Wohl Feil 2006
Wohl Feil 2006
Wohl Feil 2006
To cite this article: Markus Wohlfeil & Susan Whelan (2006) Consumer Motivations to Participate
in Event-Marketing Strategies, Journal of Marketing Management, 22:5-6, 643-669, DOI:
10.1362/026725706777978677
Introduction
of Technology Waterford, Ireland, Tel: +353 51 30 2438, Fax: +353 51 30 2456, E-Mail:
[email protected]
ISSN1472-1376/2006/5-6/00643 + 26 ©Westburn Publishers Ltd.
644 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
Unfortunately, the term event marketing has been used in the past to describe
a multitude of phenomena in marketing practice (Cornwell 1995). Therefore,
the event-marketing concept in the context of this paper needs to be briefly
introduced first in order to understand the appeal and popularity of the
ADIDAS goes street-campaign in particular. Event-marketing as an
experiential marketing communication strategy first emerged in Germany in
the late 1980s in response to significant changes in both the marketing
environment and consumer behaviour (Wohlfeil and Whelan 2005a). By
communicating brand values as “real-lived” experiences, event-marketing is
designed to take advantage of the shift from maintenance to experiential
consumption in the societal value system of affluent societies (Weinberg and
Gröppel 1989). Experiential consumption refers to obtaining enriching
experiences through emotional benefits, by which consumers attempt to
improve the quality of their lives right here and now (Opaschowski 1998).
This romantic consumption ethic has not only led to an increasing orientation
towards and active participation in leisure and recreation, entertainment and
cultural neo-tribes (Cova and Cova 2002; Martin 2004; Mitchell 1988), but
also outlined the need for experiential marketing communications to gain
consumers’ attention.
The communicative innovation of event-marketing derives from its four
constitutive features:
• Experience-orientation:
As personal lived experience tend to be stronger than “second-hand”
media experiences in determining consumers’ notion of reality,
consumers are encouraged to experience the brand reality as active
participants rather than being passive recipients and, subsequently,
are offered a contribution to their subjective quality of life (Weinberg
and Nickel 1998).
• Interactivity:
In contrast to the monological provision of information in classic
marketing communications, event-marketing offers a platform for
646 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
• Self-initiation:
Event-marketing is aimed at influencing consumers emotionally by
staging self-initiated marketing-events. Thus, the marketer is in full
control of the way in which sensual brand experiences are anchored
in the world of consumer feelings and experiences (Wohlfeil and
Whelan 2005a; Nufer 2002; Weinberg and Nickel 1998).
• Dramaturgy:
In order for consumers to experience the brand hyperreality
emotionally, it requires a unique and creative dramaturgy that,
similar to a theatre play, brings the brand image to life and captures
the imagination of the target audience. Therefore, the more the event-
marketing strategy differs from consumers’ everyday life experiences
the higher is the degree of activation among consumers (Sistenich
1999; Zanger and Sistenich 1996).
Motivations
physiological needs are always present and never cease to affect consumer
behaviour, while even during times of deprivation, when basic needs
dominate, higher needs are still present to influence consumer behaviour. In
addition, people tend to differ in judging the value of some needs as more
important than others. For example, one individual may satisfy personal
growth in a stressful working career at the cost of health and social
relationships, while another one prefers love and family instead of a career
(Kroeber-Riel and Weinberg 2003). In response, Maslow (1987)
acknowledged at a later stage that people only need to be partially satisfied
in their basic needs before higher needs emerge.
However, Csikszentmihalyi (2000) criticised in particular Maslow’s
assumption that human behaviour is always driven by predictable, universal
needs that allow for rational decision-making, while most consumer choices
are actually made for a variety of other reasons. Indeed, with increasing
affluence and being less concerned with existential needs, people often find
themselves in an existential vacuum where they are not aware of a specific
goal. Thus, Csikszentmihalyi (1988) proposed that people, especially in
affluent societies, are not only driven by Maslow’s existential needs, but also
by experiential needs. His concept is based on the assumption that it is part
of human nature to keep consciousness in an organised state by focusing on
some activity that requires attention. But once there is nothing to do,
consumers’ attention turns inward and leads to a decline in self-esteem and
the experienced quality of life, which may even result in depression and
despair. Therefore, consumers have to engage their attention by activities
that suggest specific goals in order to “keep their consciousness tuned” and
to obtain pleasurable experiences (Csikszentmihalyi 2000).
