisted of 114 individuals coming from various nationalities, ages, incomes, and education.
Theoretical and managerial relevance
The uniqueness of this angle of study provides both managerial and theoretical contribution; mainly in the understanding of the different impact of marketing approaches, thanks to an observation of traditional and new techniques. As a matter of fact brands are currently facing a market that, recently, sought inspirational and experiential marketing as a point of difference to strengthen the relationship between brand and consumer; as well as a market that regards the distinctive individuality of affect, behavior and belief of each consumer.
There is evidence of previous researches showcasing the influence of marketing actions on intention to purchase certain products. Still, this research adds academic relevance from three points of view. Firstly, the analysis digs deeper into marketing stimuli as it starts to identify the value of certain approaches across segments. Secondly, it investigates an industry, the sporting goods industry that to our knowledge is overdrawn by such research. Lastly, the intention to practice sport clearly states the need to focus on the solution of consumers’ needs rather than the means.
The clear and confined boundaries allow addressing the results of the study particularly to those brands living within the sporting goods environment. Sporting goods brands know that market segmentation through values and lifestyles is key to delivering a successful marketing campaign; perhaps this could be the main outcome to suggest to brands that outbound the field of study. Moving on from this, the takeaways for marketing managers are dual: on one hand the aim is to give guidance on the optimal allocation of the marketing resources by studying the value of each approach. On the other, this research aims to force brand leaders to evolve their strategic thinking towards the solution of the problem rather than the purchase action. By focusing on the final desired outcome by consumers, brands are able to provide meaningful interactive responses, which do not only increase the emotional attachment, but also thrive to accomplish repeated purchases through brand loyalty.
Thesis Overview
The research begins showcasing the evolution of marketing communicational beliefs, highlighted as brand stimuli, from the 60s to recent times. An extensive discussion of current understandings of consumers’ stimuli, psychology and psychographic is argued as a complement to the brand stimuli towards the achievement of the consumer’s final intention. It follows the conceptual framework that poses the bases for hypotheses questioned in the experiment. The research design and methodology go into the details of test before showcasing the analysis, quantitative results to set ground to sizable discussion and conclusion. Finally, the academic and managerial implications as well as limitations and future research are presented.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Marketing Stimuli - Brand Stimuli 2.1.1. From Promotion to Information.
It has all started with the introduction, more than fifty years ago, of the concept of promotion. As McCarthy (1960) discussed in his “Basic Marketing; A managerial Approach” book, promotion is the method that firms use to interact with their consumers (p.480). Effective promotion is achieved through the information, persuasion and reminder of the marketing mix - product, price and place.
Those three undertakings can also be described through the AIDA model - acronym of Attention, Interest, Desire and Action - (Tyagi, C. & Kumar, A., 2004, p.251) with the former two symbolizing information and reminding, whilst desire and action are embraced by persuasion. Besides the fact that this theoretical framework has diligently served for decades, in recent years, some criticism has arisen. The first most emblematic and contrasting evolution of the 4Ps model was proposed by Lauterborn (1990). Indeed, right after the Second World War, when McCarthy developed his managerial approach, firms were predominantly interacting with their consumers through a single touchpoint, mass advertising, and the conversation between the firm and its consumers, was wholly one directional. There are several reasons why this has been the case: the limitation of channels to go-to-market presented a few alternatives to speak with consumers or the common practice to promote the brand primarily from a product or price standpoint are just a couple of examples (Lauterborn, 1990). Product and price differentiation were the typical tactics to win the competition. This primitive marketing approach was validated until consumer orientation, and sophistication, became to a reality in late 80s (White, 2010). It was on this occasion that Lauterborn (1990) developed a new classification of the 4 Ps in 4 Cs: consumer needs and wants, cost,
acknowledging consumer dissimilarities into segments. The talk is not anymore around mass marketing, principally mass media advertising to whole market, but nice marketing; in other words, marketing of segments. Before continuing to discuss the evolution of the marketing principle into today’s customer experience, it is important to further analyze the Latin etymology of promotion and communication to reinforce their differences. While the former can be translated in today’s terms as “the act of persuading someone to do something” (Dizzionario Etimologico Online, 2016), communication embodied the sense community and interchange as the “act to share something with someone” (Dizzionario Etimologico Online, 2016).
Perhaps even more revolutionary, was the new marketing mix developed by Chekitan & Schultz (2012). In 2005, the authors contrasted the McCarthy's 4Ps in the acronyms SIVA, Solution instead of Product, Information instead of Promotion, Value instead of Price, and, ultimately, Access instead of Place (Chekitan & Schultz, 2012). The SIVA marketing mix is opposed to the 4 Ps, and 4 Cs, as it flips the point of view, from the brands to the consumers. Indeed, consumers do not need price but value as well as they do not look for needs or wants, but solutions. Specifically, information is doubtfully seen as the flow of information coming from brands, rather the way consumers decide to pull the information from, such as direct, retail, traditional media or online. As the authors reminded us, Steve Jobs once said: “People don’t just want to buy personal computers anymore; they want to know what they can do with them.” (Chekitan & Schultz, 2012, p. 46). The SIVA marketing mix describes how brands have been seeking to win competition, increase consumer loyalty and deliver the maximum brand experience in a continuing changing marketing with more brands, more channels, more source of information, where complexity has not been greater than now. On top of this, brands no longer have the luxury to share ideas with consumers and
remain sat behind a desk. Knowing the market, by putting themselves in the consumer's shoes, has become key to boost brand attachment, and in turn gain loyalty.
