Athletes & Twitter - Valentina Brusadelli - Nov. 2014

Athletes and Twitter:
A new marketing tool for Sponsors?
Valentina Brusadelli
Master MOS
November 2014
Under the advice of
Vincent Balusseau

ABSTRACT
Same as for almost all marketing areas, Sport Sponsorship has been impacted by the rise of
Social Media. In this paper, we will analyze how Brands and Marketers have enhanced their
sport sponsorship strategies thanks to one specific social network: Twitter.
Athletes are now using this tool to promote their sponsors, more or less blatantly. Depending
on the technique they use (re-tweets, sharing of brands campaign, photos of themselves using
a product in their everyday life), impacts on final consumers are different. Through an
hypothetical-deductive study, this paper looks into each marketing technique in order to
understand how Twitter users perceive them and how they impact their Purchase Intention.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank my Thesis Director Vincent Balusseau for all his support and help
during the pursuit of my thesis. I was lucky to have him as tutor and I would like to sincerely
thank him for his guidance and encouragements all along this year.
I owe my deepest gratitude to all the professionals from Audencia Nantes who took the time
to help and guide me during my research:
• Stéphane Maisonnas, Director of Specialized Masters
• Matthieu Rabby, Responsible of the MOS Program
• Sylvia Cheminel, Librarian
I am also pleased to thank everyone who supported me during this period in one way or
another.
V. Brusadelli

SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION 6
PART I – Sponsorship, Twitter & Sport (Literature Review) 8
1. The power of Sport Sponsorship 8
2. Twitter, a real time micro-blogging platform 10
a. Twitter and the General Public 10
b. Brands on Twitter 11
c. When Twitter crosses the path of Sport 12
3. What about Sponsoring Strategies on Twitter? 14
a. Literature and previous studies 14
b. Marketing techniques used on Twitter 16
PART II - Methodology of study 18
1. Purpose of the study and hypothesis 18
2. Data collection and sample description 20
3. Questionnaire 20
PART III – Results of Study 24
1. Sample analysis 24
2. Data analysis 26
a. Hypothesis 1 26
b. Hypothesis 2 28
c. Hypothesis 3 31
3. Synthesis of Results 31
CONCLUSION 34
APPENDICES 36
APPENDIX I - Images of the Simulation 36

TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Hypothesis 1 18
Figure 4: The Juster Scale (from East R., Wright M., Vanhuele M., Consumer 23
Behaviour: Applications in Marketing, 2013, SAGE Publications,
136-137
Figure 5: Sample Analysis - General Questions 24
Figure 6: Sample Analysis - Use of Twitter 25
Figure 7: Sample Analysis - Relationship with the Athlete 25
Figure 8: Table of analysis - « Blatantly Advertised Tweets » (Evolution of PI, 26
ID and Promotional Index)
Figure 9: Table of analysis - « Blatantly Advertised Tweets » (Interest and Pleasure) 27
Figure 10: Table of analysis - « Everyday Life tweets » (Evolution of PI, ID and 28
Promotional Index)
Figure 11: Table of analysis - « Everyday Life tweets » (Evolution of PI / Interest 29
and Pleasure)
NB: All pictures used in this document are the Property of the athletes and brands who posted them online and have been
downloaded from their respective Twitter accounts.

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, it seems that people are consuming brands because they feel linked to them,
because they share the same lifestyle, and because they mean something to them and exalt
values in which they believe. By using sport and sponsorship strategies, brands give people a
reason to believe in them and buy their products.
With the recent takeover of the Internet, these sponsorship strategies have evolved. Athletes
have taken this opportunity to talk directly to their fans via Social Media and more
particularly via Twitter. On the other side, brands, always alert of their own environment,
have also taken advantage of this opportunity to promote their products online. They have
enhanced their sponsorship strategies by asking athletes to share the brand’s advertising
campaigns online. More than that, athletes are now also posting pictures and content from
their own lives where people can see that they are using some of their sponsors' products
everyday.
Twitter has increased the public sphere. Before, athlete were only seen with sponsors’
products during game days or during parties, but now, they can also be seen using them
during their everyday life if they decide to share this kind of content online.
For athletes, sharing pictures and videos of their everyday life is a way to create a relationship
with fans and to tighten their own community. For brands, it seems that this kind of tweets
give them and their products more visibility.
In fact, it is the perfect tool to showcase their products and prove to the General Public that
« Yes, the sponsored athlete actually uses the products everyday and not only because he is
paid for it but because he likes them ». In other words, this kind of content seems to be as
precious as gold.
But nothing has been really proved and this area of marketing remains unclear. No one really
looked into the real impacts of these strategies on Final Consumers. This is why in this paper,
we will try to understand what are the exact impacts of these kinds of marketing techniques
on consumers. And even more, what are their impacts on Purchase Intention (PI).
6

The main objectives of this thesis are thus to understand and decrypt:
• How Twitter users perceive the different marketing techniques used by athletes on the
social platform
• And how this perception impacts their behavioral intentions.
The following problematic will be the guideline of the whole research: What impact on
Purchase Intention can sponsors expect when implementing a marketing strategy through
their athletes’ Twitter accounts?
We will start focusing separately on the latest evolutions of Sport Sponsorship and Twitter, in
order to understand how both tools are currently impacting the society and the marketing
strategies.
On a second instance we will analyze how both, Twitter and Sport Sponsorship, are associated
in order to create strong marketing activations. Before going further, it will be necessary to
understand clearly how sponsors are currently promoting their products through their athletes’
twitter accounts.
After having done this, we will look deeper into the impacts of these kinds of Strategies
thanks to an hypothetical-deductive study that seeks answers to the research questions below:
• How is blatant advertising made by athletes on behalf of their sponsors on Twitter
affecting follower’s Purchase Intention?
• How are athlete’s « everyday-life » tweets that include a sponsor’s product perceived
by fans? How do they impact follower’s Purchase Intention?
7

