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Exploring the role of brand experience in driving consumer emotions and engagement with sports brands in Australia

Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, 2024

Bruno Schivinski, Giulio Mancuso, Magdalena Brzozowska-Woś

Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, volume 204, pages 553–574, 2024

  • Open access
  • 526 Australian consumers
  • Sports brands
  • Stimulus-organism-response
  • Regression analysis
  • Australia
Read the article
Keywords
  • experiential marketing
  • brand experience
  • emotional response
  • brand engagement
  • sports brands
  • consumer brand engagement
  • sports marketing
  • real-life advertising experiences
  • brand activations
  • live sports events
  • emotional branding
  • fan engagement
  • customer experience
  • stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model
  • brand experience scale (Zarantonello and Schmitt)
  • consumer brand engagement scale (Hollebeek et al.)
  • Australia
  • Australian sports industry
  • online survey
  • Qualtrics
  • snowball sampling
  • linear regression
  • SPSS
  • experiential marketing campaigns
  • advertising strategy

A note from Bruno

This article grew out of Giulio Mancuso's master's research at RMIT University in Melbourne, which I had the pleasure of supervising. Giulio took on a question that sits close to Australian life: when sports brands step off the screen and into people's lives through events, activations and other real-world experiences, do those moments create the emotional connection that keeps fans engaged? His project surveyed 610 Australians about their real-life encounters with sports brands. It showed that richer brand experiences spark stronger emotional responses, and those responses in turn deepen engagement with the brand. Working with Giulio was a real pleasure: he brought curiosity, persistence and a genuine love of sport to the project. It is a proud moment to see a student's work published, and I am delighted to share it here alongside Magdalena Brzozowska-Woś, who completed the author team.

Sports brands that give people memorable real-life experiences make them feel more, and people who feel more engage more with the brand. In a survey of 526 Australians who had a real-life advertising experience with a sports brand, brand experience raised emotional response, which in turn raised consumer brand engagement.

Key findings

  1. Brand experiences stir emotions. Among 526 Australians who recalled a real-life advertising experience with a sports brand, a stronger brand experience went with a stronger emotional response to the brand (β = 0.39, t = 5.10, p = .001) (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).
  2. Emotions drive engagement. Consumers who felt a stronger emotional response were more engaged with the sports brand, thinking about it, feeling good when using it and choosing it over others (β = 0.50, t = 7.11, p = .001); the model explained 27% of the variance in engagement (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).
  3. Age and gender made no difference. Neither age nor gender had a significant effect on consumer brand engagement once emotional response was taken into account (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).

At a glance

Design
Online survey on Qualtrics (CAWI), pretested with 30 people; non-random snowball sampling through social media and email; hypotheses tested with linear regression in SPSS
Participants
526 valid responses from 610 participants who had had a real-life advertising experience with a sports brand in Australia; 54.1% men, 45.2% women, 0.7% non-binary; aged 19 to 51; 74.7% from Victoria. Each rated one sports brand they named
Stimulus
Brand experience: 12 items covering sensory, affective, intellectual and behavioural experience (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010)
Organism
Emotional response: 7 items, from happy and pleasantly surprised to annoyed and disappointed (Organ et al., 2015)
Response
Consumer brand engagement: 10 items on cognitive processing, affection and activation (Hollebeek et al., 2014)
Controls
Age and gender
Reliability
Cronbach’s α = 0.76 (brand experience), 0.63 (emotional response), 0.75 (consumer brand engagement); all items on 5-point scales

Figure 1. The model, with the standardised estimates reported in the article

BrandexperienceEmotionalresponseConsumer brandengagementH1: β = 0.39***H2: β = 0.50***R² = 0.27Control variables:age, genderage 0.13, gender 0.01 (both n.s.)
Following the stimulus-organism-response model, brand experience (stimulus) raises emotional response (organism), which raises consumer brand engagement (response). Standardised coefficients from Table 2 and Figure 2 of the article; *** as printed in Figure 2; R² = 0.27; n.s. = not significant; n = 526.

From brand experience to engagement

Hypothesised pathsExperience → emotions (H1)0.39Emotions → engagement (H2)0.50Correlations (Table 1)Experience and engagement0.47Emotions and engagement0.51
Standardised coefficients from Table 2 and correlations from Table 1 of the article (n = 526). Age (0.13) and gender (0.01) had no significant effect on engagement.

Tables

Table 1. Correlation matrix and indicators of reliability and validity

Construct α Mean SD 1 2 3
1. Brand experience 0.76 3.41 0.57 1
2. Emotional response 0.63 3.80 0.60 0.39** 1
3. Consumer brand engagement 0.75 3.62 0.60 0.47** 0.51** 1

** Correlation significant at the 0.01 level. α = Cronbach’s alpha; SD = standard deviation. Values as printed in the article.

