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MASTER THESIS
A Journey on the value of Promotional and Experiential Marketing
regarding Intention of Sport Participation within different Market Segments.
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Economics and Business
Master of Science in Business Administration
Track: Marketing
First supervisor: Drs. Ing. Antoon Meulemans
Second reader: Drs. FR. Slisser
By:
Student: Brenda Hernández Fernández
Student number: 11086106
24th of June, 2016

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Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Brenda Hernández Fernández who declares to take full
responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources
other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion
of the work, not for the contents.

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ABSTRACT
Sport participants are influenced by numerous factors affecting the decision of which sport to
practice. In this study, the aim is to understand the influence of brands on consumers’ decision
making. Specifically, the point of the conversation focuses on the different impact that marketing
approaches, Promotional and Experiential, have across marketing segments using the US VALS as
tool of measurement.
An online experimental survey was designed in order to present different videos, regarding
Promotional or Experiential Marketing to participants. After being exposed to six different videos,
respondents were asked to answer specific questions related with their videos preference and
intention to practice sport. In order to know their values and lifestyles, respondents were asked to
answer an external survey already available on Internet.
Using data from international participants (N=114, SD=.499), it was found that there is no
difference in Marketing stimuli on intention to practice sports. However, either Promotional or
Experiential Marketing encourages people to have stronger intentions to participate in sports.
According to their Values and Lifestyles, it was found that Primary Motivations do not influence
intention to practice sport after being exposed to marketing stimuli p>.05. However, Resources do
affect p<.05, showing that for people with low resources Promotional Marketing is more effective in
increasing intention to practice sports while for high Resources, Experiential Marketing works better
to achieve this same goal. The study represents a footstep ahead on current theoretical framework.
Despite the fact that major limitations constrained the results of the test, it still exposes the reader to
an insightful journey across the topic by identifying the best practices for consumers with low and
high Resources.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my infinite gratitude to the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam
Merit Scholarship committee that have made possible to attain my Masters Degree in Business
Administration: Marketing. I would also like to thank Drs. Ing. Antoon Meulemans for being my
supervisor and taking me through the learning process of this master thesis, for his useful feedbacks
and remarks.
Furthermore, I would like to thank my family because they have always helped me to achieve and
pursuit all my goals and dreams. I am completely grateful with Paolo, my life companion, who has
been by my side every day of this journey and lastly, to my friends who have been supporting me all
the time.
I will be grateful forever,
Brenda Hernández Fernández
24th of June, 2016 University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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TABLE OF CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................8
2. LITERATULRE REVIEW..................................................................................................................11
2.1 Marketing Stimuli-Brand Stimuli..................................................................................................11
2.1.1. From Promotion to Information ....................................................................................11
2.1.2. Promotional Marketing..................................................................................................13
2.1.3. Holistic Marketing.........................................................................................................14
2.1.4. Interactive and Experiential Marketing.........................................................................16
2.2. Consumer Stimuli.........................................................................................................................18
2.2.1. Consumer characteristics...............................................................................................19
2.2.1.1. Cultural...........................................................................................................19
2.2.1.2. Social..............................................................................................................19
2.2.1.3. Personal ..........................................................................................................20
2.3. Consumer Psychology..................................................................................................................22
2.3.1. Motivation .....................................................................................................................22
2.3.2. Perception......................................................................................................................23
2.3.3. Learning ........................................................................................................................24
2.3.4. Memory .........................................................................................................................24
2.3.5. Attitudes ........................................................................................................................25
2.4. Consumer Psychographic: VALS ................................................................................................26
2.5. Consumer Intention......................................................................................................................29
2.6. Research Question........................................................................................................................30
2.7. Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses......................................................................................32
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ..............................................................................34
3.1. Sample .........................................................................................................................................34
3.2. Research Design...........................................................................................................................34
3.2.1 Measures.........................................................................................................................35
3.3. The Procedure...............................................................................................................................37
3.3.1. Pre-test...........................................................................................................................37
3.3.2. Main Study ....................................................................................................................37

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4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ...............................................................................................................39
4.1. Preliminary Analysis....................................................................................................................39
4.2. Reliability of Scales.....................................................................................................................39
4.3. Descriptives.................................................................................................................................40
4.4. Analysis Results ..........................................................................................................................41
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................46
5.1. Discussion ....................................................................................................................................46
5.2. Overall conclusion .......................................................................................................................50
5.3. Academic Implications.................................................................................................................52
5.4. Managerial Implications...............................................................................................................52
5.5. Limitations and future research....................................................................................................54
REFERENCE............................................................................................................................................57
APPENDIX................................................................................................................................................62
I Online Survey..........................................................................................................................................62
II VALS ......................................................................................................................................................68
III Pre-test (1) Videos vs Printed ads.........................................................................................................73
IV Pre-test (2) Time length.........................................................................................................................75
V Marketing Stimuli Preference and Motivations......................................................................................76

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INDEX OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1 Holistic Marketing ................................................................................................................14
Figure 2. Three Hierarchy of Effects Models Marketing....................................................................25
Figure 3. US VALS Framework..........................................................................................................27
Figure 4. Conceptual Framework........................................................................................................32
Figure 5. Marketing Stimuli Preference and Resources .....................................................................44
Table 1. Motivational Factor for evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets.......................23
Table 2. Level of Intention to practice sport by group .......................................................................42
Table 3. ANOVA between Subjects effect- Resources Main effects and Interaction effects ............43
Table 4. ANOVA between Subjects effect- Motivations Main effects and Interaction effects .........45

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1. INTRODUCTION
Exchange of information, emotional attachment, identification and feeling of belonging, this is the
relationship between brands and consumers in the third millennium; a relationship as if your favorite
brand was your lifetime friend.
Contrary to traditional research, interactive marketing and, with that, experiential marketing,
has allowed brands to get closer to consumers by building strong relationships, providing solutions
and experiencing those together. Innovative researchers have caught up on analyzing these trends
that have driven change in the mindset of brands given the increased expertise of their consumers.
Still, traditional practices remain in place in certain, if not all, markets.
The sport environment has seen a greater application of both promotional and experiential
concepts, but little is known on the influence that marketing stimuli have towards the intention to
participate in sports. Forget, for one moment, product attributes, and look into the deepest
understanding of what triggers consumers participation from an inspirational and experiential point
of view. By not neglecting consumer’s lifestyle and values, the research provides a unique profile on
how and which marketing approach offers greater influence in sport participation by linking together
promotional theory of McCarthy (1960), and its evolution to the SIVA marketing mix (Chekitan &
Schultz, 2012), more inspirational driven compared to the past, with the five modules of experiential
marketing exhibited by Schmitt (1999) and consumers distinctiveness offered by the VALS
methodology (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). It also provides pragmatic insights coming from
consumers on which approach they believe it works the best. In that sense, it will be an explicit
request to brands on how to wisely activate a specific response.

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With that said, the research question of this exciting topic is the following: To what extent
Promotional is different from Experiential marketing on intention to practice sports? How does this
relationship differ by taking into consideration consumer Values and Lifestyles?”
To answer the above interrogation, an online experiment was run to expose interviewees to
specific videos by testing their preference towards inspirational and promotional communication
versus pragmatic experiences. On top of that, they were divided in market cluster, segments,
according to the VALS, so their value and lifestyle as moderator effect, between marketing stimuli
and intention to practice sport, was assessed. The sample consisted of 114 individuals coming from
various nationalities, ages, incomes, and education.
Theoretical and managerial relevance
The uniqueness of this angle of study provides both managerial and theoretical contribution;
mainly in the understanding of the different impact of marketing approaches, thanks to an
observation of traditional and new techniques. As a matter of fact brands are currently facing a
market that, recently, sought inspirational and experiential marketing as a point of difference to
strengthen the relationship between brand and consumer; as well as a market that regards the
distinctive individuality of affect, behavior and belief of each consumer.
There is evidence of previous researches showcasing the influence of marketing actions on
intention to purchase certain products. Still, this research adds academic relevance from three points
of view. Firstly, the analysis digs deeper into marketing stimuli as it starts to identify the value of
certain approaches across segments. Secondly, it investigates an industry, the sporting goods
industry that to our knowledge is overdrawn by such research. Lastly, the intention to practice sport
clearly states the need to focus on the solution of consumers’ needs rather than the means.

