Athletes’ Fan Meeting as a Marketing Vehicle: The Influence of Strategic Alignment Between Athlete and Team Brand Images

Abstract

The current study examined how branded encounters, in which an athlete’s image is aligned with a team’s brand positioning, may positively affect fans’ evaluations of the team. Particularly, this study investigated the effect of strategically aligning athlete and team brand images on team-related fan responses. The empirical evaluation was undertaken using data collected from athlete-fan meeting events. The authors demonstrated that athlete-team brand image alignment positively affected overall team evaluation, with more pronounced result for unfamiliar (vs. familiar) teams and when the quality of the athlete-fan interaction was high (vs. low). This study is one of the first to demonstrate how teams can leverage player image as a brand-building advantage. Moreover, the results fill gaps in the literature and extend the body of knowledge in sport team branding studies.

Keywords:

• Marketing vehicle
• strategic alignment
• brand images
• team familiarity
• interaction quality

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest has to be reported.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Junsang Ahn

Junsang Ahn (Ph.D., Seoul National University, Korea) is an assistant professor in the Department of Football at Kyungil University. He holds a Ph.D. in sport management from Seoul National University, Republic of Korea and M.S. in sport business from New York University (NYU), United States of America. He is interested in sport consumer behavior and sport sponsorship studies. His research examines how sport consumers attitudes and behaviors are formed and which factors affect those areas. His work has been published in a number of flagship outlets in Korea, including Korean Journal of Sport Science, Korean Journal of Sport Management, The Korean Journal of Physical Education among others. Dr. Ahn’s teaching specialties include sport management, sport sponsorship, introduction to business.

Yeayoung Noh

Yeayoung Noh (Ph.D., Seoul National University, Korea) is a BK assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education at Seoul National University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sport management from Seoul National University (SNU), Republic of Korea. She is interested in computer-mediated communication and social interaction focusing on sport media, etc. Her research examines how social media and digital media environments influence sport audience attitudes and behaviors. Her work has been published in a number of flagship outlets, including International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Sport Management, and European Sport Management Quarterly among others. Dr. Noh’s teaching specialties include sport communication research and theory, audience experience research, and digital media technology and sport communication.