Csikszentmihalyi’s experiential consumption concept not only provides
valuable insights into the growing importance of leisure, entertainment and
recreational activities in giving meaning to consumers’ lives, but also
explains why shopping in affluent societies has become such a popular goal-
directed leisure activity for consumers to improve their subjective quality of
life. The purchase itself has turned into little more than a by-product, a mere
means to an end (Opaschowski 1998). Experiential consumption, therefore,
goes well beyond experiencing emotional benefits in the process of
ownership transfer or product usage, as proposed by the hedonic
consumption concept. Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) defined hedonic
consumption as those facets of consumer behaviour that relate to the multi-sensory,
fantasy and emotive aspects of one’s experience with products (p. 92). The idea is
that consumers not only buy products for their utilitarian value in solving
problems, but also often for their hedonic pleasure value and symbolic
meanings that derive from using the product (Martin 2004). Experiential
consumption, however, is primarily driven by the intrinsic pursuit of
650 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
H2: The higher the predispositional event-object involvement, the higher is the
consumer involvement in a specific marketing-event.
expectation to meet and interact with other like-minded young people who
share their interest in soccer and street sports. This bond of social solidarity
may result in the development of loyal brand communities (McAlexander et
al. 2002), where the brand becomes an essential element of a neo-tribe’s
subculture (Cova and Cova 2002). This leads to the following hypothesis:
H4: The higher the predispositional social event involvement, the higher is the
consumer involvement in a specific marketing-event.
Research Method
The ADIDAS Predator Cup was chosen as a suitable marketing-event for the
current research to investigate whether and to what extent consumers'
motivations to participate in a specific event-marketing strategy is driven by
their situational involvement in the marketing-event and their
predispositional involvement in its four identified dimensions by testing the
hypotheses H1-5. Adidas-Salomon launched the ADIDAS Predator Cup in
Germany back in 1994 as part of their Adidas goes street-campaign to
rejuvenate their perceived brand image towards being “hip & trendy”. In
essence, it was a 5-a-side fun-soccer tournament (4 field players, 1 substitute,
no goalkeeper) for male and female juveniles aged between 6 and 18 years,
which was built around the brand theme of the Adidas Predator soccer range
and played on specifically designed mini-pitches. As the aim was to
“reconnect the kids with the soccer sport by enjoying the pure fun, freedom
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies 655
Predispositional
Event-Marketing
Involvement
Predispositional
Event-Object
Involvement P
A
R
T
H1 H2 I
Involvement H5 Motivation C
in the to I
Marketing-Event Participate P
H4 H3 A
T
I
O
Predispositional N
Event-Content
Involvement
Predispositional Ability to
Social participate
EventInvolvement
Correlation
Cronbach’s
Alpha Std.
Item-Total
% of Total
Explained
Corrected
Variance
Analysis
Lowest
Factor
Items
Construct Item Description
Event- important – unimportant 0.950 06.54 1 68.954
Marketing interesting – boring
Involvement relevant – irrelevant
exciting – unexciting
means a lot to me – means nothing to me
appealing – unappealing
fascinating – dull
valuable – worthless
desirable – undesirable
vital - unnecessary
Event-Object see above 0.934 0.630 1 62.924
Involvement
Event- see above 0.982 0.838 1 86.236
Content
Involvement
Social Event see above 0.943 0.648 1 66.390
Interaction
Involvement
Situational see above 0.975 0.813 1 81.471
Involvement
ADIDAS
Predator Cup
Motivation to 1. I would like to participate because I’m 0.946 0.618 3 79.755
Participate interested in sports brands
2. I want to participate because it’s
organised by Adidas Cont’d
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies 657
Correlation
Cronbach’s
Alpha Std.