PART I – Sponsorship, Twitter Sport
1. The Power of Sport Sponsorship
According to Cornwell , sponsorship is the future of advertising. 1 In her publication, she
explains how this evolution is logical and follows the changes in people's lifestyle, values and
sense of community. It is actually very easy to see wide spread changes in people's behavior:
people are more often away from home, they read less and less newspapers, they watch less
TV and are consequently less in contact with classic advertising channels.
Thanks to these latest evolutions, sponsorship is becoming more and more interesting for
brands. Zauner, Kollor and Fink2 proved that these kinds of activities result in brand
knowledge, brand awareness and in greater associative strength. They also connect the brand
in a certain way to the sponsored event or the athlete endorser. Both can benefit from each
other’s image. For example, by associating its brand to Usain Bolt, Puma benefits from his
image and appears as a fast and innovative brand. On the other side, Usain Bolt is personified
as a down to earth athlete.
It's important to understand that, when using athletes as endorsers, everything that is said by
these athletes is and represents the brand. That’s why consistency is needed between brand’s
and athlete’s messages.
Athletes are effective endorsers because people aspire to be like them. They are role models
in which fans can identify themselves. Carlson and Donovan3 have proven that it is this
identification (ID) that leads to many positives outcomes such as brand purchase intention
(PI). Research has also proved that celebrity endorsers do not only positively impact the
behavioral intentions but also the product evaluation and the attitude toward the brand4.
1 Cornwell T. B., (2008), State of the Art and science in sponsorship-linked marketing, Journal of Advertising, No.53,
41-55
2 Zauner A, Kollor M and Fink M. (2012), Sponsoring, Brand Value and Social Media, Revista de Admnistração de Em-prensas
(RAE), Vol.52, No. 6, 681-691
3 Carlson B. and Donavan T. (2008), Concerning the Effects of Athlete Endorsements on Brand and Team-Related Inten-tions,
Sport Marketing Quarterly, Vol.17, No.3, 154-162
(RAE), Vol.52, No. 6, 681-691
!8

Furthermore, it is important to remember that sponsorship works in a totally different way
than advertising. According to Cunningham and Bright , it seems that 5 the effectiveness of a
celebrity sponsorship (and thus of a sport sponsorship) depends on 3 characteristics:
- The source attractiveness: including the similarity between consumers and the
celebrity but also their familiarity and liking, based not only on physical
characteristics but including also charisma, intelligence or status.
- The source credibility: which is the fact that the source is trustworthy and has
expertise in the field. It means that brands need to select verified opinion
leaders.
- And the celebrity-product congruence: meaning that in order to be efficient,
endorsers should be linked and related to the brand that sponsors them. (For
example a football player shouldn’t be used to sell basketball shoes).
5 Cunningham N. and Bright L. (2012), The Tweet Is in Your Court: Measuring Attitude Towards Athlete Endorsements in
Social Media, International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, fall 2012, 73-87
9

2. Twitter, a real time micro-blogging platform
a. Twitter and the General Public
These last few years have seen a technical revolution taking place: the Internet. It seems
almost unbelievable to think that it has only been created in the late 60’s. In fact, according to
the International Telecommunication Union we could, in 2013, count more than 2,7 billions
Internet users which represent about 40% of the worldwide population.
What it is really interesting to note, is that this technical revolution came together with a
social one, about 40 years later, when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. It was only
supposed to be a little student project for its university but it ended up being a huge global
success. The platform gathered more than 1,11 billion accounts by 2013. But Facebook is a lot
more than « one of the first Social Media created ». It has also been the trigger for the creation
of tens of others that are now used for both personal and professional purposes.
Currently, the expression « Social Media » is used to define every online platform on which
people connect. That is why it is important to start with a definition. Kaplan and Haenlin6
describe social media as a group of Internet-based applications built on the foundations of
Web 2.0 that allow the creation and the exchange of User Generated Content (UGC). In the
category of Social Media we can find different types of platforms: blogs, collaborative
projects, virtual social worlds, games, etc. The ones we will focus on for this thesis are social
networks. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for example, belong to this category. They are
described as a type of application that enable users to connect by sharing their personal
profiles with friends and colleagues. E-mails and/or instant messages are also functionalities
included in this kind of platforms.
For social networks, the latest evolutions have been triggered by the standardization of
smartphones and the development of 3G and 4G networks. Both have brought new functions
that nourished the social network world and added one little detail to the game:
instantaneousness.
6 Kaplan A.M. and Haenlein M., (2010), Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media, Bu-siness
Horizons, Vol., No., 59-68
!10

Thanks to their phone, people can now «check-in» in a place on Foursquare, share in real time
their pictures on Instagram and Snapchat as well as their videos on Vine, and even their
thoughts on micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter.
Twitter: It consists of about 500 million users worldwide . The concept 7 is simple: sharing a
message in only 140 characters with the option to add picture or video. The success of this
platform was, and still is, sustained by the appetite of people for gossip, their desire to know
the activities of celebrities and their immediate need for news. According to Pegoraro and
Jinnah8, what makes Twitter successful is the fact that it is simple to use. It enables people to
interact without demanding any effort.
b. Brands on Twitter
With the success of social networks as mediums, came the success of this type of platforms as
a marketing tool. In fact, if we focus on Twitter: it is a tool that enables brands to engage their
consumers in a different way. It is no more only persuasion as it has been when using
traditional media. Social networks changed the game and the way brands and consumers
interact9. According to Kaplan and Haenlin, they engage consumers with more efficiency and
at a relatively lower cost than traditional media. Twitter is a new tool allowing brands to
appear in people’s everyday life. Brands can listen, share and interact with people from
everywhere. People are seeking interaction and communities, and thanks to social networks,
brands can fill this need and stay connected to their consumers9. In fact, social networks are
offering a big benefit to brands by way of targeting. You can choose exactly who you want to
reach with your message. Social media is the perfect tool to target a specific customer
group10.
Furthermore, Twitter and social media came with two other valuable assets for brands:
accountability and traceability. It’s a lot easier to count how many people have been reached
by a digital campaign than it is with press or billboards.
7 Data shared by Twitter for the Year 2013
8 Pegoraro A. and Jinnah N. (2012), Tweet ’em and reap ’em: The impact of professional athletes’ use of Twitter on current
and potential sponsorship opportunities, Journal of Brand Strategy, Vol.1, No.1, 85-97
9 Kaplan A.M. and Haenlein M., (2010), Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media, Bu-siness
Horizons, Vol., No., 59-68
(RAE), Vol.52, No. 6, 681-691
11