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The clear and confined boundaries allow addressing the results of the study particularly to
those brands living within the sporting goods environment. Sporting goods brands know that market
segmentation through values and lifestyles is key to delivering a successful marketing campaign;
perhaps this could be the main outcome to suggest to brands that outbound the field of study.
Moving on from this, the takeaways for marketing managers are dual: on one hand the aim is to give
guidance on the optimal allocation of the marketing resources by studying the value of each
approach. On the other, this research aims to force brand leaders to evolve their strategic thinking
towards the solution of the problem rather than the purchase action. By focusing on the final desired
outcome by consumers, brands are able to provide meaningful interactive responses, which do not
only increase the emotional attachment, but also thrive to accomplish repeated purchases through
brand loyalty.
Thesis Overview
The research begins showcasing the evolution of marketing communicational beliefs,
highlighted as brand stimuli, from the 60s to recent times. An extensive discussion of current
understandings of consumers’ stimuli, psychology and psychographic is argued as a complement to
the brand stimuli towards the achievement of the consumer’s final intention. It follows the
conceptual framework that poses the bases for hypotheses questioned in the experiment. The
research design and methodology go into the details of test before showcasing the analysis,
quantitative results to set ground to sizable discussion and conclusion. Finally, the academic and
managerial implications as well as limitations and future research are presented.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Marketing Stimuli - Brand Stimuli
2.1.1. From Promotion to Information.
It has all started with the introduction, more than fifty years ago, of the concept of promotion. As
McCarthy (1960) discussed in his “Basic Marketing; A managerial Approach” book, promotion is
the method that firms use to interact with their consumers (p.480). Effective promotion is achieved
through the information, persuasion and reminder of the marketing mix - product, price and place.
Those three undertakings can also be described through the AIDA model - acronym of
Attention, Interest, Desire and Action - (Tyagi, C. & Kumar, A., 2004, p.251) with the former two
symbolizing information and reminding, whilst desire and action are embraced by persuasion.
Besides the fact that this theoretical framework has diligently served for decades, in recent years,
some criticism has arisen. The first most emblematic and contrasting evolution of the 4Ps model was
proposed by Lauterborn (1990). Indeed, right after the Second World War, when McCarthy
developed his managerial approach, firms were predominantly interacting with their consumers
through a single touchpoint, mass advertising, and the conversation between the firm and its
consumers, was wholly one directional. There are several reasons why this has been the case: the
limitation of channels to go-to-market presented a few alternatives to speak with consumers or the
common practice to promote the brand primarily from a product or price standpoint are just a couple
of examples (Lauterborn, 1990). Product and price differentiation were the typical tactics to win the
competition. This primitive marketing approach was validated until consumer orientation, and
sophistication, became to a reality in late 80s (White, 2010). It was on this occasion that Lauterborn
(1990) developed a new classification of the 4 Ps in 4 Cs: consumer needs and wants, cost,
convenience and communication. This classification follows a more consumer-oriented approach by

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acknowledging consumer dissimilarities into segments. The talk is not anymore around mass
marketing, principally mass media advertising to whole market, but nice marketing; in other words,
marketing of segments. Before continuing to discuss the evolution of the marketing principle into
today’s customer experience, it is important to further analyze the Latin etymology of promotion and
communication to reinforce their differences. While the former can be translated in today’s terms as
“the act of persuading someone to do something” (Dizzionario Etimologico Online, 2016),
communication embodied the sense community and interchange as the “act to share something with
someone” (Dizzionario Etimologico Online, 2016).
Perhaps even more revolutionary, was the new marketing mix developed by Chekitan &
Schultz (2012). In 2005, the authors contrasted the McCarthy's 4Ps in the acronyms SIVA, Solution
instead of Product, Information instead of Promotion, Value instead of Price, and, ultimately, Access
instead of Place (Chekitan & Schultz, 2012). The SIVA marketing mix is opposed to the 4 Ps, and 4
Cs, as it flips the point of view, from the brands to the consumers. Indeed, consumers do not need
price but value as well as they do not look for needs or wants, but solutions. Specifically,
information is doubtfully seen as the flow of information coming from brands, rather the way
consumers decide to pull the information from, such as direct, retail, traditional media or online. As
the authors reminded us, Steve Jobs once said: “People don’t just want to buy personal computers
anymore; they want to know what they can do with them.” (Chekitan & Schultz, 2012, p. 46). The
SIVA marketing mix describes how brands have been seeking to win competition, increase
consumer loyalty and deliver the maximum brand experience in a continuing changing marketing
with more brands, more channels, more source of information, where complexity has not been
greater than now. On top of this, brands no longer have the luxury to share ideas with consumers and

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remain sat behind a desk. Knowing the market, by putting themselves in the consumer's shoes, has
become key to boost brand attachment, and in turn gain loyalty.
As a matter of fact, this is the reality where we find ourselves now; a market where product
and price differentiation are obsolete practices, if not integrated by other marketing approaches; a
market where consumers are exposed to a vast number and ways to pull the most trustable
information, useful to compare not only products (solutions) but also values and accesses. For this
reason, brand experience has become one of the most used ways to inform, interact and recruit loyal
consumers in the sport industry and beyond.
2.1.2 Promotional Marketing.
McCarthy (1960) defines types of promotion: Mass Selling, Personal Selling and Sales Promotion.
According to him, mass selling is planned, implemented and executed by the marketing department
(p.482). Mass selling refers to advertising, which means making someone aware of something
(Cambridge Online Dictionaries, 2016), such as television, radio, outdoor, newspaper, magazines
and online advertising, nowadays including both mobile and desktop. There are different ways
brands can advertise; from the most traditional ones, such as the classic mainstream TV ad, to the
most recent, as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, promotion follows
consumers’ buying decision process, where consumers begin with a problem recognition, then
search for the information, evaluate the alternatives and finally, make the purchase decision (Kotler
& Keller, 2012, p.166). Particularly through advertisement, brands leverage their communication at
the information search to persuade consumers with the objective to guide them to purchase own
products. Buying decision process can be accompanied with the traditional funnel metaphor that
exhibits the different stages of consumer’s acquaintance with a brand. It starts with awareness, where

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mass selling/advertising play a key role, then familiarity, consideration, before taking into account
the purchase (Court, D., Elzinga, D., Mulder, S. & Jørgen, O, 2016).
To conclude, Personal Selling and Sales Promotion are two promotional practices still in
place in various industries - even in the sport industry Sales Promotion can still be found. However,
for the scope of this research, it is believed that they go out of boundaries; hence, they will be left
aside to focus only on Mass Selling.
2.1.3 Holistic Marketing.
When it comes to talk about consumer’s information; companies and marketers, have developed a
wider marketing approach that embraces all the stakeholders, internal and external, to create
experience, build and maintain relationships, emotional attachment, through the internal
coordination towards a common objective in profitable, ethical and sustainable way (Hyeonyoung,
C., Eunju, K., Young, K., & Pekka, M, 2015). The developed framework (Figure 1), represents the
four diverse branches of Holistic Marketing.
Figure 1. Holistic Marketing (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.19)

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Relationship Marketing signifies all the interactions with the stakeholders, such as customers,
partners, suppliers and so forth; interactions that are able to strengthen the position of the brand in
the market (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20). Understanding customer, or consumer, relationship is
particular important as it is directly related with the satisfaction that the consumer might have with
the brand at different touchpoints. This is something that will be discussed in detail in the next
paragraphs. Internal Marketing refers to all those activities that allow a smooth flow of information
with the organization and also those that raise the level of satisfaction of employees according to
business directors (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.21). Besides looking just at the balance sheet,
Performance Marketing, explains the sustainable and ethical practices, from the respect of the
workers’ conditions to the minimum impact on the environment (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.22).
Finally, Integrated Marketing applies to all those things attached to the creation, communication and
delivery of value (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20). To what concerns the scope of the research, it is
believed beneficial to restrict the analysis by looking at the Integrated Marketing Communication
with a particular focus on the newly defined approach named Experiential Marketing. It will become
clearer in the conversation below, how brands are not sellers of not only products, but also
experience creators and subsequently, how the three different tools of the Integrated Marketing -
Product, Communication and Channel (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.20) - sometimes appear blurry as a
unique entity.
Before jumping into the discussion of Experiential Marketing, it is also relevant to spend a
few words on the understanding of consumers’ response from brands that stimulate the on-going
conversation with their consumers through experiences. The present-day terminology “Customer
Experience Management”, or CEM, precisely describes this behavior of tactics put in practice to
respond to market stimuli and to provide those solutions that go beyond the fulfillment of needs and,