Item-Total
% of Total
Explained
Corrected
Variance
Analysis
Lowest
Factor
Items
Construct Item Description
3. I’m interested in the Predator Cup
because Adidas is promoted as a brand
for young people like me.
4. I want to experience Adidas in a
different and exciting way.
5. I like to participate because I love to play
soccer
6. I like to test the soccer skills of my team
in the Predator Cup
7. I’ll go if there are some good activities
for the spectators as well.
8. It’s an exciting way to learn about new
Adidas products
9. I’d like to see how the Adidas Predator
Cup works in practice.
10. It’s an exciting way to get in contact
with people from Adidas.
11. By going to the Predator Cup I can
meet many interesting people.
12. I would go to the Predator Cup if my
friends are coming with me.
13. I want to experience the exciting
atmosphere at the Predator Cup.
A total of 120 undergraduate and transition year students took part in this
quasi-experimental study. However, it must be noted that the current
research was part of a larger quasi-experimental study that contained a total
of 215 subjects to test the hypotheses H1-5 in relation to two very different
event-marketing strategies. Without being informed of the actual purpose of
the study, the subjects were told that Adidas would launch the ADIDAS
Predator Cup in Ireland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Adidas
Predator soccer range and then informed in detail about the Adidas Predator
Cup supported by flyers and application forms before a structured
questionnaire was administered. The predispositional involvement in event-
marketing, the event-object (Adidas), the event-content (soccer) and the
social event interaction as well as the situational involvement in the Adidas
Predator Cup were measured by using Zaichkowsky's (1994) revised
Personal Involvement Inventory scale (PII). Three items, however, needed to
be reworded slightly after Irish students revealed in the pilot study
difficulties in understanding their respective meanings. Thus, mundane
became dull while needed-not needed and involving-uninvolving were
replaced with vital-unnecessary and desirable-undesirable respectively (see
658 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
Table 1). The reliability of all five involvement constructs was confirmed by
exceptionally good Cronbach's alphas ranging from .934 (event-object) to .982
(event-content). A factor analysis showed that all PIIs were one-factor
constructs.
The motivation to participate in the ADIDAS Predator Cup was measured
with a specifically designed 13-items Likert scale that addressed all four
predispositional dimensions as shown in Table 1. The respondents were
asked to give ratings ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree)
to all 13 items. The seven items related to the event-object and the event-
content were taken from Nufer (2002), who measured the effectiveness of
event-marketing in relation to the DFB-Adidas Cup by asking participants
among others whether they would be motivated to participate for another
time, and reworded to suit the ADIDAS Predator Cup context. The authors
then added another six similar worded items - three of them related to event-
marketing and three to social interaction. The construct was then pre-tested
in a pilot study and found to be reliable. In the current study, the Cronbach’s
alpha of the motivation scale (.946) confirmed a very high reliability.
Furthermore, the lowest corrected item-total correlation for the motivation
construct was highly acceptable (.618). However, a factor analysis revealed
surprisingly only three factors rather than four as expected. The results for
the individual measurement constructs are shown in Table 1.
Before conducting the multivariate regression analysis, the data for each
measurement construct was transformed into a summated rating, which
represented the new variable for each construct. The hypotheses H1-4 were
tested by using a backward stepwise regression analysis. The advantage of a
stepwise backward regression is that although all independent variables are
included at the beginning, only those significant and uncorrelated variables
that predict the dependent variable, in this case the situational involvement
in the ADIDAS Predator Cup, best will be retained while all others will be
discarded. Hypothesis H5, on the other hand, investigates a straightforward
relationship between two variables. Hence, an ordinary bivariate regression
analysis was deemed suitable for this purpose.
Major Results
Although several results are not reported in the present study due to the
length of the paper, the results largely supported the outlined hypotheses.