But we shouldn’t forget that social media come with a risk. The nature of people is to share
what they think and what they like with their friends. With social media and the Internet
people have the perfect tool to express oneself and increase their sphere of influence. They
can now reach a lot more than their acquaintances: they can reach a whole community of
people. It is thus, a lot easier to start word of mouth. In their publication Kaplan and Haenlin
highlight the fact that companies don't have the same level of control on the information that
is shared on the Internet that they have on traditional media . In 11 fact, social networks don't
work in the same way. It's not anymore about sharing the brand's values and its marketing mix
online. It's about engaging people to start conversations and engage others for you.
Brands can't control what is said online and it can be either positive or negative. That's the
reason why brands should always be present on social networks at least to know what is said
about them. They can’t control it but they can try to influence it thanks to a good community
management and working with good influencers (such as athlete endorsers).
Last thing that brand should be aware of is that they can’t reach everybody on social media
but only a precise segment of people: Internet users, of course. In fact, many people still do
not have a computer access, or do not know how to use social networks and Twitter.
c. When Twitter crosses the path of sport
Social networks didn't only affect the way brands communicate, they have changed the way in
which sport is produced, marketed, delivered and consumed12.
In fact, the very nature of Twitter makes it a perfect tool for the sport industry. It brings
interactivity like any other social media, but also intimacy and more importantly immediacy,
thanks to the concept of micro-blogging. It seems that this hypothesis is validated by a survey
conducted by Catalyst Public Relations in 2011. They have highlighted the fact that fans
prefer “to tweet before and during a game rather than use Facebook”, the most used social
network worldwide.
Thanks to the existing literature we can pick out 3 points that are the most interesting for this
research and that best describe the use of Twitter in Sport:
11 Kaplan A.M. and Haenlein M., (2010), Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media,
Business Horizons, Vol., No., 59-68
!12

• Fans can comment news and thus follow games and sporting events. Twitter changed
the rules. It’s not only media and journalists that have the power now. Sports Fans can
also produce content. When attending a game, thanks to the instantaneousness brought
by Twitter, they can share their thoughts, their opinions on the game and of course the
result of the match.
• They can exchange and communicate with a community of fans that is easily
reachable, especially thanks to the search engine that helps gather information about
tweets and people13.
• They can also be in touch with their favorite athletes: before the games, after the
games and even during their everyday life. People look for interaction with their
favorite athletes and Twitter gives them this ability. The relationship between fans and
athletes is stronger than it has ever been before. By living vicariously through an
athletes’ life, fans feel closer to them and their team. Social media brings together
people, through a barrier of space. Moreover, Twitter gives the advantage to athletes
that their messages are not filtered by media. They can speak plainly and without any
restriction. They can be authentic as twitter humanizes athletes. The conversation is
not one-way anymore but becomes a two-ways conversation. Twitter is powerful.
Athletes, who have always been opinion leaders, now find their influence increasing
considerably. Twitter is a tool for them to grow their awareness and build their own
brand persona.
Pegoraro and Jinnah also focused on understanding people’s motivations for following
athletes on Twitter. They are four main reasons:
• Fans want to gain information about their favorite team or athlete
• They do it with an entertainment purpose
• They look to enhance their fan experience
• Or they want to kill time
This illustrates the need for athletes to entertain and provide their followers with new content
if they want to remain interesting and followed.
13

3. What about Sponsoring Strategies on Twitter?
a. Literature and previous studies
The structure of current society pushes people to use the internet as a tool to find communities
and people like them, with whom they can share and interact. It’s obvious that for sports fans,
this feeling is greatly increased as the sense of belonging to a team increases this desire of
being part of a community. That is why sponsorship is easier to implement online than any
other kind of marketing strategy. Twitter becomes a meeting-point for all athletes, brands and
fans/consumers.
Previously, sports built a clear wall between fans and athletes that made it difficult for fans to
get in contact with athletes and consequently for sponsors to reach their consumers. Social
networks, and more particularly Twitter, seem to be a tool to break down this wall. It seems
that Twitter is increasing fans identification to athletes and thus their identification to the
brands the athlete endorses.
It is also a huge opportunity for brands, because, as said previously, Twitter is increasing
athletes’ influence and is thus an additional benefit for brands to implement sponsorship
strategies. Twitter is an opportunity for interaction and communication, which are the two
main components of relationship marketing . It allows brands to attract 14 sports fans, develop a
relationship and retain them as potential consumers15.
During the last few years, strategic techniques have been implemented by brands and we now
have enough content to study the current situation in order to improve the future of
sponsorship. Digital turned more than one industry upside down and sponsorship hasn’t been
spared.
That’s why, while brands and communication managers start training their athletes on social
media, we need to clearly understand how consumers perceive marketing on Twitter.
15 Witkemper C., Lim CH., and Waldburger A. (2012),Social Media and Sports Marketing: Examining the Motivations and
Constraints of Twitter Users, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Vol.21, No.3, 170-183
!14