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that enable satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy (Gartner, Inc. 2016). To be precise, CEM is the
discipline that improves the Customer Experience Factor (Dandridge, 2010), literally like if the
consumers were rating in a scorecard their experience with the brand in a scale from 1 to 10, for
instance. To relink with the above explained holistic marketing approach, CEM is part of the
Integrated Marketing Communication together with brand awareness and direct marketing (Sevier,
2007). While there is always detailed attention on the generation awareness and responses - direct
marketing -, the potential of CEM is often underestimated as it can determine whether customer
satisfaction, and subsequently loyalty and advocacy, have been accomplished (Sevier, 2007). In
truth, CEM allows brands to establish a connection with consumers on all the customer life cycle,
pick the right message at the right time, as well as offer personalized memorable experiences - with
the increase of loyalty and advocacy in return (SAS Institute Inc., 2016).
2.1.4 Interactive and Experiential Marketing.
Back in 1998, the fathers of the Journal of Interactive Marketing - IM , define the same as “the
strategic use of information and information technology as corporate assets, network-based
communication, customer and managerial behavior in interactive environments, the evolution of
interactive institutions and the design and testing of interactive marketing decisions” (Deighton &
Rashi, 1998, pp.3). IM is, therefore, the newly marketing branch that derives from the evolution of
touchpoints with consumers.
Internet platforms, but also the birth of communities, are assets that brands have recently
started to leverage in order to establish new means of communication or interactions. Today, the
notion of IM does not go too far away from this early definition, if not by stressing even further that
Interactive Marketing enables a conversation between the brand and consumers through marketing
practices of the former. Elements of IM are the connecting platforms, communities, personalization,

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E-WOM, word of mouth, etc (Malthouse, E. & Hofacker, C., 2010). With the development of the IT,
IM has evolved and is in continuous transformation. IM does not need to be confused as synonym of
Digital Marketing as its range of action is wider than the latter. Due to technological advancements,
it is true that nowadays brands use IT to establish a remote and personalized conversation with
consumers, but this is not the only way that can be conducted within IM to interact with consumers.
Together with the raise of importance of IM, brands began to understand the relevancy and
potential of giving to them a memorable experience of the interaction they had. As stated above, the
recognition of the obsolescence of traditional promotional tool only through product features, forced
brands to generate a holistic marketing mindset, integrated communication that would trigger
memorable reminiscences. As a matter of fact, Experiential Marketing (EM), is the most recent
evolution of Integrated Marketing standing for a brand experience-based orientation, rather than the
traditional product-based one (Kirezli, 2011).
The notion of Experiential Marketing was brought alive by Schmitt (1999) whose theory was
founded upon the belief that consumer’s response was part of a socio-cultural context rather than just
competitive offering and consumer’s attachment to emotional feelings triggered by experiences. He
proposes a conceptual framework for managing experiences that is based on modules, which are:
● Sense - creation of sensory experiences
● Feel - creation of emotional experiences
● Think - creation of cognitive and problem-solving experiences
● Act - creation of physical experiences
● Relate - creation of self-improvement experiences as a feel of belonging to a community
(Schmitt, 1999)

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Marketers can either choose one or create a combination of those modules to stimulate the desired
experience and consumers’ outcome (Schmitt, 1999). This modular design is very useful when
analyzing the type of actions taken by brands towards their influence on consumers’ behavior and
their responses. A state of art example that Schmitt (1999) ultimately brings on his study is Nike’s
eternal campaign “Just Do It”, that represents the symbol of EM according to the Act module. On
top of that, it can be seen how sporting goods companies have used, in addition to Act, also other
module, such as Feel, impactful emotional content; Think, campaign against health related issues
from a sedentary life and Relate, strategies that surround the sense of belonging to a particular
community as Nike+, for instance.
On one hand, through the establishment of a holistic marketing approach that generates
experiential responses, IM and EM support brands in developing brand attachments, hence loyalty.
In addition, there is also the formation of one-to-one interactions and experiences that, on the other,
support the customization of each consumer's solution. Consumers have also the option to select
those brands that, do not only fulfill their solving need, but those that offer the best emotional,
provocative and communitarian experience.
With IM and EM, it has been touched a complete overview of brand power to affect
consumer’s behavior, thus intention. The next section will then move on describing those
influencing factors that immediately surrounds consumer’s sphere.
2.2 Consumers’ Stimuli
Brands do have influence on consumers. They can also put in motion certain consumers behaviors.
Still, consumers do have a lot to say and to process, resulting in a good chunk of unpredictability
when responding. The environment in which the consumers live and the uniqueness of the individual
compose this fragmented unpredictability, which is by nature impossible to precisely forecast by

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brands. This section covers both aspects of consumers’ stimuli, external and internal, by arguing
consumer’s characteristics, psychology and psychographic. Together with the brand stimuli, these
factors will then lead to the intention to participate in a certain physical activity.
2.2.1 Consumer Characteristics.
Consumers’ behavior is primarily shaped by its cultural, social and personal factors, whose strength
and duration vary from one to another. In the followings paragraphs, a good explanation of those
will be given before moving on to the consumer psychology.
2.2.1.1 Cultural.
As reported by Kotler & Keller (2012), cultural factors significantly drive consumers’ decision in
shaping the need for solutions (p.151). Specifically, in the sport market, it would be a mistake to
assume that every culture favors physical activities in the same way. However, it can be easily
understood how sport practices change between countries as well as the frequency of practicing
them. For example, weather and residency are determinants of the frequency of sport activity. By
taking the USA for instance, sport practitioners are segmented according to the subculture they
belong: White, Latino, Asian or Afro-American, but also where they live, States facing the oceans or
in a mountainous area have lower obesity rate as result of practicing more physical activity than
those living in the flat Midwest (The State of Obesity, 2014). Social class is another cultural
dimension. In this specific case, several studies have reported that the increase of physical activity in
leisure time is higher for those belonging to higher social classes (Hillsdon, Marshall SJ., Jones, D.,
Ainsworth, B., Reis, J., Levy, S., Macera, C., 2011).
2.2.1.2. Social.
The second consumer’s characteristic that influences attitudes and behavior is Social. That is to say,
social characteristics enclose reference groups, roles and status (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.153).

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Reference group means to the primary groups, with family being recognized as the most powerful
one, and secondary groups, such religious and professional associations. Within each reference
group, it can be then identified an opinion leader that is the most influencing actor within it. Besides
the family, other influencing groups in the sport market are sport associations, for example. Over the
last decades, brands have recognized the power of opinion leaders, through the endorsement of top
sport athletes. These practices still favor the idea that consumers will follow the example of their
idols, from a product to a physical motion perspective. However, this is starting to lose consensus
giving the poor ROI, brand exposure on the behavior of sponsored athletes (Carrilat, 2014).
Ultimately, the role, activities expected to perform and the status, position within a hierarchy (Kotler
& Keller, 2012, p.154) are also components that determine a certain behavior in the selection of a
physical activity. Typically, sports like golf, polo, tennis, are practiced, not only by a higher social
class, but also to witness the role and the status of a consumer.
2.2.1.3. Personal.
Personal factors are those intrinsically in each one of us, that form the way we are and the way we
act. Brands who tend to perform Experiential Marketing, hence one-to-one connection, should pay
greater attention to these factors as they are expected to vary even within the same-targeted group.
According to Kotler & Keller (2012), they can be categorized in: age and stage of the life cycle,
occupation and economic circumstances, personality and self-concept and lifestyle and values
(p.154)
Different ages shape different responses. Normally, young adults are more open to
innovation and accept changes more readily than the elderly do. At different ages, responses to
marketing stimuli may vary as part of the acquired experience encountered during the life cycle.

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Consumer's income, debt and saving highly affect spending decisions. Engel’s law usefully
explains how spending patterns varies at different level of disposal income (Kotler & Keller, p.156).
Without the required income, consumers may not be able to respond to brand stimuli accordingly
and, therefore, the effort would have been useless. For this reason, it is utterly important that
marketing researches are conducted to tune those activities addressed to a specific target.
Highly connected with the age and life cycle, personality and self concept describes
respectively the human psychological traits and responses to stimuli and the way consumers’ view
themselves and how they would like to view themselves in the future (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.156).
Like consumers, brands have their own personalities, called brand personality (Kotler & Keller,
2012, p.156). In the effort to build a stronger relationship, brands use these traits to allow consumers
to pick the one that connects greater with their own, but also to remove the institutional mindset of
the brand, thus becoming more “human”.
Lastly, lifestyle and core values identify the way of living and strong and durable beliefs of a
consumer (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.157). Lifestyle has become a major focal point for many brands
due to the fact that lifestyles are visually identifiable with trends and opinion leaders. As a
consequence, lifestyles are subjected to transformation according to their duration, as creating
continuous business opportunities for brands. For example, a part of the LOHAS trend , Lifestyle of
Health and Sustainability, (Kotler and Keller, 2012, p.158) outdoor lifestyle has intensified and
created the opportunity for sporting good brands, such as Adidas (Adidas, 2016) and Vans (Vans,
2016) to enter in the outdoor segment.

