Event Marketing
Journal of Marketing Management, 2006, 22, 643-669
Markus Wohlfeil1 and Susan Whelan2
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies
As part of the Adidas goes street-campaign, the Adidas Predator Cup was a fun-soccer tournament designed to "reconnect the youth in Germany with Adidas and the soccer sport by enjoying the pure fun, freedom and personal happiness of playing an informal soccer match with friends". Despite knowing that the Adidas Predator Cup was designed to communicate the same commercial messages they would have actively avoided otherwise, the young target audience participated in large numbers in this event-marketing strategy. The current study investigates why young consumers are motivated in such large numbers to experience the hyperreality of the Adidas soccer brand by feeling for an afternoon like being Ronaldinho, Beckham, Ballack or Keane. Using Wohlfeil and Whelan's conceptual model, four predispositional involvement dimensions are identified as motivational drivers and tested, before interesting results are discussed.
Waterford Institute of Technology
Introduction Due to an increasing saturation and fragmentation of markets, marketers are in recent years confronted with a significantly changing marketing communication landscape. Here, brands can no longer be distinguished on their quality and functional benefits alone (Weinberg 1993; Kroeber-Riel 1984) and the effectiveness of classic marketing communications is decreasing steadily as a result of a stiff competition of communications (Wohlfeil and Whelan 2005a,b; Levermann 1998). Indeed, because classic marketing communications are solely based on a push strategy where brand
Correspondence: Markus Wohlfeil, Postgraduate Researcher, School of Business, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. Tel: +353 51 302000 Fax: +353 51 302456 E-Mail: mwohlfeil@wit.ie 2 Susan Whelan Waterford Crystal Centre for Marketing Studies Waterford Institute of Technology
Markus Wohlfeil1 and Susan Whelan2
Consumer Motivations to Participate in Event-Marketing Strategies
As part of the Adidas goes street-campaign, the Adidas Predator Cup was a fun-soccer tournament designed to "reconnect the youth in Germany with Adidas and the soccer sport by enjoying the pure fun, freedom and personal happiness of playing an informal soccer match with friends". Despite knowing that the Adidas Predator Cup was designed to communicate the same commercial messages they would have actively avoided otherwise, the young target audience participated in large numbers in this event-marketing strategy. The current study investigates why young consumers are motivated in such large numbers to experience the hyperreality of the Adidas soccer brand by feeling for an afternoon like being Ronaldinho, Beckham, Ballack or Keane. Using Wohlfeil and Whelan's conceptual model, four predispositional involvement dimensions are identified as motivational drivers and tested, before interesting results are discussed.
Waterford Institute of Technology
Introduction Due to an increasing saturation and fragmentation of markets, marketers are in recent years confronted with a significantly changing marketing communication landscape. Here, brands can no longer be distinguished on their quality and functional benefits alone (Weinberg 1993; Kroeber-Riel 1984) and the effectiveness of classic marketing communications is decreasing steadily as a result of a stiff competition of communications (Wohlfeil and Whelan 2005a,b; Levermann 1998). Indeed, because classic marketing communications are solely based on a push strategy where brand
Correspondence: Markus Wohlfeil, Postgraduate Researcher, School of Business, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. Tel: +353 51 302000 Fax: +353 51 302456 E-Mail: mwohlfeil@wit.ie 2 Susan Whelan Waterford Crystal Centre for Marketing Studies Waterford Institute of Technology