According to Cunningham and Bright , it seems that people are skeptical 16 regarding celebrity
endorsement because they know that celebrities are paid to promote the products they
endorse. In their study published in 2012, they have highlighted a moderate degree of
consumer skepticism on Twitter too, even though it doesn’t reduce or increase their attitude
toward athlete endorsement on Twitter and thus toward the athlete or the brand either.
Only a few research projects have been conducted regarding the impact of social media in the
case of athlete endorsement. Pegoraro and Jinnah17 proved that marketing activities on social
media have a positive effect on the customer's value perception of the sponsoring brand. They
also revealed that those same customers tend to become more committed to the brand and that
they recommend it more easily to their group of influence.
Another study realized by Catalyst PR revealed that, for 50% of the people “if their favorite
athlete tweeted about a product, they would be more likely to purchase that product”.
All this proves that Twitter strategies are important because through this platform the
sponsored athletes can influence the consumer and his choices. Following these studies, it
would be interesting to see which kind of techniques seem to have the most impact on
consumer's Purchase Intention (PI).
Is it when an athlete re-tweets a brand's tweet promoting a product? Or when he posts a
picture or a video of himself using the product in real life? Or maybe when he shares an
advertisement of himself using this product?
Following all the information found in literature, we defined the two following Research
Questions :
• How is blatant advertising made by athletes on behalf of their sponsors on Twitter
affecting follower’s Purchase Intention (PI)?
• How are athlete’s « everyday-life » tweets that include a sponsor’s product perceived
by fans? How do they impact follower’s Purchase Intention (PI)?
15

b. Marketing techniques used on Twitter
In order to answer the aforementioned research questions, and after a deep analysis of a large
amount of twitter accounts, we noticed some main techniques that were repeatedly
implemented by athletes in order to promote their sponsors.
• Re-tweet of a sponsor's tweet:
It is the most simple technique used on Twitter. By re-tweeting brands’ tweets, athletes
endorse their contents and share them with their whole network of followers.
• Tweet showcasing an advertisement:
In this case, the athlete shares a video or an image that flagrantly promotes a brand or a
product. They are two different case scenarios: either the athlete is part of the content he/she
is sharing or he/she just shares the brand’s campaign. Below are shown examples taken from
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Twitter account. He is a brand ambassador of the Samsung campaign (on
the left) versus when he simply used Twitter to share Top Win content (on the right).
!16

• Tweets including a picture or a video showcasing a product used by the athlete in his
everyday life:
This kind of tweet can be sport-related or not (ie. travel, holiday, family time…). They can
also possibly include a reference to the brand or the product.
Below are two sport-related examples tweeted by Olivier Giroud and Derrick Rose and two
non-sport related examples tweeted by Novak Djokovic and Cristiano Ronaldo. Rose’s and
Ronaldo’s tweets (on the right) deliberately refer to adidas and TAG respectively, while
Giroud’s and Djokovic’s (on the left) showcase pictures where one can only glimpse Puma
and Uniqlo products and logos, with no mention of the brands.
All of these techniques can include a link redirecting the user to the brand’s website, a shop or
a social media page.
17

PART II - Methodology of study
1. Purpose of the study and hypothesis
The main objective of the study is to understand how followers perceive the different
marketing techniques implemented by athletes on Twitter to promote their sponsors and
analyze how this is impacting their purchase intention.
For this study, we will focus on the three main categories below:
• Re-tweets of sponsor's tweets
• Tweets showcasing an advertisement
• Tweets including a picture or a video showcasing a product used by the athlete in his
« everyday life »
According to the literature we can suppose three elements that will form our three hypothesis:
• Hypothesis 1: Even though people show a moderate degree of skepticism regarding
celebrity endorsement on Twitter, it doesn’t affect their attitude towards athlete
endorsement, towards the brand nor towards the athlete as a person18. From this
statement, we can deduce that blatantly advertised tweets (including tweets
showcasing an ad and brands’ re-tweets) are recognized as marketing but have no
real impact on people’s attitude toward the brand. Thus, our hypothesis is that they
do not trigger Purchase Intention either.
Figure 1: Hypothesis 1
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• Hypothesis 2: Tweets shared by athletes during their everyday-life, even if including
one of their sponsor’s product are not perceived as advertising. On the contrary, this
kind of tweet leads to followers’ identification to the athlete and thus, according to
Carlson and Donovan , have a positive 19 impact on their Purchase Intentions.
• Hypothesis 3: According to Cunningham and Bright20, the more the athlete and the
endorsed brand are congruent, the more the attitude towards the athlete’s
endorsement on Twitter becomes positive. This fact added to the idea that celebrity-product
congruence acts on sponsorship effectiveness, we can also suppose that
« everyday-life » tweets have a more positive impact on people’s purchase intention
when they are sport-related, because they highlight this brand-athlete congruence.
with Evolution of PIB Evolution of PIA
19
Justified by
Literature
Hypothetical
(to be proved)
Type of
Marketing
KEY:

2. Data collection and sample description
In order to judge the veracity of the three hypothesis, we will implement a hypothetical-deductive
study on a sample of 70 people. They will be contacted through Twitter and will
take the questionnaire online.
As the subject of athlete endorsement on social networks and more particularly on Twitter is
quite recent and has not been deeply studied yet, we would want to homogenize our sample as
much as possible. All people from the sample should match the following criteria:
• They should be Twitter users
• They should follow Novak Djokovic - @DjokerNole; athlete sponsored by Uniqlo,
adidas, Seiko, Peugeot, etc. He has been selected for his intense activity on Twitter,
his large follower base as well as his behavior to use the various aforementioned
marketing techniques.
3. Questionnaire
The questionnaire will be structured in the following way:
• General Questions
• Relationship with the Athlete
• Simulation (2 steps)
GENERAL QUESTIONS:
• Age: 15 - / 15-24 / 25-34 / 35-44 / 45-54 / 55-64 / 64 +
• Gender: Man / Woman
• Country of Residence
• How often do you use Twitter?: Every day / At least once a week / At least once a month
/ Less
• Since when do you have a Twitter Account? 1 year ago / 1 to 2 years ago / more
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ATHLETE:
• When did you start following Novak Djokovic? 1 year ago / 1 to 2 years ago / more
• Would you consider yourself a fan of Djokovic?: Yes / No
• Do you follow his career?: Yes, regularly / Yes, sometimes / Not really
!20