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2.3 Consumer Psychology
2.3.1 Motivation.
Motivation is the factor that shapes consumers’ behaving in a particular way. Despite the fact that
Sigmund Freud stated the difficulty in understanding the motivation of people, Abraham Maslow
proposed a widely recognized framework that described consumer’s motivation towards needs and
wants (as cited in Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.160). This pyramidal framework begin at the lowest layer
with the psychological needs, hence survival needs like water and food, to safety and protection,
social needs, esteem needs and, finally, self-actualization needs (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.161).
In order to understand which motive, or motives, triggers the need of a consumer to practice
a sport, McDonald, M., Milne, G, Hong, J. (2002) carefully gathered and categorized previous
studies and flows of thoughts according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to them, the
categorization on motivators of sport participation are: physical fitness, desire to feel better; risk
taking, desire to undertake extreme sports; stress reduction, desire to reduce the stress; aggression,
desire to provoke harm to another person; affiliation, being part of a group; social facilitation,
gratification to enjoy with others the same sport; self esteem, desire to hold oneself in regard;
competition, desire to compete; achievement, desire to be successful; skill mastery, desire to develop
skills; aesthetics, desire to look physically better; value development, desire to develop skills and
self actualization, desire to self-fulfill (McDonald et al., 2002). Table 1, Motivational Factors for
evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets, shows the visually recap what is discussed by
McDonald et al. (2002) according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

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Table 1. Motivational Factors for evaluating Sport Spectator and Participant Markets (McDonald et. al., 2002)
The research then continues by understanding the importance of each motivator on nine different
sports on both participants and spectators (McDonald et al., 2002).
2.3.2. Perception.
Kotler & Keller (2012) define perception as the “process by which we select, organize, and interpret
information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world” (p. 161 -162). Perception is
subjective, and change from one person to another, according to the modality of how the information
is given by the donor and captured by the receiver. The moment when consumers form their
perception can be split into three processes: selective attention, the process in which individuals

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store meaningful information that stimulates their pleasure or needs; selective distortion, the process
where information is transformed according to previous beliefs or expectations and selective
retention, the process where individuals forget sorrows or dislikes and remember positive emotions
or what they like (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.162).
2.3.3. Learning.
Learning is the aspect of the human behavior that is directly related with the experience. Indeed, a
great chunk on the way people behave is due to the lifetime learning. Theories tell that to provoke a
positive behavioral response as forecasted, brands should use drivers, strong internal stimulus setting
action, with cues, stimuli managing how response is conceived and where and when is initiated, and
make sure expectations are satisfactory, thus leading to the reinforcement of the belief (Kotler &
Keller, 2012, p.163). Experiential Marketing plays a crucial role through the perception, especially
in generating attitudes as described few paragraphs below, but also during the learning process,
when consumers utilize the promised experience and connected emotions attach to the activity.
Perception and learning are also highly influenced by the emotions that an individual feels regarding
current status and past experiences (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.163).
Brands do recognize that consumers are not completely, rational and cognitive, but do vary
based on the same learning as well as the current point in time; for this reason, marketing effort is
build around the creation of these emotions to trigger expected behaviors.
2.3.4. Memory.
Memory is the mental faculty that allows for storage of information. The aim of every marketing
department is to make sure their brand name is stored in the long-term compartment, the more
permanent area of the brain, of each of their audience (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.163). One of the
objectives of Inspirational (promotional) and Experiential Marketing is to produce those unique

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emotions that will be so appealing to people to be remembered for a very long time. According to
the perception selective processes (attention, distortion and retention), memories are encoded into
our brain; however without a continuous reiteration, through learning, that information will be
retrieved. Kotler & Keller (2012) describe that memory retrieval occurs due to the storage of other
information that will replace, even partially, old ones; the effect of time, that gradually fade out
information or lose the link with those if not systematically solicited (p.163)
2.3.5. Attitudes.
Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G. (2006) say that an attitude is a “lasting, general evaluation of people,
objects, advertisements or issues” (p.138) which has three components: affect, consumer feel of an
object; behavior, consumer intention to act towards and attitude; object and cognition, consumer
belief of the attitude object. They continue by stating that attitude theorists have developed the
concept of the hierarchy of effects that consists in a three linear sequence of the components towards
the attitude (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.140-143).
Figure 2. Three Hierarchy of Effects Models (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G. 2006, p.141)

26. 26
The Standard Learning hierarchy is the first one, which defines consumers as problem-
solvers, high involvement, where they collect the knowledge about a product attributes to develop
beliefs, then evaluate them to establish an affection before taking on with a behavior (Solomon, M.
& Askegaard, G., 2006, p 140-141). In this scenario, they describe the attitude as “based on
cognitive information processing” (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141)
The second sequence is the Low Involvement hierarchy that portrays the circumstance when
consumers do not have a particular preference over a brand, but behave based on the limited
knowledge available and ultimately build their belief once the product has been consumed
(Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141-142). In this case, the consumers’ attitude is based on
behavioral learning processes (Solomon, M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141).
The last linear sequence, and what it is believed to be the most meaningful in this research, is
the Experiential hierarchy that depicts consumers attitude “based on hedonic consumption”, which
means that they react based on emotional feelings and, ultimately, generates the beliefs (Solomon,
M. & Askegaard, G., 2006, p.141-143). Mittal (1988) defines that Experiential hierarchy occurs on
products that are on the top of the Maslow Hierarchy, hence those that are less functional and more
attached to the brand personality and communicational message.
2.4 Consumer Psychographic: VALS.
In order to estimate consumer’s behavior, SRI International (2016) developed the so-called VALS
program, which stands for Values and Lifestyle. VALS is a response on consumers’ fragmentation to
partially predict their response through the analysis of the psychological traits and demographics
opposed societal trends, which are explained as more exposed to fluctuation (SRI International,
2016). More specifically, VALS is a psychometric method that assesses attitudes in order to forecast
behaviors, such a brand preference among others (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). For instance,

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US VALS methodology is based on eight idiosyncratic consumer groups along with the concept of
Primary Motivation and Resources, respectively on the horizontal and vertical axis (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. US VALS™ Framework (Strategic Business Insights, 2016)
US VALS™ Framework
Primary Motivation refers to ideal, achievement and self-expression motivations that allow to
define attitudes and predict behaviors. Ideal highlights knowledge and principles, Achievement
refers to willingness to show success to others, and Self-expression stands for social and physical
activity and, variety and risk (Strategic Business Insights, 2016). Resources refers to the degree of
innovation of an individual together with the traits like energy, self-confidence, intellectualism,
novelty seeking, innovativeness, impulsiveness, leadership, and vanity (Strategic Business Insights,
2016). To complete the explanation of the model, the eight consumers’ groups are listed as follows
(Strategic Business Insights, 2016):

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● Innovators present high Resources and all the three Primary Motivations to a certain extent.
Innovators can be confident enough to experiment. In addition, they are future oriented,
skeptical about advertising, international mindset, innovation believers, problem-solvers and
can have various interests.
● Thinkers, those who are analytical, structured, wealthy, detach to trends, analyze before
deciding, are motivated by ideals and exhibit high Resources.
● Achievers, on the other hand, are motivated by achievement and exhibit high Resources.
Achievers are goal-oriented, hardworking, family oriented, believers in the status quo and in
the money as tool of power.
● Experiences have the same range of Resources of the last two groups, but motivation comes
from self-expression. Their personality is built on welcoming trends as early adopters and
against what is mainstream, love physical activity, friends, spontaneous and stimulated by
visuals.
● Believers are motivated as thinkers by ideals, but show low Resources. They put faith on
spiritual inspiration, open to advertising, modest, watch movie to escape from real life and
loyal.
● Strivers have also low Resources and motivated by achievement with personal
characteristics, such as funny, unstable job condition and low class mainstream oriented.
● Makers is the last group exhibiting low Resources and their motivation comes from self-
expression. Pragmatic traits of Markers are ownership protection, straightforward, invest in
estates and distrust public institutions.