As a matter of fact, this is the reality where we find ourselves now; a market where product and price differentiation are obsolete practices, if not integrated by other marketing approaches; a market where consumers are exposed to a vast number and ways to pull the most trustable information, useful to compare not only products (solutions) but also values and accesses. For this reason, brand experience has become one of the most used ways to inform, interact and recruit loyal consumers in the sport industry and beyond.
2.1.2 Promotional Marketing.
McCarthy (1960) defines types of promotion: Mass Selling, Personal Selling and Sales Promotion. According to him, mass selling is planned, implemented and executed by the marketing department (p.482). Mass selling refers to advertising, which means making someone aware of something (Cambridge Online Dictionaries, 2016), such as television, radio, outdoor, newspaper, magazines and online advertising, nowadays including both mobile and desktop. There are different ways brands can advertise; from the most traditional ones, such as the classic mainstream TV ad, to the most recent, as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, promotion follows consumers’ buying decision process, where consumers begin with a problem recognition, then search for the information, evaluate the alternatives and finally, make the purchase decision (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.166). Particularly through advertisement, brands leverage their communication at the information search to persuade consumers with the objective to guide them to purchase own products. Buying decision process can be accompanied with the traditional funnel metaphor that exhibits the different stages of consumer’s acquaintance with a brand. It starts with awareness, where
mass selling/advertising play a key role, then familiarity, consideration, before taking into account the purchase (Court, D., Elzinga, D., Mulder, S. & Jørgen, O, 2016).
To conclude, Personal Selling and Sales Promotion are two promotional practices still in place in various industries - even in the sport industry Sales Promotion can still be found. However, for the scope of this research, it is believed that they go out of boundaries; hence, they will be left aside to focus only on Mass Selling.
2.1.3 Holistic Marketing.
When it comes to talk about consumer’s information; companies and marketers, have developed a wider marketing approach that embraces all the stakeholders, internal and external, to create experience, build and maintain relationships, emotional attachment, through the internal coordination towards a common objective in profitable, ethical and sustainable way (Hyeonyoung, C., Eunju, K., Young, K., & Pekka, M, 2015). The developed framework (Figure 1), represents the four diverse branches of Holistic Marketing.
Figure 1. Holistic Marketing (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.19)
Relationship Marketing signifies all the interactions with the stakeholders, such as customers, partners, suppliers and so forth; interactions that are able to strengthen the position of the brand in the market (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20). Understanding customer, or consumer, relationship is particular important as it is directly related with the satisfaction that the consumer might have with the brand at different touchpoints. This is something that will be discussed in detail in the next paragraphs. Internal Marketing refers to all those activities that allow a smooth flow of information with the organization and also those that raise the level of satisfaction of employees according to business directors (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.21). Besides looking just at the balance sheet, Performance Marketing, explains the sustainable and ethical practices, from the respect of the workers’ conditions to the minimum impact on the environment (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.22). Finally, Integrated Marketing applies to all those things attached to the creation, communication and delivery of value (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20). To what concerns the scope of the research, it is believed beneficial to restrict the analysis by looking at the Integrated Marketing Communication with a particular focus on the newly defined approach named Experiential Marketing. It will become clearer in the conversation below, how brands are not sellers of not only products, but also experience creators and subsequently, how the three different tools of the Integrated Marketing - Product, Communication and Channel (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20) - sometimes appear blurry as a unique entity.
Before jumping into the discussion of Experiential Marketing, it is also relevant to spend a few words on the understanding of consumers’ response from brands that stimulate the on-going conversation with their consumers through experiences. The present-day terminology “Customer Experience Management”, or CEM, precisely describes this behavior of tactics put in practice to respond to market stimuli and to provide those solutions that go beyond the fulfillment of needs and,
that enable satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy (Gartner, Inc. 2016). To be precise, CEM is the discipline that improves the Customer Experience Factor (Dandridge, 2010), literally like if the consumers were rating in a scorecard their experience with the brand in a scale from 1 to 10, for instance. To relink with the above explained holistic marketing approach, CEM is part of the Integrated Marketing Communication together with brand awareness and direct marketing (Sevier, 2007). While there is always detailed attention on the generation awareness and responses - direct marketing -, the potential of CEM is often underestimated as it can determine whether customer satisfaction, and subsequently loyalty and advocacy, have been accomplished (Sevier, 2007). In truth, CEM allows brands to establish a connection with consumers on all the customer life cycle, pick the right message at the right time, as well as offer personalized memorable experiences - with the increase of loyalty and advocacy in return (SAS Institute Inc., 2016).
2.1.4 Interactive and Experiential Marketing.
Back in 1998, the fathers of the Journal of Interactive Marketing - IM , define the same as “the strategic use of information and information technology as corporate assets, network-based communication, customer and managerial behavior in interactive environments, the evolution of interactive institutions and the design and testing of interactive marketing decisions” (Deighton & Rashi, 1998, pp.3). IM is, therefore, the newly marketing branch that derives from the evolution of touchpoints with consumers.
Internet platforms, but also the birth of communities, are assets that brands have recently started to leverage in order to establish new means of communication or interactions. Today, the notion of IM does not go too far away from this early definition, if not by stressing even further that Interactive Marketing enables a conversation between the brand and consumers through marketing practices of the former. Elements of IM are the connecting platforms, communities, personalization,
E-WOM, word of mouth, etc (Malthouse, E. & Hofacker, C., 2010). With the development of the IT, IM has evolved and is in continuous transformation. IM does not need to be confused as synonym of Digital Marketing as its range of action is wider than the latter. Due to technological advancements, it is true that nowadays brands use IT to establish a remote and personalized conversation with consumers, but this is not the only way that can be conducted within IM to interact with consumers.