SIMULATION21
The participant will then undergo through a simulation constructed around eight tweets
classified in two main categories (« everyday-life » tweets and « blatantly advertised »
tweets).
Each of the situation will be linked to a brand. Four brands are part of the study: Head,
Peugeot, Uniqlo and adidas, main sponsors of Djokovic. The 8 situations are the following:
Each situation will be followed by a series of questions in order to understand how the
participant perceives each marketing technique and how his/her purchase intention evolves.
When (0 to 5) is mentioned it means that the answer is evaluated on a scale ranging from 1
(not at all) to 5 (very much so).
21 See appendix I for images
21
« Blatantly Advertised » Tweets:
• Situation 1: Tweet with an ad showcasing the athlete - Brand Head
• Situation 2: Re-tweet of a sponsor’s tweet - Brand Peugeot
• Situation 3: Re-tweet of a sponsor’s tweet - Brand Uniqlo
• Situation 4: Tweet with an ad showcasing a brand or a product but no
presence of the athlete - Brand adidas
« Everyday Life » Tweets:
• Situation 5: Photo showcasing a sponsor’s product with no specific mention
of the brand (Non-sport related) - Brand Uniqlo
• Situation 6: Photo showcasing a sponsor’s product with no specific mention
of the brand (Sport related) - Brand adidas
• Situation 7: Photo showcasing a sponsor’s product with a written reference
to the brand or product (Non-sport related) - Brand Peugeot
• Situation 8: Photo showcasing a sponsor’s product with a written reference
to the brand or product (Sport related) - Brand Head

STEP 1: JUDGE ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TWEET / JUDGE HOW MARKETING IS
PERCEIVED / JUDGE IDENTIFICATION TO THE ATHLETE (ID)
• Would you say you are interested in this tweet? Interesting/ Boring (0 to 5)
• What do you think when you see this tweet on your feed? Pleasant/Unpleasant (0 to 5)
• Why? (Tick all the statements bellow that justify your attitude toward the tweet): «
I don’t care it’s not tennis related » / « It’s interesting I know more about his sports
career » / « I feel like I am part of his personal life » / « I feel closer to Novak » /
« I feel like Novak is more like everybody » / « Other: open answer »
• Would you say this tweet is promotional? Non Promotional/Promotional (0 to 5)
NB: Athlete Identification is described in Literature as « a cognitive state in which the
individual evaluates the degree of overlap between his own self-schema and the athlete’s
schema. Identification is occurring when an individual attempts to establish or maintain the
identity associated with an athlete endorser in an effort to be like that person»22.
This is why we will judge Identification to the athlete (ID) with the statements « I feel like I
am part of his personal life » / « I feel closer to him » / « I feel like Novak is more like
everybody ». An index up to 1 will be determined with the following formula:
ID = X ÷ 3 (with X being the number of statements checked among the 3 previously
mentioned).
As an example, if a person thinks the tweet is pleasant because « he feels closer to Novak »
and « he feels like he is part of his personal life » then, we have X=2.
Thus, ID = 2 ÷ 3 = 0,67.
STEP 2: JUDGE PURCHASE INTENTION (PI)
It is also necessary at this point to analyze the Purchase Intention with the questions below:
• If I would ask you now if you were going to buy a brand product in the next 12
months, what would your answer be? (« brand » and « product » will be replaced
according to situation - ie: « If I would ask you now if you were going to buy a Head
Racket in the next 12 months, what would your answer be? »).
!22

• To Judge the answers, we will use the Juster Scale which is recognized as the most
reliable scale in the Marketing field23. It is described as follows:
• Also, to complete and understand the reason why some people answered « 0. No
chance, Almost no chance » they will buy the product, the following question will be
asked: Why? « I don't have the need of this product » / « I am planning to buy another
brand's product » / « I already have/I have enough of this type of product » / « Other:
open answer »
• Every Brand will be confronted with these questions twice in the questionnaire: once
after a « blatantly advertised » tweet and once after an « everyday-life » tweet. It is
necessary for us to be able to analyze the evolution of Purchase Intention (PI).
• It is also important for us to know if the first tweet about a brand is impacting the
Purchase Intention. As we will have no data to compare to, the first time each brand is
introduced, the following question will be asked: « Has your purchase intention evolved
thanks to this tweet? ». Following answers will be possible: « Yes, it increased » /« Yes,
it decreased »/ « No, no change ».
This is applicable to situations 1 to 4.
23 East R., Wright M., Vanhuele M., Consumer Behaviour: Applications in Marketing, 2013, SAGE Publications, 136-137
23
THE JUSTER SCALE
« It is an 11-point scale with
verbal descriptions and
probabilities associated with
each number »
10. Certain, Practically certain
9. Almost sure
8. Very probable
7. Probable
6. Good possibility
5. Fairly good possibility
4. Fair possibility
3. Some possibility
2. Slight possibility
1.Very slight possibility
0. No chance, Almost no chance
99%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
1%
Figure 4: The Juster Scale

PART III – Results of Study
1. Sample analysis
The questionnaire has been submitted to 70 persons from under 15 to 64 years old, living in
23 different countries. Representation of age categories in the study are really close to the
global repartition of Twitter users. It is also interesting to notice that the survey has been
mainly submitted to women (63%).
!24
Age
6 %
10 %
17 %
21 %
44 %
1 %
15-
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
Gender
37 %
63 %
Woman
Man
Country of Residence
France
Canada
Venezuela
Paraguay
Sudan
South Africa
UK
USA
India
Spain
Colombia
Serbia
Sweden
Malaysia
Japan
Chile
Belgium
Argentina
Germany
Cambodia
Australia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
3
3
Italy 3
7
1
2
6
9
3
1
2
1
17
Figure 5: Sample Analysis - General Questions

