Measurement of Soccer Brands in Social Media

Table of contents

List of figures

List of abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Brand measurement
2.1 Defining customer-based brand equity
2.2 Building customer-based brand equity
2.3 Measuring customer-based brand equity

3. Measurement of soccer brands
3.1 Building customer-based brand equity
3.2 Measuring customer-based brand equity
3.3 Marketing implications

4. Measurement of soccer brands in social media
4.1 Building customer-based brand equity
4.2 Measuring customer-based brand equity

5. Conclusion

References

List of figures

Figure 1: Dimensions of brand knowledge. Source: Keller (1993)

Figure 2: Soccer brand equity composition. Source: adapted from Woisetschläger et al. (2004).

List of abbreviations

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1. Introduction

In the course of the rising importance of the economic competitive position of professional soccer clubs and as a consequence thereof the spreading of entrepreneurial structures makes the buildup and management of professional team brands inevitable.^[1] A professional and customer-oriented brand management is essential for the long-term success of a brand. "While (athletic) success may be fleeting, a focus on commitment to customers is not".^[2] The brand facilitates economic success independently of athletic success.^[3]

In just a few years, social media, especially social networking sites, have become extremely popular: As of January 2009, Facebook registered more than 175 million active users that is over twice the population of Germany and the average amount of time spent on social networks increased by 82%. Companies have never had such an opportunity to interact with millions of customers at relatively low prices.^[4] Thus it is inevitable for professional soccer teams to build strong brands in the social media environment. Social media employs mobile and web-based technologies to construct highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, and discuss user-generated content. With this rise in social media the power has been shifted from firms towards the individuals that create, share, and consume Facebook entries, blogs, etc. Communication about brands occurs, with or without the permission of firms, which is another reason to join the discussions actively.^[5]

This paper addresses the problem of how professional soccer teams can build strong brands, first offline and then specified for brand fan pages of social networking sites and how they can measure the success of their brand building actions.

The flow of this paper is as follows: first, Keller's model of customer-based brand equity is presented. That initial section is followed by adapting Keller's approach to soccer brands and the paper concludes with a specification of that approach for soccer brands in the social media environment.

2. Brand measurement

This chapter focuses on how brands can be measured by determining the brand equity. Brand equity is a key marketing asset^[6], which affects future profits and long-term cash flow, a consumer's willingness to pay premium prices^[7], stock prices^[8], merger and acquisition decision making^[9] and can create a sustainable competitive advantage.^[10] There are mainly two perspectives on brand equity measurement in literature - financial and customer-based. The first perspective incorporates accounting methods to determine the brand value.^[11] This paper focuses on the customer-based perspective and discusses the customer-based brand equity model by Keller^[12].

2.1 Defining customer-based brand equity

"Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand."^[13] That corresponds to consumers' responses to an element of the marketing mix for the brand compared with their responses to the same marketing mix element referable a fictively named or unnamed version of the product or service. Brand knowledge consists of two components, brand awareness and brand image, and influences what comes to mind, when consumers think about a brand.

Brand awareness refers to whether consumers can recall or recognize a brand and precedes building brand equity.^[14]

Brand image relates to the associations linked to the brand that consumers hold in memory. Keller distinguishes between three types of associations: attitudes, benefits and attributes. Attributes are features that characterize the product or service and are divided into product-related and non-product-related attributes. Benefits are the personal value, consumers link to the product attributes, meaning the consumers' belief what the product can do for them. Benefits can either be functional, symbolic or experiential.^[15] Attitudes are consumers' overall evaluations of a brand.^[16] The afore-mentioned types of brand associations may differ in their favorability and strengths and uniqueness. Figure 1 provides an overview of the components that determine brand knowledge.

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Figure 1: Dimensions of brand knowledge. Source: Keller (1993).

2.2 Building customer-based brand equity

Building customer-based brand equity entails the creation of a familiar brand that has favorable, strong, and unique brand associations. This can be achieved through the initial choice of brand identities, developing supporting marketing programs and leveraging secondary associations.^[17]

Initial choice of brand identities encompasses the choice of a brand name, brand logo or symbol. For instance, the brand name should be easy to understand, pronounce and spell, in order to enhance successful processing at encoding and increase the brand awareness or facilitate the linkage of brand associations.^[18] The brand identities should be chosen in a way that they are mutually reinforcing to interact positively. Indeed, the selection of brand identities contributes to customer-based brand equity, but more important are supporting marketing programs, such as the pricing policy and marketing communication efforts. They should as well enhance brand awareness and establish favorable, strong and unique brand associations in consumers' memory.

Leveraging secondary associations involves creating favorable, strong, and unique secondary brand associations. Secondary associations occur when primary brand associations are linked to other information in consumers' memory that is not directly related to the product or service.^[19]

2.3 Measuring customer-based brand equity

There are two approaches for measuring customer-based brand equity - indirect and direct.