Together with the raise of importance of IM, brands began to understand the relevancy and potential of giving to them a memorable experience of the interaction they had. As stated above, the recognition of the obsolescence of traditional promotional tool only through product features, forced brands to generate a holistic marketing mindset, integrated communication that would trigger memorable reminiscences. As a matter of fact, Experiential Marketing (EM), is the most recent evolution of Integrated Marketing standing for a brand experience-based orientation, rather than the traditional product-based one (Kirezli, 2011).
The notion of Experiential Marketing was brought alive by Schmitt (1999) whose theory was founded upon the belief that consumer’s response was part of a socio-cultural context rather than just competitive offering and consumer’s attachment to emotional feelings triggered by experiences. He proposes a conceptual framework for managing experiences that is based on modules, which are:
● Sense - creation of sensory experiences ● Feel - creation of emotional experiences
● Think - creation of cognitive and problem-solving experiences ● Act - creation of physical experiences
● Relate - creation of self-improvement experiences as a feel of belonging to a community (Schmitt, 1999)
Marketers can either choose one or create a combination of those modules to stimulate the desired experience and consumers’ outcome (Schmitt, 1999). This modular design is very useful when analyzing the type of actions taken by brands towards their influence on consumers’ behavior and their responses. A state of art example that Schmitt (1999) ultimately brings on his study is Nike’s eternal campaign “Just Do It”, that represents the symbol of EM according to the Act module. On top of that, it can be seen how sporting goods companies have used, in addition to Act, also other module, such as Feel, impactful emotional content; Think, campaign against health related issues from a sedentary life and Relate, strategies that surround the sense of belonging to a particular community as Nike+, for instance.
On one hand, through the establishment of a holistic marketing approach that generates experiential responses, IM and EM support brands in developing brand attachments, hence loyalty. In addition, there is also the formation of one-to-one interactions and experiences that, on the other, support the customization of each consumer's solution. Consumers have also the option to select those brands that, do not only fulfill their solving need, but those that offer the best emotional, provocative and communitarian experience.
With IM and EM, it has been touched a complete overview of brand power to affect consumer’s behavior, thus intention. The next section will then move on describing those influencing factors that immediately surrounds consumer’s sphere.
2.2 Consumers’ Stimuli
Brands do have influence on consumers. They can also put in motion certain consumers behaviors. Still, consumers do have a lot to say and to process, resulting in a good chunk of unpredictability when responding. The environment in which the consumers live and the uniqueness of the individual compose this fragmented unpredictability, which is by nature impossible to precisely forecast by
brands. This section covers both aspects of consumers’ stimuli, external and internal, by arguing consumer’s characteristics, psychology and psychographic. Together with the brand stimuli, these factors will then lead to the intention to participate in a certain physical activity.
2.2.1 Consumer Characteristics.
Consumers’ behavior is primarily shaped by its cultural, social and personal factors, whose strength and duration vary from one to another. In the followings paragraphs, a good explanation of those will be given before moving on to the consumer psychology.
2.2.1.1 Cultural.
As reported by Kotler & Keller (2012), cultural factors significantly drive consumers’ decision in shaping the need for solutions (p.151). Specifically, in the sport market, it would be a mistake to assume that every culture favors physical activities in the same way. However, it can be easily understood how sport practices change between countries as well as the frequency of practicing them. For example, weather and residency are determinants of the frequency of sport activity. By taking the USA for instance, sport practitioners are segmented according to the subculture they belong: White, Latino, Asian or Afro-American, but also where they live, States facing the oceans or in a mountainous area have lower obesity rate as result of practicing more physical activity than those living in the flat Midwest (The State of Obesity, 2014). Social class is another cultural dimension. In this specific case, several studies have reported that the increase of physical activity in leisure time is higher for those belonging to higher social classes (Hillsdon, Marshall SJ., Jones, D., Ainsworth, B., Reis, J., Levy, S., Macera, C., 2011).
2.2.1.2. Social.
The second consumer’s characteristic that influences attitudes and behavior is Social. That is to say, social characteristics enclose reference groups, roles and status (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.153).
Reference group means to the primary groups, with family being recognized as the most powerful one, and secondary groups, such religious and professional associations. Within each reference group, it can be then identified an opinion leader that is the most influencing actor within it. Besides the family, other influencing groups in the sport market are sport associations, for example. Over the last decades, brands have recognized the power of opinion leaders, through the endorsement of top sport athletes. These practices still favor the idea that consumers will follow the example of their idols, from a product to a physical motion perspective. However, this is starting to lose consensus giving the poor ROI, brand exposure on the behavior of sponsored athletes (Carrilat, 2014). Ultimately, the role, activities expected to perform and the status, position within a hierarchy (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.154) are also components that determine a certain behavior in the selection of a physical activity. Typically, sports like golf, polo, tennis, are practiced, not only by a higher social class, but also to witness the role and the status of a consumer.
2.2.1.3. Personal.
Personal factors are those intrinsically in each one of us, that form the way we are and the way we act. Brands who tend to perform Experiential Marketing, hence one-to-one connection, should pay greater attention to these factors as they are expected to vary even within the same-targeted group. According to Kotler & Keller (2012), they can be categorized in: age and stage of the life cycle, occupation and economic circumstances, personality and self-concept and lifestyle and values (p.154)
Different ages shape different responses. Normally, young adults are more open to innovation and accept changes more readily than the elderly do. At different ages, responses to marketing stimuli may vary as part of the acquired experience encountered during the life cycle.
