Professional Sports Team Brand Identity - Case Study Example

Sport Team Brand Identity Literature Review Professional sport team brand identity Like individualpeople, organizations such as professional sports teams can also develop a specific identity, characterized by those elements that define who and what the organization stands for, what its values are and how it wishes to be perceived by the rest of the world. Various researchers have studied how brands provide consumers with a means of better defining themselves (Belk 1988), measuring themselves up to an ideal (Malhotra 1988) or even understanding to greater depth specific elements of the self (Kleine, Kleine & Kerman 1993). Brand identity takes on a more specific meaning when relating to sports team brands thanks to the degree to which individuals tend to identify with their favorite teams. As is suggested by Birrell (1981), sport in today's society has, in many ways, taken on the importance of ritual from ancient societies and provides the individual with a means of connecting with the rest of the community, something that seems increasingly lacking in other areas of postmodern industrialized life. While brand identity is an integral part of the branding concept and of the business as a whole, much of the existing research regarding this issue has focused on the ideas of brand association rather than identity. Brand associations are essentially the component parts of brand identity. They can include various attributes, such as 'consistent', 'fun' or 'trustworthy', particular images, such as the brand logo, a particular jingle or any number of different means by which individuals begin to associate with the brand. Numerous theories have been brought forward regarding the particularities of brand identity in the sport team setting, several of which will be examined. By examining the relationship between brand identity and brand associations, it is possible to trace how brand associations contribute to and become a part of brand identity. By measuring brand associations in team sport, elements of brand identity can be discovered. 1.1 Brand Branding has often been touted as the best means of establishing a loyal customer base and instant worldwide recognition. "Corporate branding emerged as a key concept in the late 1990s" (Burt & Sparks, 2002, p. 194). The term itself has undergone an extreme transformation in recent years. Although once identified as simply the swoosh on the side of a Nike athletic shoe, the term 'brand' has grown to encompass many aspects of a company. "Brands are not simply products or services. Brands are the sum totals of all the images that people have in their heads about a particular company and a particular mark" (Scott Bedbury, CEO of Brandstream, a Seattle-based marketing consultancy, quoted in Kalin, 2001). The term has come to refer to not only the images a company produces in order to call their product or services to mind, but also the products sold, the services rendered, the building in which the company is headquartered or even the country in which it originated as well as the methods used to project these ideas and images to the broader public - the brand identity. To remain competitive in the world today, just about anything can be identified with a brand if it is so chosen - companies, museums, hospitals, even individual people. According to Aaker (1996), strong brands work for the company to help them develop a strong consumer base through broad recognition of the brand identity. This recognition then further works for the company by serving as a weapon to counter growing competition in a shrinking market (Barwise & Robertson, 1992). Corporations can then further use this position to help launch new extensions, such as a line of athletic clothes for Nike or a new flavor for Toblerone (Aaker & Keller, 1990). However, this kind of recognition has also come to imply a much greater responsibility on the part of the company to ensure all aspects of their business are strong. There are four basic brand perspectives including using the brand as a product, the brand as an organisation, the brand as a person and/or the brand as a symbol (Aaker, 1996). The brand as symbol is what we think of when we see the Nike swoosh or the McDonalds arch. However, a good deal of the brand's identity arises from the types of product or services offered by the company. This is what is meant by brand as product. According to Aaker (1996), attributes of a brand as organization include innovation, concern with environmental questions, drive for quality, etc. as they have been established by their founders, values, culture, commitment to excellence, technological experience, etc. Because these attributes function at a deeper level than simply a product, brand as organization is considered a stronger draw than brand as product. All of the above attributes fall into the categories of brand associations. Stronger still, though, is the concept of brand as a person because of the humanistic pull naturally acquired leading to the concept of brand identity. Rather than being confined to a single face or a series of attributes, brand as person gives the company the full range of human expression as well as the ability to establish person to person relationships with its customers. One way in which companies can determine the effectiveness or impact of their brand is to develop a brand pyramid. "A brand pyramid goes beyond a company's advertising focus. It seeks to define the ultimate customer rewards that result from associating with a company and its brand" (Vandenberg, 2002). To develop the brand pyramid, it is necessary to take into account the three major contributors to brand identity and recognition: brand promise, emotional benefits of the brand and functional benefits of the brand. 1.2 A professional sport team as an organizational brand According to Anderson (1991), before the availability of mass forms of printed and other communication techniques, the concept of community was fashioned by regional religious traditions and rituals. With the rise of alternative means of communication, the floodgates of knowledge were thrown open and people became able to associate themselves with different groups according to their own interests and abilities. Anderson'theorizes that a very tangible nation is an imagined community because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each live the image of their communion" (Anderson, 1991: 6). People generally sense an instantaneous affiliation with others simply because they speak similarly or are from within the same borders. All people have an 'us' and 'them' mentality to some extent. Tajfel & Turner (1986) point out how this instant affiliation with what they term in-group favoritism often serves to benefit those within the group sometimes to the detriment