Advertising on the edge: appeal effectiveness when advertising in extreme sports

Abstract

Extreme sports are a solid international industry enjoyed by millions of people, and many brands use extreme sports as contexts for advertising in the US and EU. Interpreting extreme sports through different psychological theories, in two experiments the authors compare the effects on persuasiveness, product attraction and behavioural intention of challenge- and difficulty-focused messages in extreme and traditional sports contexts, for high- and low-involvement brands. They find those appeals to affect ad persuasiveness, product attractiveness, purchase intention and willingness-to-pay positively in extreme sports, but negatively in traditional sports. Qualitative interviews highlight that extreme and traditional sports are perceived as different worlds. Results hold regardless of consumers’ participation type or preferred sport type and are based on hundreds of respondents across the US and different EU countries.

Keywords:

• Extreme sports
• difficulty-appeal
• challenge-appeal
• willingness to pay
• persuasiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Francesco Raggiotto is Research Fellow in marketing at the Department of Economics and Statistics at the University of Udine, Italy. His current research interests are in consumer behavior and marketing communications. He has published in the Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, and others.

Daniele Scarpi is associate professor of marketing at the Department of Management at the University of Bologna, Italy. His current research interests are in consumer behavior, decision making, and retailing. His papers have been published in Marketing Letters, Journal of Retailing, Behavioral Decision Making, Economic Psychology, Industrial Marketing Management, and others.

Andrea Moretti is full professor of marketing and management at the Department of Economics and Statistics at the University of Udine, Italy. His current research interests are consumer behavior, marketing strategy and marketing communications. He has published in the Journal of Business Research, and others.

Figure A1. Examples of the stimuli.