Consumer's income, debt and saving highly affect spending decisions. Engel’s law usefully explains how spending patterns varies at different level of disposal income (Kotler & Keller, p.156). Without the required income, consumers may not be able to respond to brand stimuli accordingly and, therefore, the effort would have been useless. For this reason, it is utterly important that marketing researches are conducted to tune those activities addressed to a specific target.
Highly connected with the age and life cycle, personality and self concept describes respectively the human psychological traits and responses to stimuli and the way consumers’ view themselves and how they would like to view themselves in the future (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.156). Like consumers, brands have their own personalities, called brand personality (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.156). In the effort to build a stronger relationship, brands use these traits to allow consumers to pick the one that connects greater with their own, but also to remove the institutional mindset of the brand, thus becoming more “human”.
Lastly, lifestyle and core values identify the way of living and strong and durable beliefs of a consumer (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.157). Lifestyle has become a major focal point for many brands due to the fact that lifestyles are visually identifiable with trends and opinion leaders. As a consequence, lifestyles are subjected to transformation according to their duration, as creating continuous business opportunities for brands. For example, a part of the LOHAS trend , Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability, (Kotler and Keller, 2012, p.158) outdoor lifestyle has intensified and created the opportunity for sporting good brands, such as Adidas (Adidas, 2016) and Vans (Vans, 2016) to enter in the outdoor segment.
2.3 Consumer Psychology 2.3.1 Motivation.
Motivation is the factor that shapes consumers’ behaving in a particular way. Despite the fact that Sigmund Freud stated the difficulty in understanding the motivation of people, Abraham Maslow proposed a widely recognized framework that described consumer’s motivation towards needs and wants (as cited in Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.160). This pyramidal framework begin at the lowest layer with the psychological needs, hence survival needs like water and food, to safety and protection, social needs, esteem needs and, finally, self-actualization needs (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.161).
In order to understand which motive, or motives, triggers the need of a consumer to practice a sport, McDonald, M., Milne, G, Hong, J. (2002) carefully gathered and categorized previous studies and flows of thoughts according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to them, the categorization on motivators of sport participation are: physical fitness, desire to feel better; risk taking, desire to undertake extreme sports; stress reduction, desire to reduce the stress; aggression, desire to provoke harm to another person; affiliation, being part of a group; social facilitation, gratification to enjoy with others the same sport; self esteem, desire to hold oneself in regard; competition, desire to compete; achievement, desire to be successful; skill mastery, desire to develop skills; aesthetics, desire to look physically better; value development, desire to develop skills and self actualization, desire to self-fulfill (McDonald et al., 2002). Table 1, Motivational Factors for evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets, shows the visually recap what is discussed by McDonald et al. (2002) according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Table 1. Motivational Factors for evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets (McDonald et. al., 2002)
The research then continues by understanding the importance of each motivator on nine different sports on both participants and spectators (McDonald et al., 2002).
2.3.2. Perception.
Kotler & Keller (2012) define perception as the “process by which we select, organize, and interpret information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world” (p. 161 -162). Perception is subjective, and change from one person to another, according to the modality of how the information is given by the donor and captured by the receiver. The moment when consumers form their perception can be split into three processes: selective attention, the process in which individuals
store meaningful information that stimulates their pleasure or needs; selective distortion, the process where information is transformed according to previous beliefs or expectations and selective retention, the process where individuals forget sorrows or dislikes and remember positive emotions or what they like (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.162).
2.3.3. Learning.
Learning is the aspect of the human behavior that is directly related with the experience. Indeed, a great chunk on the way people behave is due to the lifetime learning. Theories tell that to provoke a positive behavioral response as forecasted, brands should use drivers, strong internal stimulus setting action, with cues, stimuli managing how response is conceived and where and when is initiated, and make sure expectations are satisfactory, thus leading to the reinforcement of the belief (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.163). Experiential Marketing plays a crucial role through the perception, especially in generating attitudes as described few paragraphs below, but also during the learning process, when consumers utilize the promised experience and connected emotions attach to the activity. Perception and learning are also highly influenced by the emotions that an individual feels regarding current status and past experiences (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.163).
Brands do recognize that consumers are not completely, rational and cognitive, but do vary based on the same learning as well as the current point in time; for this reason, marketing effort is build around the creation of these emotions to trigger expected behaviors.
2.3.4. Memory.
Memory is the mental faculty that allows for storage of information. The aim of every marketing department is to make sure their brand name is stored in the long-term compartment, the more permanent area of the brain, of each of their audience (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.163). One of the objectives of Inspirational (promotional) and Experiential Marketing is to produce those unique
emotions that will be so appealing to people to be remembered for a very long time. According to the perception selective processes (attention, distortion and retention), memories are encoded into our brain; however without a continuous reiteration, through learning, that information will be retrieved. Kotler & Keller (2012) describe that memory retrieval occurs due to the storage of other information that will replace, even partially, old ones; the effect of time, that gradually fade out information or lose the link with those if not systematically solicited (p.163)
2.3.5. Attitudes.
Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G. (2006) say that an attitude is a “lasting, general evaluation of people, objects, advertisements or issues” (p.138) which has three components: affect, consumer feel of an object; behavior, consumer intention to act towards and attitude; object and cognition, consumer belief of the attitude object. They continue by stating that attitude theorists have developed the concept of the hierarchy of effects that consists in a three linear sequence of the components towards the attitude (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.140-143).
