Virtual Advertising in sports events

VIRTUAL ADVERTISING IN SPORTS EVENTS: DOES IT REALLY WORK? Lisa Becharas Katie Baumgardner Erin Brown Quincy Henderson Dani Kabbes Casey Richards

Part 1: Article Overview 

Purpose  They

wanted to test whether participants could recognize virtual advertising  Whether or not exposure time, exposure frequency, and prior brand awareness have a positive impact on the recall of brands advertising  They were testing if attitude towards advertising in general is positively correlated with the attitude towards virtual advertising  Primary relationship: virtual advertising and its recognition, recall of brands, and attitude

Hypotheses 





“Virtual advertising is recognized by a majority of television viewers.” “Exposure time, exposure frequency and prior brand awareness have a positive impact on the recall of the brands advertised.” “Attitude towards advertising in general is positively correlated with attitude towards virtual advertising.”

Methods 

Participants  142

German university students  Interest in Soccer Broadcasts  High:

34.5%  Medium: 23.9%  Low: 40.1%  Gender  Male:

90.8%  Female: 9.2%

Methods 



The students were tested prior to the study (pre-test) on assessing prior brand awareness The students were shown an 18-minute video clip from a televised soccer match  Five

brands/organizations were advertised during the match

Methods 

The students were interviewed (post-test) regarding effectiveness of virtual advertising  Compared

students’ attitudes towards advertising in general and their attitudes towards virtual advertising



The participants were given a questionnaire after the video  Aided

recall: given brands and asked if they saw them  Unaided: Tell me what you saw during the video

Results 



77.5 % of participants recognized that virtual advertising had been used 92.7 % assigned the virtual advertising correctly (knew what it was)

Results 





Recall level was very high in both aided and unaided questionnaires Duration of exposure does not play an essential role, whereas the frequency of exposure has a significant influence on the effectiveness of advertising Attitudes towards advertising were significantly and positively correlated with attitudes towards virtual advertising

Construct Validity 

Dependent Variable:  Recognition

of advertisements  Recall of advertisement  Attitude towards advertisements 

Independent Variable:  Exposure

to virtual advertisements

How its Operationalized 

Dependent Measures A

written standardized interview followed viewing including questions regarding recognition, recall, and attitude. Used the 5-point multi-attribute Likert scales



Independent Measures  Participants

viewed an 18 minute video clip of the soccer match Hertha BSC Berlin vs. VfB Stuttgart

Strengths and Weaknesses 

Effect Construct:  Strengths  Has

face and predictive validity  Multiple ways of measure  Able to quantify results  Weaknesses  Question-wording

limits responses  Questionnaire was given immediately after viewing

Strengths and Weaknesses 

Cause Construct  Strengths  German

soccer match, participants were German as well  Both conventional and virtual advertising were represented  Weaknesses  Only

five companies represented  Limited video clip  Lower competition level  No control over prior knowledge of products  Only 18-minute clip, not full game length

Internal Validity 

Design

(71 People) (71 People)

O O

X X

O (aided) O (unaided)

Group Threats 

Participants were “split” into two groups: aided and unaided.  Were



they randomly assigned?

Selection instrumentation  The

experimenter administering the treatment and questionnaire treated the two groups differently.



Selection history/testing  Were

they randomly assigned?

Internal Validity 

Very strong for this study because of the testing of prior brand awareness and general design

Issue 

We would have liked to see the questionnaires that were distributed  What

questions were on the aided/unaided forms?  Could this have led to bias or different results?

Confounding Variables 

The researchers tested prior brand awareness and found that it was not a confounding variable because the results were not significant

External Validity 

Non-random selection 142 German undergrads and grads in business management classes   



Is there a type of person that is more apt to take these classes? More males than females (90.8% to 9.2%) Soccer interest (majority was low, 40.1%)

Random Assignment? 



Doesn’t say whether they were randomly assigned into the two groups So were the groups really different to start with?

Who, When, Where are they trying to generalize to? 



Seems like they are trying to generalize to people who watch sporting events Seems like they are trying to generalize to present and future times 



Seems like they are trying to generalize to sports watchers who watch a sporting event at home 



Trying to see if this specific type of advertisement works

They understand that this is a limited population, but they state it is just an exploratory study

College age, German, business students**