The backward stepwise regression indicated a high statistically significant
relationship (p<0.001) between the predispositional involvement dimensions
and the situational involvement in the ADIDAS Predator Cup, which was
also practically significant (R=0.731). The adjusted R square value of 0.522
showed that 52.2 % of the variability in the dependent variable was
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies 659
Discussion
The findings of the current research strongly supported the assumption that
the motivation to participate in the Adidas Predator Cup is determined by
consumers’ situational involvement in it. Furthermore, the backward
stepwise regression analysis also confirmed that consumers’ situational
involvement in the Adidas Predator Cup, in return, is strongly driven by
their predispositional involvement in the Adidas brand, in soccer and to a
lesser extent in the social event interaction. However, one of the most
significant findings from this study is that some predispositional
involvement dimensions appear to be more dominant predictors than others,
which primarily seem to act as a complimentary support or supplementary
predictors. Surely not surprising was the fact that the predispositional event-
660 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
Implications
and Gilmore (1998), marketers need to be aware that they cannot mass-
produce consumers’ brand experiences like product features, as each
individual experiences an event-marketing strategy according to one’s very
own experiential needs. Instead, the success of all these event-marketing
strategies stemmed from the pull effect that attracted the voluntary
participation of their target audiences. In order to achieve this essential pull
effect, the aim must be to achieve a perceived fit between the brand, the
marketing-event and the target audience by appealing to consumers’
predispositional involvement in the event-object, the event-content, event-
marketing and the social interaction as motivational pull factors.
The empirical findings from Adidas Predator Cup quasi-experiment
suggest that marketers should never focus on only one specific
predispositional involvement dimension when designing their marketing-
events, but should create a whole web of areas consumers might be
predispositionally involved in. In this context, Wohlfeil and Whelan’s (2005b)
model of the predispositional determinants provides a helpful tool to
understand consumers’ motivation to participate in marketing-events and to
design them accordingly. However, the current research has also shown that
event-marketing strategies appeal each of those predispositional
involvement dimensions with varying intensity. Indeed, the results clearly
indicated that consumers’ motivation to participate is determined by the
interdependencies of the four predispositional involvement dimensions of
which two tend to be the dominant motivational drivers while the remaining
ones still contribute as supporting motivators. The findings also suggest that
the motivation to participate in a dramaturgy, which requires consumers’
personal (and often physical) participation in an entertaining activity like
soccer at the Adidas Predator Cup, is strongly determined by an individual’s
predispositional event-content involvement. Nevertheless, further research is
needed in relation to an information-oriented dramaturgy based on the
brand heritage as in the case of brand lands, which might appeal less to
consumers’ inherent predispositions.
As the dramaturgy is obviously presented in close relationship with the
brand, a predispositional event-object involvement is an equally dominant
driver if the brand is well known (i.e. Adidas). However, if the brand is less
known, strong connections between the brand and the product category need
to be ensured, as the predispositional event-object involvement also relates to
some extent to the brand’s product category. Furthermore, as the
predispositional social interaction involvement acts as a supporting driver, it
is of advantage to create and enhance the brand’s “community spirit” or its
“linking value” (Cova and Cova 2002) through the dramaturgy of the event-
marketing strategy. Although the predispositional event-marketing
involvement did not appear to play a role in case of the Adidas Predator Cup
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies 665
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666 Markus Wohlfeil and Susan Whelan
Markus Wohlfeil has recently obtained his MBS from the School of Business
at Waterford Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing his PhD in
consumer research. His research interests focus on experiential consumption
and innovative marketing communications, but in particular on event-
marketing as an experiential marketing communication strategy. While
working in sports retailing, he gained a critical mass of practical experience
in the operational and strategic aspects of event-marketing. His work has
been published in the Journal of Customer Behaviour and European Advances in
Consumer Research. He has also presented at the Irish Academy of Management,
the Annual International Colloquium on Critical Issues in Brand Management and
the European Association for Consumer Research conferences.