VIRTUAL ADVERTISING IN SPORTS EVENTS: DOES IT REALLY WORK?

Lisa BecharasKatie BaumgardnerErin BrownQuincy HendersonDani KabbesCasey Richards

Part 1: Article Overview

Purpose They wanted to test whether participants could

recognize virtual advertising Whether or not exposure time, exposure

frequency, and prior brand awareness have a positive impact on the recall of brands advertising

They were testing if attitude towards advertising in general is positively correlated with the attitude towards virtual advertising

Primary relationship: virtual advertising and its recognition, recall of brands, and attitude

Hypotheses

“Virtual advertising is recognized by a majority of television viewers.”

“Exposure time, exposure frequency and prior brand awareness have a positive impact on the recall of the brands advertised.”

“Attitude towards advertising in general is positively correlated with attitude towards virtual advertising.”

Methods

Participants 142 German university students Interest in Soccer Broadcasts

High: 34.5% Medium: 23.9% Low: 40.1%

Gender Male: 90.8% Female: 9.2%

Methods

The students were tested prior to the study (pre-test) on assessing prior brand awareness

The students were shown an 18-minute video clip from a televised soccer match Five brands/organizations were advertised

during the match

Methods

The students were interviewed (post-test) regarding effectiveness of virtual advertising Compared students’ attitudes towards

advertising in general and their attitudes towards virtual advertising

The participants were given a questionnaire after the video Aided recall: given brands and asked if they saw

them Unaided: Tell me what you saw during the video

Results

77.5 % of participants recognized that virtual advertising had been used

92.7 % assigned the virtual advertising correctly (knew what it was)

Results

Recall level was very high in both aided and unaided questionnaires

Duration of exposure does not play an essential role, whereas the frequency of exposure has a significant influence on the effectiveness of advertising

Attitudes towards advertising were significantly and positively correlated with attitudes towards virtual advertising

Construct Validity

Dependent Variable: Recognition of advertisements Recall of advertisement Attitude towards advertisements

Independent Variable: Exposure to virtual advertisements

How its Operationalized

Dependent Measures A written standardized interview followed

viewing including questions regarding recognition, recall, and attitude. Used the 5-point multi-attribute Likert scales

Independent Measures Participants viewed an 18 minute video clip

of the soccer match Hertha BSC Berlin vs. VfB Stuttgart

Strengths and Weaknesses

Effect Construct: Strengths

Has face and predictive validity Multiple ways of measure Able to quantify results

Weaknesses Question-wording limits responses Questionnaire was given immediately after

viewing

Strengths and Weaknesses

Cause Construct Strengths

German soccer match, participants were German as well

Both conventional and virtual advertising were represented

Weaknesses Only five companies represented Limited video clip Lower competition level No control over prior knowledge of products Only 18-minute clip, not full game length

Internal Validity

Design

(71 People) O X O (aided)(71 People) O X O (unaided)

Group Threats

Participants were “split” into two groups: aided and unaided. Were they randomly assigned?

Selection instrumentation The experimenter administering the

treatment and questionnaire treated the two groups differently.

Selection history/testing Were they randomly assigned?

Internal Validity

Very strong for this study because of the testing of prior brand awareness and general design

Issue

We would have liked to see the questionnaires that were distributed What questions were on the aided/unaided

forms? Could this have led to bias or different

results?

Confounding Variables

The researchers tested prior brand awareness and found that it was not a confounding variable because the results were not significant

External Validity

Non-random selection 142 German undergrads and grads in business management classes Is there a type of person that is more apt to take

these classes? More males than females (90.8% to 9.2%) Soccer interest (majority was low, 40.1%)

Random Assignment? Doesn’t say whether they were randomly assigned

into the two groups So were the groups really different to start with?

Who, When, Where are they trying to generalize to?

Seems like they are trying to generalize to people who watch sporting events

Seems like they are trying to generalize to present and future times Trying to see if this specific type of advertisement works

Seems like they are trying to generalize to sports watchers who watch a sporting event at home They understand that this is a limited population, but they

state it is just an exploratory study

College age, German, business students**