Participants have been selected for their intense activity on Twitter. Most of the people
involved in the study have been solicited after a tweet they posted about Djokovic. This
explains that everyday Twitter users who created their account more than 2 years ago account
for the majority of the sample.
Figure 6: Sample Analysis - Use of Twitter
25
How often do you use
Twitter?
60
45
30
15
0
Everyday
At least once a week
At least once a month
Less
When did you create your
Twitter account?
40
30
20
10
0
1 year ago
1 to 2 years ago
more
Would you consider
yourself a fan of Djokovic?
21 %
79 %
Yes
No
Do you follow his career?
50
37,5
25
12,5
0
Yes, regularly
No, not really
Yes, sometimes
When did you start following
Novak Djokovic?
28
21
14
7
0
1 year ago
1 to 2 years ago
more
Figure 7: Sample Analysis - Relationship with the Athlete

Regarding their attachment to Djokovic, it seems that more than 80% of the participants
describe themselves as « fans » and that more than 70% of them are regularly following his
career.
The sample is relatively homogeneous which means that we will be able to link the results of
this study more easily to a certain category of Twitter Users characterized by 3 main features :
• They are fans of the athlete they are following
• They are experienced Twitter users
• and they are active Twitter users
2. Data analysis
a. Hypothesis 1
Two things have been to be analyzed for Hypothesis 1:
1) « Blatantly advertised » tweets are recognized as marketing
2) They have no impact on people’s Purchase Intentions (PI)
BLATANTLY ADVERTISED TWEETS
Would you say
this tweet is
promotional?
(/5)
Negative
Evolution of PI
(%)
Positive
Evolution of PI
(%)
No Evolution
of PI
(%)
Identification
ID
(/1)
Situation 1:
HEAD
Tweet with ad
showcasing the
athlete
4,1 1 % 41 % 57 % 0,27
Situation 2:
PEUGEOT
Re-tweet
4,0 1 % 23 % 76 % 0,16
Situation 3:
UNIQLO
Re-tweet
4,2 6 % 41 % 53 % 0,14
Situation 4:
ADIDAS
Tweet with ad that
doesn’t showcase
the athlete
3,6 0 % 43 % 57 % 0,24
Figure 8: Table of analysis - « Blatantly Advertised Tweets » (Evolution of PI, ID and Promotional Index)
!26

Hypothesis 1 was only partially supported.
As expected, point 1) was verified by the questionnaire. In fact people qualified the tweet as
promotional with an index average ranging from 3,6 to 4,2 up to 5, depending on the Tweet.
There is no clear difference between how promotional is a Re-tweet considered, compared to
a tweet that showcase an advertisement.
We expected though, that this type of marketing technic will have no impact on Purchase
Intention, as suggested by literature. Point 2) of the hypothesis was verified for 60% of the
participants while the 40 other percent admitted that it had some impact on their Purchase
Intention.
In fact, they certified that « Their intention of buying the product increased » when asked if
their purchase intention had evolved thanks to the tweets presented in the first 4 situations.
However, the questionnaire is not measuring this evolution and we are thus not able to know
if it is just a small evolution or if the impact on Purchase Intention is really important.
This point is, anyway, really interesting. In fact it means that, even if participants are aware
that the athlete is making advertising on behalf of his sponsors on Twitter, it still has a
positive impact on their purchase intention. Also, it is important to remember that, for the first
four situations, the evolution of Purchase Intention has been analyzed in a declarative way.
This means that people are also aware of the impact of marketing on them.
BLATANTLY ADVERTISED TWEETS
Interest
(/5)
Pleasure
(/5)
Situation 1:
HEAD
Tweet with ad showca-sing
the athlete
3,5 3,4
Situation 2:
PEUGEOT
Re-tweet
3,3 3,3
Situation 3:
UNIQLO
Re-tweet
3,2 3,1
Situation 4:
ADIDAS
Tweet with ad that
doesn’t showcase the
athlete
3,6 3,5
27
Figure 9: Table of analysis - « Blatantly Advertised Tweets » (Interest and Pleasure)

By crossing this fact with the table upfront, we also realize that people are interested in the
tweet they are seeing even if knowing that it is a promotional tweet.
This could be explained by the fact that most of the people are fans of Djokovic and are thus
interested in everything he has to say. Nevertheless, the study couldn’t clearly prove this fact.
b. Hypothesis 2
In Hypothesis 2, three facts were pointed out and needed to be verified thanks to the
questionnaire:
1) Tweets shared by athletes during their everyday-life are not perceived as
advertising even if showcasing a sponsor’s product
2) This kind of tweets leads to followers’ identification to the athlete (ID)
3) They have a positive impact on Purchase Intention (PI)
« Everyday Life » TWEETS
Would you say
this tweet is
promotional?
(/5)
Negative
Evolution of PI
(%)
Positive
Evolution of PI
(%)
No Evolution
of PI
(%)
Identification
ID
(/1)
Situation 5:
UNIQLO
No mention of
brand Non
Sport-Related
1,6 26 % 11 % 63 % 0,46
Situation 6:
ADIDAS
No mention of
brand Sport-
Related
1,6 37 % 21 % 41 % 0,38
Situation 7:
PEUGEOT
Mention of the
brand Non
Sport-Related
2,7 16 % 7 % 77 % 0,41
Situation 8:
HEAD
Mention of the
brand Sport-
Related
4,0 30 % 14 % 56 % 0,28
Figure 10: Table of analysis - « Everyday Life tweets » (Evolution of PI, ID and Promotional Index)
!28