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● Survivors is the last of the eight groups and to this belong who do not have a Primary
Motivation and have low Resources. Old consumers, risk aversion, conservative, remaining
in the comfort zone are a few examples describing Survivors.
Even if the Strategic Business Insights (2016), SRI’s spin-off, has recently developed VALS for
other countries, such as the UK. In this study, it will be used the US VALS for being the most used
so far, but also as it is the only one available for free usage for non-clients.
2.5. Consumer Intention.
The consideration of alternatives is the step where consumers display the array of brands that have
interacted with and forms their preference, intention, towards a particular brand before moving on
the purchasing action.
Intention is the end point that encompasses all the consumers’ stimuli, psychology and
psychographic discussed above together with the initial brand stimuli. According to the Cambridge
Online Dictionary, Intention is “something that you plan and want to do” (2016). Indeed, this
reference does not mention the triggers of their desire, but it is clear that for this research, the study
will be confined on the inputs coming from marketing, both promotional and experiential. The
outcome of this mix of stimuli, particularly motivation, resulting in a consumer response to follow or
not follow the subliminal communicational message exchanged with the brand and, concurrently,
processed by each consumer. Intention can be collective or individual, can result in an action or goal
as well as have an immediate or delayed response (Bagozzi, 2016). These types of intentional
responses can be predicted, or even triggered, by brands to a certain extent.
It is important to understand the frequency of sport participation as it varies between
individuals. According to Swayne, L and Dodds, M. (2011), there are different types of participants:
those who are professionals and get paid for playing a sport and amateurs who do not receive any

30. 30
remuneration to play and just do it for fun or health concerns (p.189). Obviously, within the vast
majority of amateurs, falls on many different sport participants who do it for unique motives, as
described above from the research of McDonald et al. (2002) and frequency, from intensive activity
to sporadic training per year.
Engagement is also another critical element that increases as sport participants become more
committed to what they are doing. From a marketing perspective, having consumers’ engaged,
improve brand knowledge, brand loyalty and Word-of-mouth (Correia, S., Pires, A., and Ruedlger,
H.,2015).
Real life and precedent research seen above tell us that marketing plays a critical role in
shaping intention and triggering sport participation along with other stakeholders. Marketing
channels and techniques can be refined, replaced or updated, but ultimately the common line is the
importance of the influence of brands through marketing practices. Esomba, S. (n.d.) states that
marketing techniques in the sport industry increase both the promotion of products and promotion of
sports, which in turn, boost sports participation (p.17). As explained below, today’s brands in the
sport industry played a more complex marketing strategy compared to the only promotion of
product. Still, Esomba (n.d) proved the true impact of marketing as well as the needs of product
placement within different communication channels (p.17). Another piece of research conducted by
Wang, Y., Ho, C., Chen, T. (2015) reported Experiential Marketing activities increase purchase
intention in cultural and creative products, such a paintings.
2.6. Research Question
Constant transformation occurs in the world that we all live into. Brands, consumers, competition,
government are all in a frenetic movement to meet each one’s objectives and everyone is influenced
by everyone to a certain extent. In this research it is called stimuli and, in the specific, it has been

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discussed the stimuli that brands, through their marketing department, have towards consumers. As a
result of changes, this research has partially moved away from McCarthy’s (1960) definition of
promotion in a way as it was conceived. Personal selling and mass advertising are still in place, even
if their dominance has been replaced by other tactics, or the same have been refined. More
sophisticated and “grown up” consumers forced brands to establish an interaction with them, instead
of a persuasion; with the tendency of having a one-to-one interaction in order to meet different
requests on issues with customized solutions. Experiential Marketing is in one way a response to
closely interact with consumers, who do not ultimately search for only product attributes anymore,
but a sense of belonging, friends and identification in the brands. Still, the refinement of traditional
practices, through the use of inspirational connection, has been able to revive in today’s market.
Having said that, the focal point of this study, is not to look at consumers’ fulfillment through
satisfactory or loyalty metrics. Instead, it is through the analysis of the response by the fulfillment of
the solution. Limited research has been conducted on the analysis of the impact of specific marketing
stimuli and the solution fulfillment. In this research, the range of study is around sporting goods and
services brands that through Promotional (inspirational) and Experiential Marketing have a say in
driving sport participation, which is considered as the solution. The reason lies in making a step
forward towards the understanding of which marketing activities works the best according to
specific market segments. To reiterate what seen above, the importance of marketing activities
cannot be challenged nowadays, where consumers ask for a continuous interaction with brands.
Specifically, the aim is to give a clear answer to the marketing team, within a specific industry, that
in recent years have been exposed to the opening of channels, thus the multiplication of touchpoints
with their consumers resulting in new opportunities.

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In order to fully understand the impact of these marketing activities, all the other non-brand
stimuli will be left aside to leave marketing stimuli and sport participation in complete isolation. The
only variable that is taken into account, resulting in amplification or reduction of the marketing
effort in sport participation, is consumer Values and Lifestyles.
To sum up what discussed, the research question is: “To what extent Promotional is different
from Experiential Marketing on intention to practice sports? How does this relationship differ by
taking into consideration consumer Values and Lifestyles?”
2.7. Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses
Figure 4. Conceptual Framework
Figure 4, provides a general overview of the conceptual framework of this study. This framework
has been developed to answer the research question mentioned in the previous subchapter. In order
to understand if there is a difference between both types of marketing stimuli on intention to practice
sport, the first hypothesis is tested:
H1. Promotional Marketing increases intention to practice sports more than Experiential
Marketing.

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To have a better comprehension of how the relationship between marketing stimuli and
intention to practice sports differs according to Primary Motivations (Ideals, Achievement and Self
Expressions), the following hypotheses are tested:
H2a. Consumers with Ideals as Primary Motivation express more intention to practice sports
after being exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing.
H2b. Consumers with Achievement as Primary Motivation express more intention to practice
sports after being exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing.
H2c. Consumers with Self Expression as Primary Motivation express more intention to
practice sports after being exposed to Experiential Marketing rather than Promotional
Marketing.
Lastly, the second part of the moderator, Resources (high and low), is also tested with the
hypotheses presented below:
H3a. Consumers with high Resources express more intention to practice sports after being
exposed to Experiential Marketing rather than Promotional Marketing.
H3b. Consumers with low Resources express more intention to practice sports after being
exposed to Promotional Marketing rather than Experiential Marketing.

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3. Research Design and Methodology
The comprehension of the relationship between the two different marketing approaches, Promotional
and Experiential, moderated by Consumer’s Values and Lifestyle - VALS - compel data collection
to study the effect on intention to practice sport on the single individual. The sample description
covers the first part of this chapter, before moving on to actual research design and the measurement
of the items and variables presented in the conceptual framework. Lastly, the final section touches
on the explanation of the procedure on how data were collected.
3.1. Sample
The population of this study consisted in participants from 21 to 63 years old with Internet access,
primarily due to the necessity of exposing them, during the test, to video content available in
Youtube. To increase the breadth of understanding of topic of this study, it was chosen to not restrict
the research on a particular gender, ethnicity, nor consumers living in a specific country. Moreover,
due to the limitation of time and economic resources as well the size of the population, a snowball
sampling, where participants could share the survey within their own network, was believed to be
the most efficient.
3.2. Research design
Quantitative research is thought to be the most appropriate for the test and analysis of the two
variables and the moderation effect. The type of topic of this research, the relationship between
variables and items listed in the conceptual framework, and the width of samples needed to provide
significance to the results impacted on this decision. The test and analysis were done entirely
through an online experiment survey (see Appendix I) given numerous advantages; on top of
anything else is the ease of access to groups and individuals of different gender, ethnicity and
residency, that through other means may have been difficult to reach (Garton, Haythornthwaite, &

35. 35
Wellman, 1999; Wellman, 1997). A second significant reason, for favoring the online experiment, is
the simplicity of contacting many individuals in a very short amount of time and in a very
inexpensive manner (Bachmann & Elfrink, 1996).
3.2.1 Measures
Questions about marketing preference and intention to participate in sports were asked in the online
survey. In order to know which Values and Lifestyle (VALS) each participant belonged to,
respondents were asked to answer directly the VALS survey already available on
http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/surveynew.shtml. (see Appendix II)
The survey was divided in three different sections. In the first section, respondents were
asked to indicate through a multiple option question, their primary and secondary type (VALS)
gotten directly through the external survey. The second section and the heart of the survey was
composed by three cases made to truly test the preference on Promotional or Experiential, hence to
test the marketing stimuli, and the intention on sport practicing. On each case one different brand
(Nike, The North Face and Reebok) was selected according to the availability of marketing
campaign resources at disposal; moreover, every case was composed of the same seven questions,
which were repeated each time. The first question directly aimed at the understanding of the
preference of one of the two videos played on each case, one Promotional and one Experiential. The
second question was useful to get some extra information as it addressed to the actively participation
of interviewee in the event shown in the experiential video. Finally, the last five questions were
asked to assess the intention to practice sport of the interviewee, based on their preference of that
case. All these questions were asked for the other two cases as well. Lastly, the third section
included demographic questions.

