Amanda Painter

Comm 460-01

Marketing Strategies affect on Fan Loyalty

Introduction

Virginia Tech and University of Virginia have been long time rivals when it comes to

college football within the state of Virginia. Each school is unique in their own way and both

have very loyal fans for their football programs. The two universities are very different when it

comes to marketing. They use different marketing strategies to increase their fan loyalty for their

football programs. Social media is a large factor in marketing and I seek to find out how their

social media marketing affects fans loyalty to specific teams.

Therefore, the communication phenomenon I am interested in exploring is the effect that

social media has on the fans loyalty of Virginia Tech and University of Virginia’s football

programs. The purpose of my study is to identify persuasive messages and how fan loyalty is

affected by the team’s websites and other forms of social media. I plan to study college students

both female and male between the ages of eighteen and twenty three. I also plan to investigate

the affects of the team’s website on these college students using a survey.

My communication phenomenon is important and deserving of attention because the

rivalry of Virginia Tech and University of Virginia is near and dear to a lot of our hearts since

most of us are from Virginia and have a preference or connection to one of the teams. It is

important to see how social media affects fan loyalty because in order for these schools to

promote and build a better fan base, they must know how social media is affecting the fans.

While fliers, newspapers, and other forms of advertisement have been the basis for advertising in

the past, social media and the internet is the newest part of technology that advertisers can use to

reach the greatest number of people.

I plan to use a survey in order to find out how fan loyalty of the Virginia Tech and

University of Virginia’s football programs are affected by social media marketing.

Virginia Tech and University of Virginia

Virginia Tech was founded in 1872 and has the largest number of degree offerings in

Virginia. It is located in southwest Virginia properly in Blacksburg, Virginia. Virginia Tech

takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields

and communities according to their mission statement. It also was named the commonwealth’s

most comprehensive university ("University facts & figures," 2013.)

The University of Virginia was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. It was the first

nonsectarian university in the United States and the first to use the elective course system.

Jefferson considered the founding of the University to be one of his greatest achievements

(University of Virginia.)

Virginia Tech got an overwhelming amount of love and support from many colleges in

the country after the shootings April 16, especially from the University of Virginia. Virginia

students sent 30,000 candles for a vigil on Tech's Drillfield. They painted Beta Bridge near their

campus in Tech colors with a simple elegy: Hoos for Hokies. "UVA reached out. Everyone here

appreciates that," Virginia Tech senior and ardent fan Scott Newman says. "But what we want

now is normalcy. And what could be more normal at Virginia Tech than hating Virginia?"

Healthy hate, which is the clean kind based on tradition. Coach Frank Beamer then goes on to

say that the rivalry is majority just for the pride of the universities (Brady, 2007.) This support

for Virginia Tech from UVA shows that the rivalry can be put aside because we share common

geography and we are all here for each other. Fan loyalty and pride for your school of choice

goes beyond pride and spirit, it goes to staying together and helping other schools as a whole

because you understand that loyalty is a universal concept.

How can VT and UVA relate?

When we consider successful athletes, who do we think of? NBA standout Kobe Bryant

has become more than just an idol for China according to Mark Medina (2013) of the Los

Angeles Daily News. He explains that Kobe has become a super star who cannot walk the streets

without being swarmed by fans. He also says that the reason why Kobe Bryant is so famous in

China is because of his numerous visits, interactions with the people in China, and most

importantly his hard work ethic. If more teams and players branded and marketed themselves

like Bryant does, it would help their brand. Virginia Tech and UVA being seen in the spot light

or just being talked about in the media helps their fans to become more loyal. Kobe Bryant

increased his fan loyalty by merely being there in the public eye along with his athletic success

in the world of basketball. We can look at this as his marketing strategy and how he increases his

fan allegiance.

Notorious for their fashion forward uniforms at each and every game, the Oregon Ducks

seem to increase popularity and familiarity daily due to their drastic uniform changes. According

to Mackenzie Lamberton (2013), Duck fans find it hard to live up to the standards of their team

when it comes to fashion statements. This could show that fans love the colors and that fans also

love the competition when it comes to what is worn and how it is branded. This is yet another

form of marketing, competition. Not only is it competition on who wins the football game, but

who looks the best doing it. I seek to find out whether Virginia Tech and UVA’s colors affect

their fan loyalty as well. These colors are used on their social media and could have an effect on

fans allegiance when viewing the websites or being in the presence of other fans.