« Everyday Life » TWEETS
Delta PI, when
evolution is
negative
Delta PI, when
evolution is positive
Interest
(/5)
Pleasure
(/5)
Situation 5:
UNIQLO
No mention of brand
Non Sport-Related
-2,5 +1,4 3,9 4,0
Situation 6:
ADIDAS
No mention of brand
Sport-Related
-2,5 +2,2 4,1 4,0
Situation 7:
PEUGEOT
Mention of the brand
Non Sport-Related
-1,3 +2,2 3,9 3,9
Situation 8:
HEAD
Mention of the brand
Sport-Related
-2,7 +2,9 3,8 3,7
Figure 11: Table of analysis - « Everyday Life tweets » (Evolution of PI / Interest and Pleasure)
Regarding point 1): it seems that this kind of tweets are recognized and considered as
marketing but the index is a lot lower than for blatant advertising. Average index is 2,5
whereas for « Blatantly advertised » tweets it is 4,0.
It’s interesting to notice that promotional index is higher for Situation 7 and 8 than for
situation 5 and 6. This could be explained by the fact that the brand is directly mentioned in
the tweets 7 and 8 but more research must be done to validate this fact.
Also, we realized that index of Interest and Pleasure are 10% higher when participants are
confronted with « Everyday Life » tweets. (Average are respectively of 3,9 and 3,9 when they
are of 3,4 and 3,3 for « Blatantly advertised » Tweets).
Regarding point 2) - followers’ Identification to the athlete - as expected, it is more important
for « Everyday life » tweets than for the other type of tweets. Average index is 0,38 up to 1
while it is only of 0,20 for « blatantly advertised » tweets. It is interesting to notice that the
lowest index of Identification is linked to re-tweets of Brand’s tweets. Such result could have
been expected as it it not the Athlete speaking but the brand directly.
Second point that it is interesting to notice is that, results for Situation 8 (Brand Head) are,
once again, different when compared to other tweets of the same kind.
29

This could possibly be explained by the non-presence of the Athlete on the photo. It would
have been interesting to have some other questions to open the discussion with participants
and clearly understand this fact.
Last point of this hypothesis was to analyze if the increase of followers’ Identification to the
athlete had a positive impact on the evolution of their Purchase Intention, as suggested by
literature.
Point 3) was not supported. For a majority of participants (about 60%), impact on Purchase
Intention was null and for another large percentage of them (globally about 27%) this kind of
Tweets even led to a decrease of their Purchase Intentions. This is the contrary of what was
expected. The decrease was of an average of 2,25 which is not a huge evolution. By following
the functioning of the Juster Scale, it means that they were 20% less chances than before that
those people would buy the product.
The study as it is, couldn’t bring any reliable answer regarding the reason of this Purchase
Intention decrease. It is interesting to notice though, that marketing on Twitter seems to have
more impact on people when they are aware that what they see is advertising compared to
when they are not.
One last point interesting to observe for both « Everyday Life » Tweets and « Blatantly
Advertised » Tweets is that, situation 2 and situation 7 - both linked to the brand Peugeot -
show different results than the other situations of the same categories.
The study showed that, both times, for 70% of the participants, Purchase Intention didn’t
evolve. These percentages are respectively much higher than for the other situations of the
same categories.
When taking a look at these results, we could explain it by the type of product (a vehicle), that
has a much higher price than the other products mentioned in the study. By being a biggest
investment it requires a longer Buying Cycle and thus a longer time period to impact purchase
decision. It’s actually the only product/brand for which the reason of « Budget » has been
presented by people who were « Certain, or Practically Certain » they wouldn’t buy it.
!30

c. Hypothesis 3
For Hypothesis 3 only one fact was to be verified:
1) « Everyday-life » tweets have a more positive impact on people’s purchase
intention when they are sport-related
This hypothesis was not supported. The amount of people for whom the Purchase Intention
evolved positively was slightly more important with « sport-related » tweets rather than for
« Non Sport-Related » ones (respectively 21% and 14% vs 11% and 7%). But data were not
showing enough differences. In fact, even if the amount of people with a positive impact on
their Purchase Intention was higher for « sport-related » tweets, so was the amount of people
for whom their Purchase Intension decreased (37% and 30% vs 26% and 16%).
Moreover, if we use the Juster scale to analyze from how many grades it increased of
decreased, data is not relevant either and don’t show any significant difference.
3. Synthesis of Results
The purpose of this study was to understand the impact on Purchase Intention of all the
marketing techniques used by athletes on Twitter to promote their sponsors.
The study analyzed the impact of 2 kinds of tweets:
• « Blatantly advertised » Tweets (including tweets showcasing ads and re-tweets of
sponsors’ tweets)
• and « Everyday Life » Tweets showcasing a sponsor’s product
« Blatantly advertised » tweets were recognized as marketing which is what we expected.
Nevertheless, they were still considered interesting and pleasant by participants.
For most of the people, as suggested by literature, they had no impact on their Purchase
Intention. The interesting point though, is that they also seemed to trigger Purchase Intention
for another high percentage of participants.
This means that, even if being aware that what they were seeing was marketing, it still had a
impact on them.
31

Regarding « Everyday Life » Tweets that showcase a sponsor’s product, as expected, they
were considered more interesting and more pleasant than « Blatantly advertised » tweets.
They were though, still seen as marketing, even if considered less promotional than the
previous ones. Moreover, when a brand or a product was mentioned in the « Everyday Life »
tweet, the promotional index was higher.
Logically, here is how people ranked every category of tweets from the most promotional to
the less one:
1. « Blatantly advertised » tweets
2. « Everyday Life » tweets with mention of a brand
3. « Everyday Life » tweets showcasing a brand product but without any mention of it
As regards of the identification of participants to the athlete, as expected, it was higher for
« everyday life » tweets than for tweets showcasing ads and re-tweets. From the ones that
have the most impact on Identification to the ones that have the less, here is how tweets
categories were ranked:
1. « Everyday Life » tweets with the athlete on the photo
2. « Everyday Life » tweets without the athlete on the photo
3. Tweets showcasing an ad
4. Re-tweets of sponsors’ tweets
In fact, it seems that people identify more easily to the athlete when they can see him and
when they know that he is the one speaking. As we saw previously, people’s skepticism make
them aware of Marketing when they are confronted to it. Thus, it is logical, that they know
when a brand is speaking instead of an athlete and consequently, don’t identify to him.
Unexpectedly though, « Everyday Life » tweets showcasing brands products don’t seem to
have a positive impact on people’s purchase intention. For a majority of participants, there
was actually no impact at all. What was actually even more surprising is that, for almost a
third of the participants, their purchase intention decreased between their first exposure to the
brand (blatant advertising) and their second one (« everyday life » tweets). This suggested
!32