36. 36
In order to measure which marketing stimulus had a stronger impact on people’s intention to
practice sports, one single categorical item was asked for the independent variable. Participants were
forced to respond which video they preferred after watching both videos. Regarding the dependent
variable, intention to practice sport was measured on a constructed scale consisting of six items
based on existing scale of Liñán and Chen (2006). These items were developed to measure
entrepreneurial intention with a Cronbach’s α =.96. The items were modified from entrepreneurial
intention (I’ve got the firm intention to start a firm someday) to intention to practice sports (I’ve got
the firm intention to practice sport someday) for instance, and one item was removed (My
professional goal is becoming an entrepreneur) because of the lack of consistency with sport
participation. Participants had to indicate to what extent they agreed to the items presented in a 5-
point Likert Scale being 1 (Definitely not) to 5 (Definitely yes). Examples of items are: “I am ready
to make anything to practice sports”, “I will make every effort to practice sports”, “I am determine to
practice sports”, “I have very seriously thought in practicing sport” and the last one “I have got the
firm intention to practice sports some day”.
Despite the fact demographic data do not have a direct impact on the relation that this study
is analyzing, it was decided to run several questions that would have given a better understanding of
the sample. As a matter of fact, gender, age, level of education and average annual gross income
were asked. Gender was reported through a multiple option with two categorical answers (Female or
male). Age was in an open question. The highest achieved level of education was asked through a
multiple choice questions giving the following alternatives: No education, High School, University
Bachelor Degree, University Master Degree and Other type of education. Finally, average annual
gross income was input through a three multiple question, participants had to select one of the
following options: less than €25,000, from €25,001 to €75,000 and more than €75,001.

37. 37
3.3. The procedure
3.3.1. Pre-test
Two different pre-tests were done before launching the real survey. In both cases, online surveys
were executed to collect all the required data. These pre-tests were developed in order to know 1) if
videos were more effective than printed ads with regard to promotional stimuli to attract more
people's attention (see Appendix III) and 2) if the difference in length among Promotional and
Experiential videos had an impact on people’s decision making (see Appendix IV). Ten respondents
participated online in each pre-test. With these pre-tests we could confirm that videos were more
preferred over printed ads and the length difference of videos did not affect respondents’ choice.
Therefore, Promotional videos were compared against Experiential videos and as the video length
did not affect people’s decision making, videos were used in the survey without any restriction.
3.3.2. Main study
As mentioned above, data were collected through an online survey, hosted in www.qualtrics.com,
software that allows you to create surveys, collect data and export these to the well-known predictive
analysis software called SPSS. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 for Mac, was used to analyze the data. Data
collection was carried out using a snowball technique. The researcher made use first of her own
social network to spread out the survey but participants were also asked to spread the survey within
their group of friends.
For this online survey, three sporting good brand were selected as previously mentioned:
Nike, The North Face and Reebok. For each brand, one promotional and one experiential video were
assigned, hence, six videos were given within the survey.
As previously stated, the survey was divided then in three different parts. The first section,
respondents were asked to answer the VALS Survey (Strategic Business Insights, 2016), which is an

38. 38
external survey already available on Internet. Once they finished answering that survey and results
were retrieved, they were asked to attach a screenshot of their results besides indicating in multiple
option questions, their primary and secondary type already gotten from the VALS survey. The
second part of the survey was divided in three different cases. The first case was presented with Nike
videos, the second one with The North Face videos, and the third one with Reebok videos. The order
of the brands was randomly selected. All surveys presented the same order of brands but in order to
avoid bias on the responses, half of the participants were asked to watch first Promotional videos and
then the Experiential videos, while the other half was asked to watch the Experiential videos
followed by Promotional ones. Then, the last section, including general demographic information,
was asked.

39. 39
4. Results and Analysis
In this chapter, preliminary analysis, reliability of scales and descriptive analysis were performed in
SPSS. Further analyses on how the hypotheses were tested are also described at the end of this
chapter.
4.1. Preliminary analysis
The experimental survey was disseminated via Internet, reaching out to participants through
personal email or Facebook with the intention to gather as many surveys as possible to increase the
probability of significance. From the 24th
of April to 8th
of May, questionnaires were active. As a
consequence, 235 surveys were filled in but 121 respondents dropped out answering less than half of
the survey, causing too many missing data. For this reason, these surveys were deleted and only 114
surveys were useful to do the analysis. After omitting these participants, there were no more missing
data in the dataset and recoding counter indicatives items was not necessary. In total, 74% of the
respondents were women and 26% were men, with the youngest participant with the age of 21 and
the oldest of 63 years old.
It was necessary to create a new variable for the Independent variable as well as for the
Moderator variable (further information is given in the “Descriptives” section of this chapter).
Normality was assessed in order to know if the distribution of scores on the dependent variable -
Intention - was “normal” (Pallant, 2010, p. 59). Kolmogrov-Smirnov statistics were analyzed with a
value <.05 and with a negative skewness between 0 and -1. Therefore, it can be said that items of
Intention and Marketing Stimuli had no normal distribution.
4.2. Reliability of scales
In order to obtain meaningful answers, it was necessary to compute a Reliability test that helps to
understand the internal consistency among multiple items measuring the same construct. Cronbach’s

40. 40
alpha, which is the most common measure to test the internal consistency, must be greater than .7 to
show significant results (Pallant, 2010, p.97).
It is important to know that for single-items, Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability
cannot be computed (Gliem, J., Gliem, R., 2003) For this reason, it should be highlighted that for the
independent variable, the single-item marketing stimuli, reliability could not be tested.
Regarding the dependent variable, the reliability analysis could be run for this scale, pointing
out a high internal consistency with a Cronbach’s α =.91 and without any requirement of deleting
items. For the moderating variable, Values and Lifestyles, no Cronbach’s alpha is available to gauge
the reliability of the test because VALS survey is available online and the results are given straight
forward after the completion of it. Moreover, there is no available information that explains which
constructs it measures for each of the items presented in the survey.
4.3 Descriptives
As explained in chapter four, respondent were asked to answer the same questions in three different
scenarios after being exposed to six different videos. It was necessary to compute modes and
medians in order to create new variables and be able to summarize all the answers gotten for each
participant. Therefore, new variables were created and were used to perform the whole analysis. On
one hand, it was necessary to understand which marketing stimulus was preferred for each
participant. Analyzing the mode for the item “Which video do you prefer?” (measuring independent
variable) which was asked three times, it helped to perceive which of the two marketing stimuli was
preferred for every respondent. For the whole population (N=114, SD=.499) 55% chose Promotional
videos and the other 45% preferred Experiential videos. On the other hand, all the answers
regarding intention for each respondent were also summarized. In this case the total intention for

41. 41
each participant was required. For this reason, the mean of the five items, measuring intention asked
three times, was analyzed and a new variable was also created.
Concerning the moderator, eight different options respecting the Values and Lifestyles type
were given in the survey, however, these eight personalities were regrouped, into Primary
Motivation and Resources, as follows: Ideals (Thinkers and Believers), Achievement (Achievers and
Strivers), Self-Expression (Experiencers and Makers), High Resources (Thinkers, Achievers and
Experiencers) and Low Resources (Believers, Strivers and Makers). It is important to point that for
all those respondents who got Innovators or Survivors as a first type, their second type was instead,
taken into account because of the complexity of the model. The Resources classification was also
done to identify those participants who belonged either to high or low resources to be able to carry
out the moderator analysis.
4.4. Analysis results
Different statistical analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses. On one hand, to define which
type of marketing stimulus influences more the intention to practice sport, an Independent T-test was
developed. On the other hand, in order to test how the relationship between marketing stimuli and
intention to practice sports differs by primary motivations and resources (VALS), a two-way
analysis of variance was performed. In order to know if these tests were appropriate for the data, all
assumptions such as level of measurement, random sampling, independence of observation, normal
distribution and homogeneity of variance were checked (Pallant, 2010, p.205). The only assumption
violated was normality, however, both T-Test and ANOVA are quite tolerant for violation of this
assumption especially with large sample size (e.g. 30+) (Pallant, 2010, p.205).
First, an Independent T-test was conducted to compare the intention to practice sports for
Promotional Marketing and Experiential Marketing. There was no significant difference in scores for

42. 42
Promotional Marketing stimuli (N=63, M=3.92, SD=1.02) and Experiential Marketing stimuli
(N=51, M=3.90, SD=.94; t (112) = .10, p=.92, two-tailed). Therefore, H1 should be rejected, since
Promotional Marketing does not increase intention to practice sport more than Experiential
Marketing.
Even though no differences in the groups were found with this test, frequencies were
analyzed to have a better understanding of the level of intention participant’s had after being
exposed with different videos. Table 2, Level of intention to practice sport by group, exhibits that
76% of people preferring Promotional stimuli claimed “probably yes” and “definitely yes”. Exactly
the same percentage as promotional group, 76%, was reported for those choosing Experiential
stimuli. On the contrary, Promotional stimuli show one-point difference over experiential stimuli on
low levels of intention. Moreover, it is important to denote that, for both cases, less than 5% of total
respondents stated no having intention at all in practicing sports.
Baron & Kenny (1986) established that a moderator M is a third variable that works as an
independent variable affecting the correlation between an independent variable X and a dependent
variable Y (as cited in Etchebarne, I., O’Connel, M. & Roussos, A., 2008). For purpose of this
research, the moderator variable was divided in two: 1) Primary Motivations (Ideals, Achievement
and Self Expression) and 2) Resources (high and low resources)

43. 43
First, as exhibit in table 3, ANOVA between Subjects effect- Resources Main effects and
Interaction effects, a two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of high
and low Resources on people’s intention to practice sports as a function of the marketing stimuli
(promotional versus experiential). There was significant interaction effect, F (1, 110) =4.42, p=.038,
however, the effect size was small (partial η2 =.039), indicating that the effect between marketing
stimuli and intention to practice sport differs by high and low resources.
To understand better the previous data, Figure 5, Marketing stimuli preferences and
Resources, explains the performance of both types of resources. It exhibits that consumers with low
Resources expressed higher levels of intention to practice sports when watching Promotional videos
rather than being exposed to Experiential stimuli. On the contrary, consumers with high Resources
stated having more intention to practice sports after being exposed to Experiential stimuli rather than
Promotional stimuli. Therefore, H3a and H3b are supported.