“Virginia Tech’s apparel program was ranked 15th in the world by Fashion-Schools.org,

based on the quality of programs offered, job and internship placements, industry reputation,

teaching facilities, and tuition costs.” ("University facts & figures," 2013) Being ranked 15th in

the world is a very big accomplishment for Virginia Tech.

Theoretical Grounding

While looking at the persuasive messages that are directed toward audiences, I found that the

uses and gratification theory would fit and go along with my purpose and clarify how consumers

use media and why. The uses and gratification theory is an approach to understanding why and

how consumers use media and for what purposes (Diggs-Brown, 2012.) This theory would help

me to explain why and how sports fans research websites before games and before the season in

order to increase their fan loyalty and how they increase loyalty using over social media. This

would also help me to explain why fans feel the need to get to know the players, coaches and

athletic programs.

Related Research

Branding, marketing, sponsorship, and fan allegiance are all important when thinking

about both Virginia Tech and University of Virginia’s football programs. Each plays a role in

increasing fan loyalty to the teams and increasing the fans knowledge and likelihood of attending

games. Each of these articles that follow helped me to find the gap in research in order for me to

conduct my own research.

Branding

Abosag, Roper, and Hind (2012) seek to find out whether fans are supportive of their favorite

teams and sports being branded (placing team names or logos on unrelated items such as mugs

and apparel) or not. They question whether or not faithful fans will stay loyal to their team if

they are told that the team is merely a brand. They also discuss the idea that fans that are loyal

due to branding have a different relationship with that team then fans that are loyal because of

other reasons including relationship ties or location. Results showed that fan loyalty increased

when the fan was in favor of branding and branded the team themselves for example by wearing

t-shirts or having a bumper sticker on their car.

In a study, by McClung, Eveland, Sweeny, and James (2012) they examine the role that a

website plays in the development of fan allegiance and as a promotion management tool for a

sports team and brand. They questioned numerous spectators at the first game of the season for

an indoor football team. The questions were not only about the role of the website but about

other media coverage as well. They then sent a survey to people who attended the game. It

included demographics including income, age, education and marital status. The results found

that the spectators were majority white, married, educated males. It also found that

advertisements such as television ads, newspapers, and radio ads had not been seen by these

spectators. Most importantly, the results showed that majority (58%) of spectators had visited the

team’s website. The results also showed very important information about having seen the

team’s website; it increased their allegiance to the team even though they had not seen the team

play live.

In a study by Sukhdial, Aiken, and Kahle (2012), they compare old-school (baby boomers),

which look for trustworthy and realistic players on commercials or on advertisements, to new-

school younger people who look for attitude, humor and unrealistic aspects in commercials and

advertisements. Results showed that older people did not like the new school commercials with

famous athletes as role models. Younger people also said that they like to see a successful athlete

because they believe that losers are losers and winning is everything.

Rodet and Bernache-Assollant (2011) research why spectators continue to come to specific

games and why or why not they travel to away games. They used a questionnaire that was placed

onto popular French hockey team’s websites. They would also attend games, collect addresses

and email addresses of spectators in attendance with this questionnaire. This article reports that

fan loyalty can be for a variety of reasons including consumer satisfaction (which is an

evaluation of all encounters and experiences with a particular sport or team), team identifications

(which is looking at yourself as a loyal fan of a specific team or sport), and consumer loyalty

(which is depth of loyalty toward a certain team or sport, amount of repurchase of merchandise

and tickets and amount of time devoted to supporting the team). The researchers came to the

conclusion that specific satisfaction was the most prominent factor in why people continue to go

to games and support specific teams.

Consumer Pride

Decrop and Derbaix explain how introspective, vicarious, contagious and conspicuous forms

of pride can contribute to the loyalty of fans to a specific team and the sport as a whole. Decrop

and Derbaix (2010) constructed a way to research the topic of marketing and consumer pride in

which they went to games, observed and interviewed fans and players, and picked up certain

brochures and fliers that fans were also picking up. This gave them insight on how the fans were

receiving information and how the public was also viewing these advertisements. They found

that fans being proud of their teams contribute a large amount to how loyal the fans are.