of those who exist outside of the group. An individual's level of involvement in this in-group/out-group association, in turn, helps to form that individual's self-image (Festinger, 1954). Thus, the sequence emerges as one of cyclical nature: the individual's self-concept is derived from their perceived membership within a given social group giving them a sense of social identity that is itself reflected back upon the group as a whole (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002). Within their own context, many of these same attributes of the social group identified above also relate to the individual sport team as an organization. From a marketing and sociological perspective, these teams provide consumers with both a valued service in the form of entertainment and an opportunity to participate in a shared experience high in social identification and emotional involvement (Underwood, Bond & Baer, 2001). At the same time, they also provide individuals with that important sense of social inclusiveness or belonging to a community (Heere & James, 2007). In this respect, it can be seen that there is a strong correlation between the brand concept of the business world and the team identity that has been a 'natural' outgrowth of the various professional sports organizations (Muniz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). Team identity for many long-established teams is characterized by a particular social identity that has grown up among the group of people who follow them, the fans. One definition of team identification states it is "the degree to which a fan defines him/herself by the same attributes that defines the sports team" (Mahony, 1995: 12). A study of sports managers of newer teams discovered a similar belief among them that existing image and awareness of the team organization contributed greatly to the development of the team while lesser factors included the nature of the audience, the team's win-loss record and the quality of the team or its competition (Grant, 2007). There are numerous examples of sports organizations beginning to recognize the organization as a brand and applying branding strategies to the group as a means of attracting a wider fan base. Examples of these include the Cleveland Cavaliers ("Cavs Hire", 2005) of the United States' National Basketball Association, the famous golfer Arnold Palmer (King, 2005) and numerous universities (Siegel, 2004), although it is noted that many of the universities seem to have taken this role almost accidentally. 1.3 Brand identity Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000) use the example of Richard Branson's Virgin group to illustrate the three most important elements of brand identity, elements Aaker had previously identified as a the building blocks of the brand pyramid. These include the brand promise, emotional benefits and functional benefits. The brand promise refers to all those things a brand says its company delivers. For companies in the hotel sector, this could mean friendly service, comfortable rooms or luxurious amenities. "A brand's reputation and longevity depends on whether the company is able to consistently keep the brand promise. ' When a brand claims to be friendly and sincere, every contact point with the customer in every channel must meet that commitment" (Venkat, 2004). In working to fulfill the brand promise, it is important that all employees of the company, down to the lowliest position in the most far-reaching place, is educated as to the branding strategy - "the identity of the brand, the value proposition and differentiation" (Venkat, 2004) so that they can deliver on these brand promises to the consumer and therefore maintain its positive image. Emotional benefits refer to the way that the brand makes an individual feel, not only about the brand, but also about him or herself as a result of the relationship the individual has with the brand. This is an important concept in determining what makes one brand, such as Mont Blanc, so much better than another, such as Parker, despite the fact that both companies produce very similar products. "The difference lies not in functional benefits but in the emotional and self-expressive benefit of having a clearly identifiable luxury brand" ("A Brand's Functional Benefits", 2002). Functional benefits are differentiated from emotional benefits in the differences inherent between brands. Using the same example as above, both Mont Blanc and Parker provide similar products, providing the same sort of functional benefits as the ability to write with a smooth, clean line and offering a variety of tip and ink types. However, both of these products are significantly different from Bic pens in that they are refillable and decorative as well as being a writing utensil while the Bic is merely a writing utensil. "Differences in product features are often referred to as 'functional benefits.' Some products offer speed, advanced technology, lighter weight or improved safety; these products are easily differentiated by their brand's functional benefits" ("A Brand's Functional Benefits", 2002). With just this brief introduction to brands, it becomes obvious that branding is an integral part of the process. "The central role of branding in defining the firm's identity and its position in international markets means that it is critical to develop an explicit international brand architecture" (Douglas, Craig & Nijssen, 1999). Although the Virgin group is highly differentiated among products, it has become hugely successful thanks to its emphasis on brand identity. "All the markets in which Virgin operates tend to have features in common: they are typically markets where the customer has been ripped off or under-served, where there is confusion and/or where the competition is complacent" (Virgin, 2006). Rather than focusing on the specific products and services offered, the parent brand markets itself as the champion for the consumer, offering value for the money spent, good quality products, excellent customer service, innovative techniques and processes and fun, challenging competition in an otherwise stale market area (Virgin, 2000). The difference between a brand and branding is at once as great a distance as can be and also not different at all. While the brand is a symbol used to represent a specific company and, by extension everything that company stands for, branding refers to the practice of associating that brand with more esoteric ideas. According to Norman (1999), branding is the way that "the brand is projected and advertised externally [which] reflects the way it lives and works internally" (29) - creating the brand identity. References Aaker, David. (1996). Building Strong Brands. New York: The Free Press. Aaker, David & Joachimsthaler, Erich. (2000). 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