44. 44
Figure 5. Marketing stimuli preferences and Resources.
It is also important to point out that the differences between marketing stimuli on intention to
practice sports are more prominent for people with low Resources than high Resources, as shown in
Figure 5. In other words, when these consumers got Promotional stimuli, their intention to practice
sports was much higher in comparison when exposed to Experiential Marketing. Instead, consumers
with high Resources did not display greater difference between marketing stimuli.
Table 4, ANOVA between Subjects effect - Motivation main effects and Interaction effects,
shows that for the moderation role of motivation on the relation between marketing stimuli and
intention to practice sports, there was not a significant interaction effect F (2, 108) = .518, p=5.97
and the effect size was small (partial η2 =.01). These results revealed that in this case, this part of the
VALS (Primary Motivation) did not play the role as moderator. So it can be said that no matter the
motivation type people have, neither Promotional Marketing nor Experiential Marketing, will not
have an impact on people’s intention to practice sport. Therefore, H2a-H2c are also rejected.
Nevertheless, even if the results did not show statistical significance, more analysis has been

45. 45
developed in the discussion section to have a better understanding how people with different Primary
Motivations (Ideals, Achievement and Self-expression) reacted to the different stimuli.

46. 46
5. Discussion and Conclusion
5.1. Discussion
The findings gave an introspective overview of marketing stimuli and intention to practice sport.
Now it is time to give sense to the data collection and analysis before providing a general conclusion
with the final managerial and academic implications and, lastly, the limitations and future research.
Actually, in this section an explanation of how both, Promotional Marketing and Experiential
Marketing, are able to encourage new sport practitioners is given. A deeper analysis about the results
previously shown is as well given in more details in this part of the research and complemented with
some extra illustrative data that do not prove any point rather than give an holistic overview.
Esomba, S. (n.d.) states that marketing techniques in sports increase both, promotion of
products and promotion of sports, which in turn, boost sports participation. Knowing that marketing
activities are effective to increase sport participation, it can be said that the results of this study
affirm that marketing stimuli help to increase intention since the percentage of people proclaiming
having the intention to do sports was greater rather than not having it. In this sense, it is certain that
marketing activities drive people to be more active no matter which type of stimuli participants are
previously exposed to. To illustrate this, it is interesting to note that only 2% of participants declared
not having intention at all to perform any physical activity while around 70% of participants
proclaimed having high intentions towards sports participation.
On the other hand the results also exhibit that Mromotional marketing did not have a
statistically significant advantage over Experiential Marketing when it comes to people´s intention to
practice sport. Even though Experiential Marketing activates emotions through experiences to
generate attitudes during the learning process when consumers are exposed to certain situation and

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emotions (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p.153), Promotional Marketing began to play a determinant role by
adding inspirational features in advertising campaigns, generating feelings and emotions as well.
Having said this, the five modules of managing experience (Schmitt, 1999), cannot be only
narrowed to Experiential Marketing, since Promotional Marketing is able to touch most of the
described modules, e.g. feel, think, relate. As Schmitt (1999) proposes with his framework,
marketers can use one module or mix all of them, either with experiential or promotional campaigns.
Nevertheless, the ways these feelings or emotions are evoked are completely different. Whereas
Promotional Marketing drives emotions through visual campaigns, like motivation or inspiration
advertisements, on the other side, Experiential Marketing triggers emotions through kinesthetic
campaigns where people are asked to actively participate on an activity.
It is important to bear in mind that according to Kotler and Keller (2012) people react to the
same marketing stimuli differently depending on their age (p.155). For instance, young people are
more open to innovation and face changes more easily than elderly people. It was believed that
young people would have preferred Experiential Marketing rather than promotional marketing.
However, looking at the demographics of this study, it can be noticed that most of the respondents
(89%) were between 18 and 30 years old. Linking this to marketing preferences, it can be said that in
this study, age was not a motive to change choices.
When looking at VALS as the moderating effect, it is essential to remember that VALS
methodology makes combinations between Primary Motivation and resources, for instance, Ideals
with high Resources or Ideals with low Resources. In this circumstance, as Primary Motivation did
not play the role of moderator, it was not advisable to analyze both factors (Primary Motivations and
Resources) at the same time. The decision of splitting the VALS moderator into these two elements,
allowed for a wider perspective on which factor had a greater influence on the relationship between

48. 48
marketing stimuli and the intention to practice sports. Regarding high and low resources, there is a
more remarkable difference between types of marketing on consumers with low Resources. They
tend to prefer Promotional stimuli rather than Experiential, since they are defined by characteristics
such as people who spend time watching TV, having no tolerance for ambiguity or using
videogames as a form of fantasy (Business Insights, 2016). For this reason, it is believed that these
results are consistent with VALS theory, because people with low Resources are not highly attracted
by being active or being open to try new and different things, as experiential campaigns might
encourage.
When it comes to studying those who are classified as high Resources, the outcome exhibits
having almost the same intention to practice sports regardless the marketing stimuli they were
exposed to. However, a small difference could be noticed, with Experiential Marketing being more
effective than Promotional Marketing as shown in figure 5. According to VALS (2016), high
Resources are described as people who are first in of trend adoption, love physical activity and are
goal oriented, hence, Experiential Marketing appears to fit well. However, there are some other
characteristics such as fully scheduled people and heightened sense of visual stimulation (Business
Insights, 2016) that makes Promotional Marketing working well too. Therefore, results are
consistent when looking at VALS characteristics.
When studying Primary Motivation as moderating effect, results showed no statistical
evidence of how the relationship between marketing stimuli and intention to practice sport differs
according to consumer’s motivation. This means that whether people were classified as Ideals,
Achievement or Self Expression, any type of stimuli affects their intention to practice sports. These
results are quite surprising because if resources affected this relationship, it was expected that
different type of personalities would have affected as well. The three types of primary motivations

49. 49
differs among each other, and marketing activities should not have the same effect on Ideals that are
known as being open to advertising, structured and analytical than Achievements that are goals
oriented and believe in the money as tool of power (Business Insights, 2016). Experiential Marketing
should have worked better for Self Expression consumers while promotional marketing for Ideals
and Achievements, as stated in H2a-H2c.
Having no moderation effect (Primary Motivation), restricts, if not entirely erases, our ability
to statistically conclude. However, it is interesting to examine the results and see the differences
between types of motivations. As illustrated in Appendix V, Marketing stimuli Preference and
Primary Motivations, Ideals had higher intentions to practice sports after being exposed to
Promotional Marketing as well as those with Self-Expression as Primary Motivation. Nevertheless,
the difference between marketing stimuli was greater for Ideals than Self-Expression consumers. On
the other hand, Achievements demonstrated a higher preference for Experiential rather than
Promotional stimuli. In this case, it can be concluded, that according to Ideals characteristics, being
open to advertising and being more analytical helped results to be consistent with theory.
Descriptions about Achievement consumers, made harder to previously identify which marketing
stimuli would be more preferred by them. However, an illustration of it can be found in Appendix V.
Consumers with Self-Expression motivation are defined as people who are more
spontaneous, straightforward and welcome trends (Business Insights, 2016). For this reason,
Experiential Marketing was expected to have higher impact on intention to practice sport. However,
findings demonstrated totally the opposite. It is of high importance to remark that these results did
not allow for any definitive conclusions, making this explanation merely informative.