The Standard Learning hierarchy is the first one, which defines consumers as problem-solvers, high involvement, where they collect the knowledge about a product attributes to develop beliefs, then evaluate them to establish an affection before taking on with a behavior (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p 140-141). In this scenario, they describe the attitude as “based on cognitive information processing” (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141)
The second sequence is the Low Involvement hierarchy that portrays the circumstance when consumers do not have a particular preference over a brand, but behave based on the limited knowledge available and ultimately build their belief once the product has been consumed (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141-142). In this case, the consumers’ attitude is based on behavioral learning processes (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141).
The last linear sequence, and what it is believed to be the most meaningful in this research, is the Experiential hierarchy that depicts consumers attitude “based on hedonic consumption”, which means that they react based on emotional feelings and, ultimately, generates the beliefs (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141-143). Mittal (1988) defines that Experiential hierarchy occurs on products that are on the top of the Maslow Hierarchy, hence those that are less functional and more attached to the brand personality and communicational message.
2.4 Consumer Psychographic: VALS.
In order to estimate consumer’s behavior, SRI International (2016) developed the so-called VALS program, which stands for Values and Lifestyle. VALS is a response on consumers’ fragmentation to partially predict their response through the analysis of the psychological traits and demographics opposed societal trends, which are explained as more exposed to fluctuation (SRI International, 2016). More specifically, VALS is a psychometric method that assesses attitudes in order to forecast
US VALS methodology is based on eight idiosyncratic consumer groups along with the concept of Primary Motivation and Resources, respectively on the horizontal and vertical axis (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. US VALS™ Framework (Strategic Business Insights, 2016)
US VALS™ Framework
Primary Motivation refers to ideal, achievement and self-expression motivations that allow to define attitudes and predict behaviors. Ideal highlights knowledge and principles, Achievement refers to willingness to show success to others, and Self-expression stands for social and physical activity and, variety and risk (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). Resources refers to the degree of innovation of an individual together with the traits like energy, self-confidence, intellectualism, novelty seeking, innovativeness, impulsiveness, leadership, and vanity (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). To complete the explanation of the model, the eight consumers’ groups are listed as follows
● Innovators present high Resources and all the three Primary Motivations to a certain extent. Innovators can be confident enough to experiment. In addition, they are future oriented, skeptical about advertising, international mindset, innovation believers, problem-solvers and can have various interests.
● Thinkers, those who are analytical, structured, wealthy, detach to trends, analyze before deciding, are motivated by ideals and exhibit high Resources.
● Achievers, on the other hand, are motivated by achievement and exhibit high Resources. Achievers are goal-oriented, hardworking, family oriented, believers in the status quo and in the money as tool of power.
● Experiences have the same range of Resources of the last two groups, but motivation comes from self-expression. Their personality is built on welcoming trends as early adopters and against what is mainstream, love physical activity, friends, spontaneous and stimulated by visuals.
● Believers are motivated as thinkers by ideals, but show low Resources. They put faith on spiritual inspiration, open to advertising, modest, watch movie to escape from real life and loyal.
● Strivers have also low Resources and motivated by achievement with personal characteristics, such as funny, unstable job condition and low class mainstream oriented. ● Makers is the last group exhibiting low Resources and their motivation comes from
self-expression. Pragmatic traits of Markers are ownership protection, straightforward, invest in estates and distrust public institutions.
● Survivors is the last of the eight groups and to this belong who do not have a Primary Motivation and have low Resources. Old consumers, risk aversion, conservative, remaining in the comfort zone are a few examples describing Survivors.
Even if the Strategic Business Insights (2016), SRI’s spin-off, has recently developed VALS for other countries, such as the UK. In this study, it will be used the US VALS for being the most used so far, but also as it is the only one available for free usage for non-clients.
2.5. Consumer Intention.
The consideration of alternatives is the step where consumers display the array of brands that have interacted with and forms their preference, intention, towards a particular brand before moving on the purchasing action.
Intention is the end point that encompasses all the consumers’ stimuli, psychology and psychographic discussed above together with the initial brand stimuli. According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, Intention is “something that you plan and want to do” (2016). Indeed, this reference does not mention the triggers of their desire, but it is clear that for this research, the study will be confined on the inputs coming from marketing, both promotional and experiential. The outcome of this mix of stimuli, particularly motivation, resulting in a consumer response to follow or not follow the subliminal communicational message exchanged with the brand and, concurrently, processed by each consumer. Intention can be collective or individual, can result in an action or goal as well as have an immediate or delayed response (Bagozzi, 2016). These types of intentional responses can be predicted, or even triggered, by brands to a certain extent.
It is important to understand the frequency of sport participation as it varies between individuals. According to Swayne, L and Dodds, M. (2011), there are different types of participants: those who are professionals and get paid for playing a sport and amateurs who do not receive any
remuneration to play and just do it for fun or health concerns (p.189). Obviously, within the vast majority of amateurs, falls on many different sport participants who do it for unique motives, as described above from the research of McDonald et al. (2002) and frequency, from intensive activity to sporadic training per year.
Engagement is also another critical element that increases as sport participants become more committed to what they are doing. From a marketing perspective, having consumers’ engaged, improve brand knowledge, brand loyalty and Word-of-mouth (Correia, S., Pires, A., and Ruedlger, H.,2015).