that, marketing via Twitter probably have more impact on people when they know that they
are exposed to it.
Regarding the impact of « Sport-related everyday life » tweets compared to Non-Sport related
ones, the data collected were not showing any consistent difference. Thus, even if showcasing
the product/athlete congruence, effects can’t be, at this time, demonstrated.
On a global perspective, it is hard to draw conclusions with a sample limited to only 70
people. Moreover, the questionnaire was focusing on one athlete only. It could be that, doing
the same exercise with different athletes from the same and from other sports, would show
different results. In fact, it seems that Novak Djokovic has a really high percentage of
involvement coming from his fans (the « NoleFam ») that other athletes don’t have.
In order to validate all information coming from this survey we should therefore adapt the
questionnaire to a few other athletes coming from other sports environments.
33

CONCLUSION
During the process of reflection, few lines of thoughts were considered. In fact it would have
been interesting and maybe easier to find relevant results by analyzing the impact of tweets on
people’s attitude toward brands.
By taking a look at the results, we see that indexes of Pleasure and Interest are relevant. These
being emotional results, we could expect more visible impacts on attitude toward the brand
than on Purchase Intention (the last one being a behavioral reaction). However, the measure
of attitude requires a longer time slot from participants and, as a student, it was too arduous to
solicit about 100 people for one hour-interviews.
Also, if we stay focused on the behavioral impacts, it would have been probably more
relevant to analyze people responses to each tweet. Re-tweet, internet research about a
product or a brand, visit of brand’s website or social page, conversation with friends or
acquaintances: all these actions are signs of interest from Twitter followers.
They could be the first steps leading to the Purchase of a product. Nevertheless, no literature
was actually linking all these actions to the Purchase Act. It means that, even if collecting
enough data about people’s reactions to tweets, it would have been impossible to prove
anything on a Marketing side.
This is why the choice of measuring the evolution of Purchase Intention has been made. And
the survey actually highlighted some interesting points that could be more deeply analyzed in
further studies.
• It seems that, on Twitter, even when people are aware that they are confronted to
marketing, their behavioral intentions are impacted. Blatant advertising actually
seems to have more impact on people than inconspicuous one. It means that brands
can go straight to the point and don’t have the need of actually hiding the marketing
they are doing on Twitter with product placement. Using an athlete’s twitter account
to blatantly promote your brand seem to be an effective idea. However, the study
doesn’t analyze the impact of this kind of marketing on people’s attitude toward the
athlete. If too much of this kind of marketing it could damage their relationship with
!34

the athlete and lead, with time going, to their disinterest in athlete’s speech and thus
in what he tweets about. And this needs to be considered by sponsors.
• Second point that it is interesting to remember is that « everyday life » tweets lead to
people’s Identification to the athlete and thus reinforce his role model, straightening
the aspiration of people to be like him.
• However, this kind of tweets seems to have no impact and even sometimes a
negative one on people’s Purchase Intention. It could be explained by the way the
survey was structured (every-day life tweets being part of the last half in the
questionnaire) but it should be analyzed more deeply. A focus group would help
studying the subject on a qualitative side and, through discussion, people could give
us more clues on the reasons of this decrease of Purchase Intentions.
35

APPENDICES
24APPENDIX I - Images of the Simulation
24 All pictures used in this study are the Property of Novak Djokovic and have been downloaded from his Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/djokernole
!36
Tweet of Situation 1 Tweet of Situation 2

37

REFERENCES
• Carlson B. and Donavan T. (2008), Concerning the Effects of Athlete Endorsements on
Brand and Team-Related Intentions, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Vol.17, No.3, 154-162
• Cornwell T. B., (2008), State of the Art and science in sponsorship-linked marketing,
Journal of Advertising, No.53, 41-55
• Cunningham N. and Bright L. (2012), The Tweet Is in Your Court: Measuring Attitude
Towards Athlete Endorsements in Social Media, International Journal of Integrated
Marketing Communications, fall 2012, 73-87
• East R., Wright M., Vanhuele M., Consumer Behaviour: Applications in Marketing, 2013,
SAGE Publications, 136-137
• Pegoraro A. and Jinnah N. (2012), Tweet ’em and reap ’em: The impact of professional
athletes’ use of Twitter on current and potential sponsorship opportunities, Journal of
Brand Strategy, Vol.1, No.1, 85-97
• Kaplan A.M. and Haenlein M., (2010), Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of Social Media, Business Horizons, Vol., No., 59-68
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Examining the Motivations and Constraints of Twitter Users, Sport Marketing Quarterly,
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• Zauner A, Koller M and Fink M. (2012), Sponsoring, Brand Value and Social Media,
Revista de Admnistração de Emprensas (RAE), Vol.52, No. 6, 681-691
WEBSITES:
• Dr. Curtis A., «The Brief History of Social Media», www.uncp.edu, last seen on 01/28/14
• Hoffert J., 3 Ways Sports and Media Build Fan Loyalty, www.sportsnetworker.com, last
seen on 01/28/14
• Laird S., How Sports Fans Engage With Social Media, www.mashable.com, last seen on
01/28/14
• McWilliam B., The power of SM in Sports, www.sportsnetworker.com, last seen on
01/28/14
!38

Athletes & Twitter - Valentina Brusadelli - Nov. 2014

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