Sponsorship

Bergkvist (2012) researches effects that sponsorship marketing has on fans and on fan

loyalty. He gives surveys in order to test his hypothesis that if fans see sponsors talking badly

about a certain team, the team will lose loyalty because of the sponsor and the relationship that

the team and the sponsor have. Their study showed that there is in fact a negative image relayed

to spectators if sponsors are marketing multiple teams or giving negative information or images

of specific teams.

Methodology

I will use quantitative methodology to research my topic/proposal. I would like to obtain

information on how people interpret certain advertisements including the team’s web pages and

how they perceive the information given to them on these social media and marketing sites. I

will use Virginia Tech’s athletics webpage as well as University of Virginia’s athletics webpage

in my survey and throughout my study. I want to find out how people perceive these sites and

how it affects their loyalty to the team. I also want to find out if any other social media sites

affect the loyalty of fans. For example, facebook and twitter may have a large impact on

knowledge of players or even just word of mouth on when games are and who people’s friends

prefer over other teams. Quantitative methodology will help me to find this information because

quantitative methodology, according to Keyton (2011), can analyze any message, the effect of

messages, content of messages, and motives behind messages. I plan to study college students

both female and male between the ages of eighteen and twenty three.

I would use a survey and ask them a variety of questions before visiting the sites and then

ask them a variety of questions after visiting the sites. I would have them visit both UVA and

VT’s web pages.

My hypotheses include:

Fan loyalty will increase upon researching the team’s website and learning personal

information about the team.

Fan loyalty will increase or decrease when comparing VT and UVA’s web pages.

My hypotheses are directional because directional hypotheses are defined as a precise

statement indicating the nature and direction of the relationship or difference between the

variables according to Keyton (2011.) My hypotheses indicate the increase in loyalty which

would be a direction that I am guessing the fans will go.

I have decided to study social media marketing strategies’ effect on sports fans because I

want to go into sports marketing when I graduate. I am also completing my internship right now

within the marketing department of Longwood Athletics. I enjoy it a lot and learn something new

every day. It interests me and I haven’t gotten sick of it yet. There is a gap in research when we

specifically talk about Virginia Tech and University of Virginia. There hasn’t been much

research on marketing strategies of these specific teams and marketing departments. Rivalry and

competition is also something that you can never shy away from, especially when we live so

close to both of these institutions. My research question is:

RQ1: How do social media marketing strategies affect football fans of Virginia Tech and

University of Virginia?

Participants

I am going to study college aged students in Virginia. I also am going to study both male

and female students. These students may or may not already have a preference between Virginia

Tech and University of Virginia. Majority of the students will be from Virginia and will have

some relations to one of the universities. Once I split the group into whether or not they have a

preference between the teams, I will show them the website for each of the teams and see

whether they like one better than the other and whether or not it increases loyalty to that team if

they already liked them.

Procedure

I would use the t-test as my statistical test to see how my independent variables affect my

dependent variables. I would test whether or not loyalty is affected by the viewing of the teams

site or not and I would test how loyal the fans become after the viewing of the site and for what

reasons.

A survey is defined as a system for collecting information to describe, compare, or

explain knowledge, attitudes, and behavior; also known as questionnaire or poll according to

Keyton (2011.) I am considering sending the survey to all of my friends using social media sites

including facebook. I am also considering sending it to my peers at Longwood University using

social media and email. I plan to have the survey start with a group of questions asking them

general information such as male or female, age, and whether they are already a fan of UVA or

VT. I will then ask them to visit each of the team’s sites or provide them with the means to view

the site. I will next ask them a variety of questions about how viewing the site increased,

decreased or did not affect their loyalty to that team. I want to focus on a few general topic areas

of the survey. These include level of loyalty before seeing the site, level of loyalty after seeing

the site, what exact aspects affected them most on the sites, and what drew them to prefer one

site over the other.

Conclusion

The communication phenomenon I am interested in exploring is the effect that social

media has on the fans loyalty of Virginia Tech and University of Virginia’s football programs.