Real life and precedent research seen above tell us that marketing plays a critical role in shaping intention and triggering sport participation along with other stakeholders. Marketing channels and techniques can be refined, replaced or updated, but ultimately the common line is the importance of the influence of brands through marketing practices. Esomba, S. (n.d.) states that marketing techniques in the sport industry increase both the promotion of products and promotion of sports, which in turn, boost sports participation (p.17). As explained below, today’s brands in the sport industry played a more complex marketing strategy compared to the only promotion of product. Still, Esomba (n.d) proved the true impact of marketing as well as the needs of product placement within different communication channels (p.17). Another piece of research conducted by Wang, Y., Ho, C., Chen, T. (2015) reported Experiential Marketing activities increase purchase intention in cultural and creative products, such a paintings.
2.6. Research Question
Constant transformation occurs in the world that we all live into. Brands, consumers, competition, government are all in a frenetic movement to meet each one’s objectives and everyone is influenced by everyone to a certain extent. In this research it is called stimuli and, in the specific, it has been
discussed the stimuli that brands, through their marketing department, have towards consumers. As a result of changes, this research has partially moved away from McCarthy’s (1960) definition of promotion in a way as it was conceived. Personal selling and mass advertising are still in place, even if their dominance has been replaced by other tactics, or the same have been refined. More sophisticated and “grown up” consumers forced brands to establish an interaction with them, instead of a persuasion; with the tendency of having a one-to-one interaction in order to meet different requests on issues with customized solutions. Experiential Marketing is in one way a response to closely interact with consumers, who do not ultimately search for only product attributes anymore, but a sense of belonging, friends and identification in the brands. Still, the refinement of traditional practices, through the use of inspirational connection, has been able to revive in today’s market.
Having said that, the focal point of this study, is not to look at consumers’ fulfillment through satisfactory or loyalty metrics. Instead, it is through the analysis of the response by the fulfillment of the solution. Limited research has been conducted on the analysis of the impact of specific marketing stimuli and the solution fulfillment. In this research, the range of study is around sporting goods and services brands that through Promotional (inspirational) and Experiential Marketing have a say in driving sport participation, which is considered as the solution. The reason lies in making a step forward towards the understanding of which marketing activities works the best according to specific market segments. To reiterate what seen above, the importance of marketing activities cannot be challenged nowadays, where consumers ask for a continuous interaction with brands. Specifically, the aim is to give a clear answer to the marketing team, within a specific industry, that in recent years have been exposed to the opening of channels, thus the multiplication of touchpoints with their consumers resulting in new opportunities.
In order to fully understand the impact of these marketing activities, all the other non-brand stimuli will be left aside to leave marketing stimuli and sport participation in complete isolation. The only variable that is taken into account, resulting in amplification or reduction of the marketing effort in sport participation, is consumer Values and Lifestyles.
To sum up what discussed, the research question is: “To what extent Promotional is different from Experiential Marketing on intention to practice sports? How does this relationship differ by taking into consideration consumer Values and Lifestyles?”
2.7. Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses
Figure 4. Conceptual Framework
Figure 4, provides a general overview of the conceptual framework of this study. This framework has been developed to answer the research question mentioned in the previous subchapter. In order to understand if there is a difference between both types of marketing stimuli on intention to practice sport, the first hypothesis is tested:
To have a better comprehension of how the relationship between marketing stimuli and intention to practice sports differs according to Primary Motivations (Ideals, Achievement and Self Expressions), the following hypotheses are tested:
H2a. Consumers with Ideals as Primary Motivation express more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing.
H2b. Consumers with Achievement as Primary Motivation express more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing. H2c. Consumers with Self Expression as Primary Motivation express more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Experiential Marketing rather than Promotional Marketing.
Lastly, the second part of the moderator, Resources (high and low), is also tested with the hypotheses presented below:
H3a. Consumers with high Resources express more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Experiential Marketing rather than Promotional Marketing.
H3b. Consumers with low Resources express more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing.
3. Research Design and Methodology
The comprehension of the relationship between the two different marketing approaches, Promotional and Experiential, moderated by Consumer’s Values and Lifestyle - VALS - compel data collection to study the effect on intention to practice sport on the single individual. The sample description covers the first part of this chapter, before moving on to actual research design and the measurement of the items and variables presented in the conceptual framework. Lastly, the final section touches on the explanation of the procedure on how data were collected.
3.1. Sample
The population of this study consisted in participants from 21 to 63 years old with Internet access, primarily due to the necessity of exposing them, during the test, to video content available in Youtube. To increase the breadth of understanding of topic of this study, it was chosen to not restrict the research on a particular gender, ethnicity, nor consumers living in a specific country. Moreover, due to the limitation of time and economic resources as well the size of the population, a snowball sampling, where participants could share the survey within their own network, was believed to be the most efficient.
3.2. Research design
Quantitative research is thought to be the most appropriate for the test and analysis of the two variables and the moderation effect. The type of topic of this research, the relationship between variables and items listed in the conceptual framework, and the width of samples needed to provide significance to the results impacted on this decision. The test and analysis were done entirely through an online experiment survey (see Appendix I) given numerous advantages; on top of anything else is the ease of access to groups and individuals of different gender, ethnicity and residency, that through other means may have been difficult to reach (Garton, Haythornthwaite, &
Wellman, 1999; Wellman, 1997). A second significant reason, for favoring the online experiment, is the simplicity of contacting many individuals in a very short amount of time and in a very inexpensive manner (Bachmann & Elfrink, 1996).
