Consumer Archives - Thilo Kunkel

Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Logo

The 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Logo has been revealed on April, 4th, 2013. The Gold Coast Bulletin asked me to provide some feedback from a branding perspective. The positives: The logo has vibrant colours that reflect Gold Coast colours and brand associations – the sun(orange), the beach (yellow), the ocean (blue) and the hinterland (green). The fond is quite playful and the zero in 2018 hovers lightheartedly over the swoosh of the 2 – and the Gold Coast is exactly this: playful and lightheartedly. The logo incorporated three athletes that all share legs, indicating the core values of sport being based on a common foundation. So far, well done. The negatives: The logo is quite cluttered. It contains so many different details (legs, heads, etc) and colours that if printed small, it may just look like a colourful beach ball. Again, a Gold Coast brand association, however, I would argue not an intended one. This aspects may have an impact on merchandise (e.g., sun hat) where the logo will appear very small. In terms of logo recognition, it is the simple logos (think about the Nike swoosh; Apple; or the three stripes of Adidas) that survive over time. Overall, the logo reflects the ‘brand image’ of the Gold Coast very well and given its bright colours, I believe Commonwealth Games visitors will buy merchandise just because of the beach ball logo. This article was published in the Gold Coast Bulletin April, 5th, 2013 (Audience 94,000)

Thinking about the same things differently: Examining perceptions of a non-profit community sport organisation (Lock, D., Filo, K., Kunkel, T., & Skinner, J.) Sport Management Review (ERA ranked: A) This paper explores the differing perceptions and identity responses (identification, apathy and disidentification) that potentially exist in relation to one non-profit Community Sport Organisation (CSO), and whether they explain variations in individuals’ existing values and beliefs, sport interest, community identification and views about one organisation’s legitimacy. Data were collected using a quantitative online survey (n = 390), then analysed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Multiple Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) to test three hypotheses investigating whether existing values and beliefs, shared community values, local players, organisational practices and sport interest varied based on perception of organisational image and identity response. Based on the contributions of this study, non-profit CSOs should spend time developing understanding of the key dimensions that make them relevant to constituents and to decipher the values and beliefs that underpin what external audiences expect from organisations. In addition, understanding specifically what a CSO’s audience expects is fundamental if the organisation is to be perceived as legitimate in relation to its purpose. Send an email to receive a copy of the article.

Sports spectator segmentation: Examining the differing psychological connections amongst spectators of leagues and teams (Doyle, J. P., Kunkel, T., & Funk, D. C., 2013). International Journal of Sport Marketing and Sponsorship. (ERA ranked: B) The results from this study extend previous research by empirically testing the involvement based Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) segmentation procedure on sports spectators. To date, the procedure has only been verified using sports participants, although the PCM was developed with a broader range of sports consumers in mind. The validity of the procedure is confirmed using two online surveys, which gather data from spectators at both the league (n=761) and team (n=623) level. A three-step segmentation procedure then places respondents into the PCM stages – awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance. ANOVA tests indicate that the four groups significantly differ from one another on attitudinal and behavioural measures for both league and team spectators. Findings suggest that the PCM is an appropriate framework to investigate fan development at both league and team levels. Thus sports marketers are provided with a research segmentation tool capable of helping them to better understand their heterogeneous consumer bases and thus guide marketing decisions.

Leagues undermined when clubs play dirty written by Stephen O’Grady February, 13th, 2013 “As six NRL clubs slipped into the glare of the Australian Crime Commission’s spotlight this week, so too did their parent league. The fate of clubs like the North Queensland Cowboys, Manly Sea Eagles and Newcastle Knights in the days and weeks ahead will have a bearing on public perceptions of the National Rugby League. The NRL’s leadership – or lack of leadership – during the fallout from the ACC investigations will also have a major bearing on fans’ perceptions of its member clubs – not only those under investigation – and their likelihood to attend games and emotionally commit during the forthcoming season. This connection between the parent league and its member clubs may seem the most obvious of links but it is one that has not been academically investigated or established previously. A Gold Coast-based researcher at Griffith University’s Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management has now confirmed the major influence a parent league has on its constituent clubs, and vice versa. Fans of the NRL, AFL, A-League and English Premier League participated in the four-year research project, which involved in-depth interviews, two online questionnaires eliciting more than 1600 responses and consultation with online A-League fan forums which involved 420 respondents. The final stage of the research focused solely on soccer’s A-League where Dr Thilo Kunkel engaged with online fan forums around Australian to study the influence of the A-League on clubs and how this influence extended to the consumers’ perception of the teams in the league. The attitudes of fans were studied in relation to the league and in relation to the team, as was the social acceptability of supporting a team, and the fan’s capacity – through time and money – to support their team by attending their games. “The first major finding of the research is the strong influence a league has on the marketing and strategic brand management of teams in that league,” German-native, Dr Kunkel, says. “The league has a major bearing on the attitude of fans towards teams within the league. “If a league is going well, its teams tend to go well. If the league is not going so well, the teams tend not to go so well. The connection works the other way too. Teams are representative of their league, notably when they do well. “By the same token a scandal around a team or an individual player within a team has a bearing on the league and, by extension, on the rest of the teams in the league. “This may come be borne out during the weeks ahead as teams are publicly scrutinised in relation to drugs and corruption in sport. The intrinsic connection means the league and other member teams will be impacted if one or more teams are in the news for the wrong reasons. “The second major finding of my research is that it is very important for a league to provide a brand framework and brand alignment structure for the teams in the league. The teams can build and market themselves using this, while also establishing their own brand by differentiating themselves from other teams and building their own unique identity. “The third significant finding shows the league has a major influence on attitudes towards teams and whether fans attend club games. The league plays a big part in this through its strategic involvement in areas like match schedules, stadium lease contracts, and guidelines on how teams should treat their fan bases. “The league needs to guide its teams’ match-day management and marketing. The teams need to not only make it convenient and affordable for people to attend a game but also communicate this to their fans. This will boost game attendance, which will help both the teams and the league.”

The attractiveness of national and international football leagues – the perspective of fans of “underdogs” and “star clubs” (Koenigstorfer, Groeppel-Klein, & Kunkel, 2010) European Sport Management Quarterly (ERA ranked: B) The goal of this study is to determine what factors affect the attractiveness of both national football leagues and the Champions League from the perspective of fans, and how these factors are viewed by fans of clubs at the top and bottom of the league table. This is of interest as there are differences between the financial resources available to the clubs and leagues. Based on the literature on sport consumer behaviour, we propose that four determinants are relevant to the league’s attractiveness: stadium atmosphere, international success of the clubs, uniqueness of dominating clubs and perceived competitive balance. A total of 1,404 committed fans of 12 selected football teams from the UK Premier League and German Bundesliga participated in the study. The research model was tested using PLS. The results show that the determinants significantly impact perceived attractiveness, and that even fans of financially privileged and successful clubs concede that perceived competitive balance is necessary for the attractiveness to be maintained. Request the article here: [filebyemail file = 289]

Thilo Kunkel, Ph.D.

Posts Tagged ‘Consumer’

Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Logo

Thinking about the same things differently: Examining perceptions of a non-profit community sport organisation

Sports spectator segmentation: Examining the differing psychological connections amongst spectators of leagues and teams

Leagues undermined when clubs play dirty

The attractiveness of national and international football leagues–the perspective of fans of “underdogs” and “star clubs”

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