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5.2. Overall conclusion
The purpose of this study was to deepen a current theoretical set of studies and understand how
marketing stimuli can play an important role regarding sport participation. This is the first study, to
our knowledge, to examine which type of marketing approach is the most responsible for making
consumers more physically active. Additionally, this research aims to close the gaps in the literature
by providing a very specific research question: “To what extent Promotional is different from
Experiential Marketing on intention to practice sport? How does this relationships differ by taking
into consideration consumer Values and Lifestyles? It is the first time, Promotional Marketing is
compared to Experiential Marketing when measuring intention to practice sport. Specifically,
depending on consumers’ values and lifestyle. As previously explained, other researchers such as
Hillsdon et al. (2011) state that consumers belonging to higher social class are more likely to
practice sports in comparison with those belonging to lower social class.
This research adds some information to these theories, disclosing that people, with
differences in level of Resources, must be targeted with different approaches. Results show that in
order to get the right response for these two different target groups, it is necessary to know that
Experiential Marketing is more effective for high Resources and Promotional Marketing for those
who have low Resources.
Although it is known that differences in culture and lifestyles create different consumer
behavior responses, this study could not support this. It is believed that these results are due to the
fact of time and resources constraints in the sample collection. It is highly recommended for future
researches to use the proper VALS survey according to the country where they intend to apply the
survey. Nevertheless, it is worth saying that regardless of the marketing stimuli and lifestyle,

51. 51
respondents demonstrated to have high intention to practice sports after being exposed to marketing
stimuli.
Even though, these two strategies have different approach regarding the communication
between consumer and brand, it is interesting to say that still one-way communication, promotional
marketing, is a good tool to target some consumers. This results exhibits that this is due to the fact
that is not about how consumers interact with brands but how the latters can trigger certain emotions
to make people feel more connected with them, thus ensuing brand knowledge, brand awareness,
brand performance and, finally, the purchase. This research broke out the idea that Experiential
Marketing is the only strategy able to trigger emotions or feelings. It has been shown that
Promotional Marketing is able to do it as well as far as the campaigns include inspirational features.
Targeting people by arousing emotions is definitely one of the best approaches to get the desired
response because it makes consumers able to identify themselves with the brand.
Moreover, either Promotional or Experiential Marketing affects intention to practice sport
regardless of each consumer motivation. This means that each consumer will be driven by different
motives to be physically active, but no matter what drives them to do so, marketing stimuli certainly
help to boost intention to practice sport.
To sum up, marketers should be conscious of the selection of marketing approaches
according to how and what consumers demand. It is not only about standing out from competition
through different products or price reduction strategies, but thinking “outside the box” to stimulate
those feelings and connections, that raise brand loyalty, and ultimately convert consumers into
purchasers.

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5.3. Academic Implications
Despite the outcome that only confirmed some of our predictions, the study still proves to be at the
forefront as it shows pragmatic results that were previously untested. The similarity of responses
followed by different marketing stimuli poses the bases for advancement on the research as well as
the need of other, more complex studies, which will either confirm or deny what has been found
here. Market segments have responded similarly no matter their Primary type of Motivation based
on Values and Lifestyle. Still, the research has been able to give guidance on resources. This
provides a significant input for future research that can dig into the matter even further.
As stated earlier in the paper, the research also adds to the table a study of an industry that, to
our knowledge, had not been analyzed earlier on this field as well as brought a more detailed look of
today’s marketing actions. Integrated Marketing Communications does nicely apply in today’s
world, however it is relevant to make theoretical distinction on approaches of the same marketing
campaign to prove their value and, at the same time, discuss the new techniques.
Even from a research point of view, the intention has been frequently seen as single purchase
intention. As recent studies depict the need to focus on the solution side, intention researchers should
not only address those managers, but also boost academics to look and readdress their intention
analysis on the solution-driven examination rather than only purchase-driven.
5.4. Managerial Implications
Marketing departments dedicate a lot of resources to advertising campaigns, endorsing famous
athletes, sponsoring well-recognized events and so forth. It is known that marketing techniques can
boost brand awareness, brand knowledge, sales, and word of mouth besides sport participation.
However, there is not research analyzing this effect from one initial step: triggering intention from
two different marketing strategies in order to get to the point of increasing sport participation. This

53. 53
research has shed light on how marketers can increase intention to practice sports by picking out the
right strategy. Global participation and interest on working out is growing (“Consumer Fitness
Trends,” 2013) . Moreover, Internet and social media have helped to spread out the popularity of this
tendency and as Anthony di Moro (2015) states “The way that Social Media has impacted the sports
industry has been profound”. Consumers can look easily at online sport’s information, share content
while working out or belong to brand communities such as Nike+. It all seems that sporting goods
companies are following these trends and adapting their marketing strategies to attract consumers.
Nevertheless, it can be said that is not always necessary to adapt or to invest in only one strategy but
to know which strategy fits better depending the target audience.
It is common to define the target audience according to their age or culture, noticing that
each country might have their own marketing campaign because of the latter. This research shows
another angle on succeeding with the target consumers, through the segmentation by values, lifestyle
and resources. The aim was to show that not always the same marketing approach works properly
for all consumers. One of the main reasons for marketers to be aware of this is due to the fact that
they should be able to reallocate better financial resources to target the right consumer with the right
marketing tool. Even though this analysis showed only differences in marketing stimuli regarding
resources, it is believed that managers in the future can complement this study with different factors.
Marketing managers working in the sport industry can be sure that either promotional or
experiential marketing are effective in increasing intention and that Promotional Marketing must still
be used even if other strategies seem to flourish or gain popularity. With the constant evolution of
the market, industries and also theoretical approaches should be refined, adapted or even replaced to
meet new needs. For instance, the five modules of managing experiences suggested by Schmitt

54. 54
(1999) can also be adapted in this case to Promotional Marketing, when looking at the same by using
emotional attachment techniques.
It is important to point out that consumers are more exigent and seek more value when
buying products. Having said this, companies must be one step ahead and surprise consumers by
triggering emotions and feelings, for the sake of driving brand loyalty. In that moment, marketers
will be able to identify those potential consumers that are already engaged with the brand, and turn
them into repeated purchasing actors. As phrased earlier, the mindset is solution drive for a long-
term survival of brands.
5.5. Limitations and future research
This research presented several limitations. Firstly, circumstances and resources have constrained
the reach of the sample. The only mean of communicating the survey was made on Internet using
Facebook social platform. Hence, time and financial resources were two of the main obstacles on
obtaining a more sophisticated sample.
Linked to the former, Internet, as only mean to host the survey, did not support any further
development of the marketing stimuli elsewhere. As a matter of fact, it has been perceived tricky for
interviewees to identify themselves as participants of the experiential activation, lack of emotions
derived from the real experience. Perhaps, an assessment after an experiential marketing
“experience” could have been more beneficial. However, this would have increased the complication
of the survey, for instance, making sure that the same sampling population was also watching and
feedback promotional videos afterwards. On top of this, the lack of network on sporting good brands
by the author, that could have developed such activation in the thesis timeframe, did not favor this
option.

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Furthermore, the fact videos were not the same length might be also another limitation. Even
though a pre-test was done to clarify this and results did not show any negative effect, still the
differences on time might affect people’s attention towards the videos, resulting in different
responses. Another limitation relies on the length of the survey. The survey of this research lasted
between 15 and 20 minutes, resulting in a reduction of concentration, despite the simplicity of the
questions, and in a high level of unfinished surveys.
In addition, results were only obtained in one period of time through a cross-sectional design,
which did not allow to consider any change and development of the study over time. The three
different scenarios (cases) previously explained, were presented within the same survey at the same
period of time. Another important limitation is that VALS survey does not provide further
information, therefore, it was difficult to understand which kind of constructs are measured. It is not
easy to know if motivations are associated with the relationship between marketing stimuli and
consumers’ intention to practice sports or if other factors should be better associated with this
relationship.
Moreover, using a snowball sampling is always a restriction since it is susceptible to biased
selection. On top of that, this research measured only the intention to practice sports rather than
measuring the actual behavior of being physical active. Executing a longitudinal research in the
future would be interesting in order to know if these respondents ended up practicing some sports or
being more physically active.
Last but not least, people with different nationalities such as Germans (9%), Mexicans
(42%), Dutch (5%) and many more, participated in this survey using the US VALS. As this is
designed for US citizen, it did not fully translate into the construct of our countries. However, the US

56. 56
VALS was the only one available for free and for this reason it was chosen despite the notion of
nationalities participating in the survey.
Despite the fact these limitations were presented while doing this research, the study is a
viable starting point for future research. Marketing stimuli are not only limited to Experiential and
Promotional. Indeed, there are many marketing initiatives that could be taken into account as retail
marketing, PR, digital marketing to mention a few. For this reason, it might be important how these
other factors impact directly people’s intention to practice sports, which can be then translated into
purchase actions. Additionally, another area of research, beyond the segments and stimuli, can be the
analysis of the role of external factors such as Internet, social media and online communities that
certainly affect consumer’s intention when it comes to practice sports. Exploring the real intention
by carrying out a longitudinal research and examine how this intention is translated into actual
purchasing behavior, is another approach researchers might consider. Finally, analysts might also
take into account how intention can be studied and analyzed in different circumstances and
industries where consumers are able to change behaviors.

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