3.2.1 Measures
Questions about marketing preference and intention to participate in sports were asked in the online survey. In order to know which Values and Lifestyle (VALS) each participant belonged to, respondents were asked to answer directly the VALS survey already available on http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/surveynew.shtml. (see Appendix II)
The survey was divided in three different sections. In the first section, respondents were asked to indicate through a multiple option question, their primary and secondary type (VALS) gotten directly through the external survey. The second section and the heart of the survey was composed by three cases made to truly test the preference on Promotional or Experiential, hence to test the marketing stimuli, and the intention on sport practicing. On each case one different brand (Nike, The North Face and Reebok) was selected according to the availability of marketing campaign resources at disposal; moreover, every case was composed of the same seven questions, which were repeated each time. The first question directly aimed at the understanding of the preference of one of the two videos played on each case, one Promotional and one Experiential. The second question was useful to get some extra information as it addressed to the actively participation of interviewee in the event shown in the experiential video. Finally, the last five questions were asked to assess the intention to practice sport of the interviewee, based on their preference of that case. All these questions were asked for the other two cases as well. Lastly, the third section included demographic questions.
In order to measure which marketing stimulus had a stronger impact on people’s intention to practice sports, one single categorical item was asked for the independent variable. Participants were forced to respond which video they preferred after watching both videos. Regarding the dependent variable, intention to practice sport was measured on a constructed scale consisting of six items based on existing scale of Liñán and Chen (2006). These items were developed to measure entrepreneurial intention with a Cronbach’s α =.96. The items were modified from entrepreneurial intention (I’ve got the firm intention to start a firm someday) to intention to practice sports (I’ve got the firm intention to practice sport someday) for instance, and one item was removed (My professional goal is becoming an entrepreneur) because of the lack of consistency with sport participation. Participants had to indicate to what extent they agreed to the items presented in a 5-point Likert Scale being 1 (Definitely not) to 5 (Definitely yes). Examples of items are: “I am ready to make anything to practice sports”, “I will make every effort to practice sports”, “I am determine to practice sports”, “I have very seriously thought in practicing sport” and the last one “I have got the firm intention to practice sports some day”.
Despite the fact demographic data do not have a direct impact on the relation that this study is analyzing, it was decided to run several questions that would have given a better understanding of the sample. As a matter of fact, gender, age, level of education and average annual gross income were asked. Gender was reported through a multiple option with two categorical answers (Female or male). Age was in an open question. The highest achieved level of education was asked through a multiple choice questions giving the following alternatives: No education, High School, University Bachelor Degree, University Master Degree and Other type of education. Finally, average annual gross income was input through a three multiple question, participants had to select one of the following options: less than €25,000, from €25,001 to €75,000 and more than €75,001.
3.3. The procedure 3.3.1. Pre-test
Two different pre-tests were done before launching the real survey. In both cases, online surveys were executed to collect all the required data. These pre-tests were developed in order to know 1) if videos were more effective than printed ads with regard to promotional stimuli to attract more people's attention (see Appendix III) and 2) if the difference in length among Promotional and Experiential videos had an impact on people’s decision making (see Appendix IV). Ten respondents participated online in each pre-test. With these pre-tests we could confirm that videos were more preferred over printed ads and the length difference of videos did not affect respondents’ choice. Therefore, Promotional videos were compared against Experiential videos and as the video length did not affect people’s decision making, videos were used in the survey without any restriction. 3.3.2. Main study
As mentioned above, data were collected through an online survey, hosted in www.qualtrics.com, software that allows you to create surveys, collect data and export these to the well-known predictive analysis software called SPSS. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 for Mac, was used to analyze the data. Data collection was carried out using a snowball technique. The researcher made use first of her own social network to spread out the survey but participants were also asked to spread the survey within their group of friends.
For this online survey, three sporting good brand were selected as previously mentioned: Nike, The North Face and Reebok. For each brand, one promotional and one experiential video were assigned, hence, six videos were given within the survey.
As previously stated, the survey was divided then in three different parts. The first section, respondents were asked to answer the VALS Survey (Strategic Business Insights, 2016), which is an
external survey already available on Internet. Once they finished answering that survey and results were retrieved, they were asked to attach a screenshot of their results besides indicating in multiple option questions, their primary and secondary type already gotten from the VALS survey. The second part of the survey was divided in three different cases. The first case was presented with Nike videos, the second one with The North Face videos, and the third one with Reebok videos. The order of the brands was randomly selected. All surveys presented the same order of brands but in order to avoid bias on the responses, half of the participants were asked to watch first Promotional videos and then the Experiential videos, while the other half was asked to watch the Experiential videos followed by Promotional ones. Then, the last section, including general demographic information, was asked.
4. Results and Analysis
In this chapter, preliminary analysis, reliability of scales and descriptive analysis were performed in SPSS. Further analyses on how the hypotheses were tested are also described at the end of this chapter.
4.1. Preliminary analysis
The experimental survey was disseminated via Internet, reaching out to participants through personal email or Facebook with the intention to gather as many surveys as possible to increase the probability of significance. From the 24th of April to 8th of May, questionnaires were active. As a consequence, 235 surveys were filled in but 121 respondents dropped out answering less than half of the survey, causing too many missing data. For this reason, these surveys were deleted and only 114 surveys were useful to do the analysis. After omitting these participants, there were no more missing data in the dataset and recoding counter indicatives items was not necessary. In total, 74% of the respondents were women and 26% were men, with the youngest participant with the age of 21 and the oldest of 63 years old.
