How Does Marketing Affect Sports Customers - Essay Example

How does Marketing affect sports customers/How Advertising Affects Customers?

Thesis statement: Advertising according to customer's viewpoint and through Endorsers increases sales and instills stronger brand recognition

Introduction:

Marketing is a process which is used by companies to "sell" their products to the likely customers or the target market. The companies try to target their market and showcase the product in a language and situation that is most appealing to the consumers. This conveyance is known as Advertising. There have been many studies related to the effect that advertisements have to the consumers and how they affect transforms into an effect, which can be translated as the purchasing of the product.

The current business environment has an adamant sense of cut-throat competition. Each and every company is competing against each other to gain the attention of their customers. For this purpose, they are employing ethical and unethical means. To understand what is the role of marketing for an organization or business it is important actually to understand what marketing is.

Marketing & Advertising and their effects:

Marketing is all about relating to the potential users the benefits of the product and convincing them in such a way that they are willing to purchase it. It is not necessary that marketing can only be done on products, but it can also be done for services that are offered by various organization or individuals. The oldest and perhaps the most popularly used method is the word of mouth. Marketing helps an organization that is selling products increase its sale and generate revenue while it is also done so as to establish a good rapport with the current consumers and the to be consumers (Blair).

Advertising is a very powerful tools used by marketers to influence the buying decisions of a rational person. It is the power of advertising that compels us to buy one brand and ignores the other competitor brand. Advertising works at various levels of our cognitive abilities and finally persuade us to make the buying decision (Hill).

Advertising today is being used a method to create a competitive advantage over a competitor and hence people are hiring the best talents that they can find. There have been studies that portray the importance that advertising has in the development of an organization, but there is yet to proved that advertising enhances the performance of an organization as a whole (Jackson and Andrews).

Advertising increases the brand recognition in customers and reinforces their desire for an individual product and hence there is a resulting increase in sales. Effective advertising turns the "wants" of the client to their "needs" and thus cause impulse buying in some cases. An essential role of advertising is to convince people strongly enough that they end up buying the product being advertised (Jones).

Today there are many media through which advertising can be done. Social media advertising is the newly emerging medium, and it is a certain cost-free and has a far more far-reaching effect. This is the main reason that it has become so popular in a short span of time. One other quite trending advertising method is celebrity endorsements. This is the most used methods in Sports and Fashion industries. Companies are contracting with fashionistas and supermodels to sell their clothes, perfumes, jewelry, footwear, and handbags. On the other hand beverages, companies that sell nutrition based products, and companies creating sports wears and sporting equipment are all hiring sportsmen all over the world to create an appeal to the customers (Miller and Washington).

In America, companies are targeting the fans by selling things associated with baseball players, rugby players and basketball players. In the European and Asian countries, they are selling products by using the famous and most trending football players. In Asian countries, we see every other product associated with cricket players, a very famous much-liked game in Asia. Sport's fanatics want to buy these products solely because their heroes are associated with it.

A very current example is the Lays chips. The packet portrays the possibility of winning a ticket for the Euro cup. This campaign represents Leo Messi a household name for any football fanatic. The campaign has been a major success, and there has been a huge jump in the Lays chip sale worldwide. There was another campaign that featured a very famous cricketer Wasim Akram along with famous footballer Lionel Messi, an ad campaign through which they launched a new flavor worldwide targeting the Asian countries mainly (Kahle and Riley).

Sports brands like Nike, Prince, Reebok, Puma, Yonex, Adidas, Lotto and Wilson and much more, have always featured sportsman and sportswomen actually to instill their brand's presence in the likely consumers. They use the concept of brand ambassadors for advertising their products and thus, for the whole period of the contract the sportsperson sports the name in any sporting event that they participate in. These agreements help brands be established as much bigger names in the current competing environment (Jones).

When the company is hiring high profile sports personalities to endorse their brand they are psychologically having an impact on the consumers. If the celebrity employed for supporting is a famous name, then the people feel that such a high profile endorsement ensures that the product has quality and fulfills the promises that the advertisers make. This is how the dealers are playing with the psychology of the ordinary people. If the performance of the endorser becomes much better than the sales, increase drastically as people start assuming that the brand is actually having an impact on the fulfilment of the individual. It has also been noted that such a celebrity endorsement helps in the creation of a unique presence of the product as people can easily differentiate between the various outputs by directly associating the product with the sports personality endorsing the product (Jackson and Andrews).

When advertisements are being designed the main concern is about developing the right attitude in the consumer. The communicated message us created considering three stages that a customer goes through when the decision is being made by the user. The first stage is the cognitive stage. In this step, the customer gets the awareness about the product. The second stage is that of the Affective stage, in this juncture the consumers get affected by the message that is being shown to them. It is at this juncture that the celebrity endorsements impact comes into action. People get convinced that the product is right for their need. The third stage is the behavior stage. In this juncture, the person makes the final decision about the product and buys the product (Jackson and Andrews).

Advertisements are designed to create an appeal. An advertisement that has the right combination of colors, appealing overall look and the right kind of language is the one that creates the greatest impact. Posters are designed keeping in mind the temperament of the target market. The creators use the societal values and the mindsets of the probable consumers and then design ads. There are many products that advertise differently for different regions so that they can maintain their brand appeal across the board. The other concept that is now used as a part of the advertising campaign is Customer touch point mapping. This helps in realization of how has the customer been affected. Customer touch points mapping is a very innovative and effective method that helps the organizations realize the areas in which they might have any interaction with their clients. Customers are now the key point to the possibility of success for any organization that deals directly with the customers. The most revered statement with regards to customer service is "The customer is always right". Companies now follow this mantra to remain on the top (Jones).

To help the companies remain aware of their customer's likes and dislikes and the possibilities of any required alterations, touch points are identified and worked upon. This right now is the age of the customers. They should be given priority so that the companies can have success in selling their products. Many a time it has been observed that companies are providing the best of the product that could be possibly delivered and the delivery method is also perfect, but the customer is put-off. The main reason behind such occurrences is that companies tend to miss out on one or the other touch point. That contact point then becomes the problem area for the enterprise. With the proper mapping of the touch point, a company can realize the zones and points at which they have to interact with their customers. These touch points then can be prioritized according to the amount of energy that they might require and the level of skills they may demand. The best solution for dealing with any possible issues that occur due to any lacking in the customer touch points can be easily handled by mapping the touch points and then working on them (Jones).

Conclusion:

It would be quite wrong in saying that advertisement has no impact on the sales. But advertising plays a very crucial role in creating the market for the product. Today many companies are solely basing the sales of their goods on the impact that advertising may have on the likely consumers. The entrance of different methods of marketing in today's globalized world has now made organizations rely on advertising a lot more than ever before. New innovative methods and designs are now being introduced in the field of advertising, and the sole reason is to win the race of influencing consumers to buy their products. It is not the need of the people that alone induces the buying behavior, but also how much effective the advertising of the product has been.