The indirect approach evaluates potential sources of customer-based brand equity by measuring brand knowledge. This requires measuring brand awareness and brand image. Brand awareness can be determined through different aided and unaided memory measures that can be utilized to test brand recall and recognition.^[20] Brand associations can be measured through direct assessment scales, qualitative techniques (e.g. free association tasks) or projective techniques (e.g. sentence completion or picture interpretation).^[21] Their uniqueness can be determined by comparing the characteristics of associations of the focal brand with the characteristics of associations for competing brands.

The direct approach measures the effects of brand knowledge on consumer response to marketing for the brand. This can be done by experiments in which one group of consumers responds to an element of the marketing program of a fictively named version of the product or service and another group of consumers responds to same element when it is attributable to the focal brand^[22] (e.g. blind tests^[23] ). Another approach to directly measure customer-based brand equity is conjoint or tradeoff analysis.^[24]

3. Measurement of soccer brands

Professional sports have evolved as a rewarding business with many opportunities for sports marketers to prosper.^[25] Sports companies have to be progressive service sellers to successfully compete with other leisure offers. For instance, they have to create relationship management activities with their fans (e.g. supporting fan clubs) and other stakeholder groups such as their sponsors. One major element within this development is the brand, which is often considered the most important asset of sport clubs.^[26] It is proven that both, athletic success and brand equity have significant positive effects on merchandise revenue and therefore the brand allows economic performance independently of athletic success.^[27] The following section discusses the factors determining the brand equity of soccer brands.

3.1 Building customer-based brand equity

Before the discussion of factors affecting brand equity, it is important to understand the soccer market. The primary offering of soccer teams is the sporting event and secondary products emerge from a variety of commercialization activities, resulting in four major products: stadium visits, media rights, sponsorships and merchandising.^[28] A high customer-based brand equity has a positive effect on the sales of the different products.

Customer-based brand equity can be built by the choice of brand identities, marketing programs and secondary brand associations.^[29]

Brand identities related to soccer can be the club's name, logo, symbols and slogan that should enhance the identification and recognition of the soccer brand. The marketing program consists of factors, such as the pricing, communication, personnel and services. Secondary brand associations may arise among others from the regional origin, sponsors, renowned personalities, club friendships and events.^[30] Figure 2 gives an overview of the brand equity management dimensions.

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Figure 2: Soccer brand equity composition. Source: adapted from Woisetschläger et al. (2004).

3.2 Measuring customer-based brand equity

As mentioned in section 2.1, customer-based brand equity is driven by brand knowledge, which consists of the two dimensions: brand awareness and brand image.

Brand awareness can be measured through an enumeration of known brands in professional German soccer (brand recall) and through the recognition of brand names and the familiarity with these brands (brand recognition).^[31]

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^[1] See Woisetschläger et al. (2012), p. 7.

^[2] Gladden, Irwin, and Sutton (2001), p. 301.

^[3] See Bauer, Sauer, and Schmitt (2005), p. 497.

^[4] See Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), p. 59; SAS HBR (2010), p. 2.

^[5] See Kietzmann et al. (2011), pp. 241-242.

^[6] See Christoduoulides and De Chernatony (2010), p. 44.

^[7] See Keller (1993), pp. 8-9.

^[8] See Simon and Sullivan (1993), pp. 48-50.

^[9] See Mahajan, Rao, and Srivastava (1994), pp. 228-233.

^[10] See Bharadwaj, Varadarajan, and Fahy (1993), pp. 90-96.

^[11] See Lassar, Mittal, and Sharma (1995), p. 12.

^[12] See Keller (1993), pp. 1-22.

^[13] Keller (1993), p. 2.

^[14] See Huang and Sarigöllü (2012), p.1.

^[15] See Keller (1993), pp. 2-8.

^[16] See Park et al. (2010), p. 1.

^[17] See Keller (1993), pp. 9-12.

^[18] See Robertson (1989), pp. 62-68.

^[19] See Keller (1993), pp. 10-12.

^[20] See Lynch Jr. and Srull (1982), pp. 21-23.

^[21] See Ramsey, Ibbotson, and McCole (2006), pp. 554-555.

^[22] See Keller (1993), p. 13.

^[23] See Allison and Uhl (1964), pp. 36-37.

^[24] See Keller (1993), p. 13.

^[25] See Kaynak, Salman, and Tatoglu (2007), p. 336.

^[26] See Bauer, Sauer, and Schmitt (2005), pp. 496-497.

^[27] See Gladden, Irwin, and Sutton (2001), pp. 301-302.

^[28] See Swieter (2002), pp. 23-32.

^[29] See Keller (1993), pp. 9-12.

^[30] See Woisetschläger et al. (2012), p. 14.

^[31] See Bauer, Sauer, and Schmitt (2005), p. 500.