It was necessary to create a new variable for the Independent variable as well as for the Moderator variable (further information is given in the “Descriptives” section of this chapter). Normality was assessed in order to know if the distribution of scores on the dependent variable - Intention - was “normal” (Pallant, 2010, p. 59). Kolmogrov-Smirnov statistics were analyzed with a value <.05 and with a negative skewness between 0 and -1. Therefore, it can be said that items of Intention and Marketing Stimuli had no normal distribution.
4.2. Reliability of scales
alpha, which is the most common measure to test the internal consistency, must be greater than .7 to show significant results (Pallant, 2010, p.97).
It is important to know that for single-items, Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability cannot be computed (Gliem, J., Gliem, R., 2003) For this reason, it should be highlighted that for the independent variable, the single-item marketing stimuli, reliability could not be tested.
Regarding the dependent variable, the reliability analysis could be run for this scale, pointing out a high internal consistency with a Cronbach’s α =.91 and without any requirement of deleting items. For the moderating variable, Values and Lifestyles, no Cronbach’s alpha is available to gauge the reliability of the test because VALS survey is available online and the results are given straight forward after the completion of it. Moreover, there is no available information that explains which constructs it measures for each of the items presented in the survey.
4.3 Descriptives
As explained in chapter four, respondent were asked to answer the same questions in three different scenarios after being exposed to six different videos. It was necessary to compute modes and medians in order to create new variables and be able to summarize all the answers gotten for each participant. Therefore, new variables were created and were used to perform the whole analysis. On one hand, it was necessary to understand which marketing stimulus was preferred for each participant. Analyzing the mode for the item “Which video do you prefer?” (measuring independent variable) which was asked three times, it helped to perceive which of the two marketing stimuli was preferred for every respondent. For the whole population (N=114, SD=.499) 55% chose Promotional videos and the other 45% preferred Experiential videos. On the other hand, all the answers regarding intention for each respondent were also summarized. In this case the total intention for
each participant was required. For this reason, the mean of the five items, measuring intention asked three times, was analyzed and a new variable was also created.
Concerning the moderator, eight different options respecting the Values and Lifestyles type were given in the survey, however, these eight personalities were regrouped, into Primary Motivation and Resources, as follows: Ideals (Thinkers and Believers), Achievement (Achievers and Strivers), Self-Expression (Experiencers and Makers), High Resources (Thinkers, Achievers and Experiencers) and Low Resources (Believers, Strivers and Makers). It is important to point that for all those respondents who got Innovators or Survivors as a first type, their second type was instead, taken into account because of the complexity of the model. The Resources classification was also done to identify those participants who belonged either to high or low resources to be able to carry out the moderator analysis.
4.4. Analysis results
Different statistical analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses. On one hand, to define which type of marketing stimulus influences more the intention to practice sport, an Independent T-test was developed. On the other hand, in order to test how the relationship between marketing stimuli and intention to practice sports differs by primary motivations and resources (VALS), a two-way analysis of variance was performed. In order to know if these tests were appropriate for the data, all assumptions such as level of measurement, random sampling, independence of observation, normal distribution and homogeneity of variance were checked (Pallant, 2010, p.205). The only assumption violated was normality, however, both T-Test and ANOVA are quite tolerant for violation of this assumption especially with large sample size (e.g. 30+) (Pallant, 2010, p.205).
First, an Independent T-test was conducted to compare the intention to practice sports for Promotional Marketing and Experiential Marketing. There was no significant difference in scores for
Promotional Marketing stimuli (N=63, M=3.92, SD=1.02) and Experiential Marketing stimuli (N=51, M=3.90, SD=.94; t (112) = .10, p=.92, two-tailed). Therefore, H1 should be rejected, since Promotional Marketing does not increase intention to practice sport more than Experiential Marketing.
Even though no differences in the groups were found with this test, frequencies were analyzed to have a better understanding of the level of intention participant’s had after being exposed with different videos. Table 2, Level of intention to practice sport by group, exhibits that 76% of people preferring Promotional stimuli claimed “probably yes” and “definitely yes”. Exactly the same percentage as promotional group, 76%, was reported for those choosing Experiential stimuli. On the contrary, Promotional stimuli show one-point difference over experiential stimuli on low levels of intention. Moreover, it is important to denote that, for both cases, less than 5% of total respondents stated no having intention at all in practicing sports.
Baron & Kenny (1986) established that a moderator M is a third variable that works as an independent variable affecting the correlation between an independent variable X and a dependent variable Y (as cited in Etchebarne, I., O’Connel, M. & Roussos, A., 2008). For purpose of this research, the moderator variable was divided in two: 1) Primary Motivations (Ideals, Achievement and Self Expression) and 2) Resources (high and low resources)
First, as exhibit in table 3, ANOVA between Subjects effect- Resources Main effects and Interaction effects, a two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of high and low Resources on people’s intention to practice sports as a function of the marketing stimuli (promotional versus experiential). There was significant interaction effect, F (1, 110) =4.42, p=.038, however, the effect size was small (partial η2 =.039), indicating that the effect between marketing stimuli and intention to practice sport differs by high and low resources.
To understand better the previous data, Figure 5, Marketing stimuli preferences and Resources, explains the performance of both types of resources. It exhibits that consumers with low Resources expressed higher levels of intention to practice sports when watching Promotional videos rather than being exposed to Experiential stimuli. On the contrary, consumers with high Resources stated having more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Experiential stimuli rather than Promotional stimuli. Therefore, H3a and H3b are supported.