The purpose of my study is to identify persuasive messages and how fan loyalty is affected by

the team’s websites and other forms of social media. I plan to study college students both female

and male between the ages of eighteen and twenty three. I also plan to investigate the affects of

the team’s website on these college students using a survey. This research will help marketing

departments at universities, not only at Virginia Tech and UVA but everywhere.

References

Abosag, I., Roper, S., & Hind, D. (2012). Examining the relationship between brand emotion and brand extension among supporters of professional football clubs. European Journal Of Marketing, 46(9), 1233-1251. doi:10.1108/03090561211247810

Bergkvist, L. (2012). The Flipside of the Sponsorship Coin: Do You Still Buy Beer When the Brewer Underwrites a Rival Team?. Journal Of Advertising Research, 52(1), 65-73. doi:10.2501/JAR-52-1-065-073

Brady , E. (2007, November 22). Virginia tech, virginia renew rivalry with much on the line. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/acc/2007-11-22-uvavatech-football_N.htm

Decrop, A., & Derbaix, C. (2010_. Pride in contemporary sport consumption: a marketing perspective. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science, 38(5), 586-603. doi: 10.1007/s11747-009-0167-8

Diggs-Brown, B. (2012). Strategic public relations-an audience-focused approach. (p. 188). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Keyton, J. (2011). Communication research. (3rd ed., p. 43). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Keyton, J. (2011). Communication research. (3rd ed., p. 246). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Keyton, J. (2011). Communication research. (3rd ed., p. g-8). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Lamberton, M. (2013, September 14). Back to the books: How to dress like a real Oregon fan. Daily Emerald. Retrieved from http://dailyemerald.com/2013/09/23/back-to-the-books-how-to-dress-like-a-real-oregon-fan/

McClung, S., Eveland, V., Sweeney, D., & James, J. D. (2012). Role of the Internet Site in the Promotion Management of Sports Teams and Franchise Brands. Journal Of Promotion

Management, 18(2), 169-188. Doi:10.1080/10496491.2012.668429

Medina, M. (2013). Lakers’ Kobe Bryant carries rock star status in china. Retrieved from http://www.dailybreeze.com/sports/20131015/lakers-kobe-bryant-carries-rock-star-status-in-china

Rodet, G., & Bernache-Assollant. (2011). Consumer loyalty in sport spectatorship services: The relationships with consumer satisfaction and team identification. Psychology & Marketing, 28(8), 781-802. Doi:10.1002/mar.20412

Sukhdial, A., Aiken, D., & Kahle, L. (2002). Are you old school? A scale for measuring sports fans’ old-school orientation. Journal Of Advertising Research, 42(4), 71-81.

University facts & figures. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.vt.edu/about/facts-figures-2013.pdf

University of Virginia, W. C. O. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.virginia.edu/uvatours/shorthistory/

Appendix A

Possible IV’s:

Whether or not they are a loyal college football fan of VT or UVA? Yes or no.

How often they attend games? Very often, not often at all, never.

How extensively they use social media to research teams? Very extensively, not very

much, never.

Whether they are a student, or have family associated with either school? Yes or no.

Possible DV’s:

Fans loyalty increases due to visiting the web pages of either team.

Web pages are more effective than others

The more games they attend, the more loyal they are to the team.

The more they use social media to research the team, the more loyal they are.

Having family or friends associated with the university will increase loyalty.

The IV that I think would be most interesting is how extensively they use social media to

research the teams. Social media consists of any website or online networking site in which you

connect or are associated with other people and relay information to those people using that site.

McClung, Eveland, Sweeny, and James (2012) did a survey in which they asked spectators at a

game whether they had visited the team’s website before attending the game and how it affected

their allegiance to the team. Results show that 58% of spectators had visited the website

beforehand and majority of them said that it increased their allegiance to the team while at the

game.

The DV that I find most interesting is fans loyalty increases due to visiting the web pages of

the team. Two survey questions that I would ask in order to support my hypothesis and this

dependent variable would include:

1. Before visiting the team’s website, did you find that you were less knowledgeable and

therefore less loyal to the team?

Yes

No

2. After visiting the team’s website, are you more knowledgeable about the team and

therefore more loyal to the team?

Yes

No

3. I would also ask them how extensively they explored the site.

Very extensively

Not very extensively

Not at all

4. How affective was the website on your personal loyalty level?

Very affective

Not very affective

Not at all