Table 2. Standardised coefficients of the model

Path β t p Result VIF
H1. Brand experience → emotional response 0.39 5.10 0.001 Accepted 1.02
H2. Emotional response → consumer brand engagement 0.50 7.11 0.001 Accepted 1.00
Control variables
Age → consumer brand engagement 0.13 1.82 0.71
Gender → consumer brand engagement 0.01 −0.23 0.81

n = 526; VIF = variance inflation factor; R² = 0.27. Values as printed in Table 2 of the article.

Table 3. Constructs, items and descriptive statistics
Construct and item Mean SD Skew. Kurt.
Emotional response (adapted from Organ et al., 2015): “Looking back at your last interaction with a sports brand experience, please indicate the extent to which you felt the following emotions”
[ER1] Happy 4.03 0.83 −0.78 1.05
[ER2] Pleasantly surprised 3.73 0.96 −0.40 0.04
[ER3] Pleased 3.68 1.02 −0.56 −0.21
[ER4] Excited 3.91 0.90 −0.66 0.28
[ER5] Unfulfilled 3.69 1.20 −0.60 −0.53
[ER6] Annoyed 3.83 1.07 −0.63 −0.42
[ER7] Disappointed 3.75 1.19 −0.71 −0.41
Brand experience (adapted from Zarantonello et al., 2010)
[BE1] I find BRAND X interesting in a sensory way 3.62 1.09 −0.41 −0.54
[BE2] BRAND X makes a strong impression on my visual sense 3.60 1.09 −0.60 −0.24
[BE3] BRAND X does not appeal to my senses 3.36 1.16 −0.38 −0.57
[BE4] BRAND X induces feelings and sentiments 3.56 1.09 −0.71 −0.06
[BE5] I do not have strong emotions for this BRAND X 3.14 1.25 −0.23 −0.96
[BE6] BRAND X is an emotional brand 3.66 1.18 −0.57 −0.56
[BE7] BRAND X stimulates my curiosity and problem solving 3.21 1.17 −0.12 −0.70
[BE8] I engage in a lot of thinking when I encounter BRAND X 3.13 1.15 −0.01 −0.67
[BE9] BRAND X does not make me think 3.09 1.21 −0.13 −0.79
[BE10] I engage in physical actions and behaviours when I use BRAND X 3.75 1.08 −0.63 −0.39
[BE11] BRAND X results in bodily experiences 3.51 1.02 −0.38 −0.31
[BE12] BRAND X is not action-oriented 3.38 1.22 −0.31 −0.77
Consumer brand engagement (adapted from Hollebeek et al., 2014)
[CBE1] Using BRAND X gets me to think about BRAND X 3.32 1.11 −0.32 −0.47
[CBE2] I think about BRAND X a lot when I am using it 3.21 1.13 −0.06 −0.70
[CBE3] Using BRAND X stimulates my interest in learning more about BRAND X 3.13 1.18 −0.02 −0.82
[CBE4] I feel very positive when I use BRAND X 3.88 0.96 −0.76 0.31
[CBE5] Using BRAND X makes me happy 3.77 1.00 −0.78 0.40
[CBE6] I feel good when I use BRAND X 3.82 0.98 −0.85 0.65
[CBE7] I am proud to use BRAND X 3.77 0.98 −0.66 0.21
[CBE8] I use more BRAND X, compared to other sports brands 3.79 1.14 −0.80 −0.16
[CBE9] Whenever I am wearing a sports brand, I usually use BRAND X 3.63 1.09 −0.46 −0.65
[CBE10] BRAND X is one of the brands I usually wear when I wear sports brands 3.90 1.14 −1.11 0.57

All items on 5-point scales: brand experience and engagement from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree; emotions from 1 = not at all to 5 = very much. BRAND X is the sports brand each respondent named. Items and values as printed in Table 3 (Appendix) of the article (capitalisation of “Is” standardised).

The question

Sports brands invest heavily in experiences, from run clubs and training sessions to live events and activations, in the hope of creating fans rather than customers. Earlier work had linked brand experience and emotions with engagement in other settings, but little was known about how this works for sports brands in Australia, a country where sport runs deep in the culture. Using the stimulus-organism-response model, we asked whether brand experience increases consumers' emotional response to sports brands, and whether that emotional response increases consumer brand engagement.

Implications

Practical implications

Sports brands and their agencies should design holistic brand experiences, in which each touchpoint, from events and activations to athletes and imagery, is built to evoke positive emotions, because those emotions are what turn an experience into engagement. Experiential marketing deserves a larger share of the budget when the goal is lasting relationships rather than one-off sales, and campaigns should be tailored to the emotionally charged nature of Australian sport and to consumers' values and lifestyles.

Theoretical implications

The study applies the stimulus-organism-response model to sports brands, with brand experience as the stimulus, emotional response as the organism and consumer brand engagement as the response. It adds evidence that emotions are a key link between what consumers experience with a brand and how they engage with it, and extends experiential marketing theory to the Australian sports industry.

Limitations and future research

  • The study covered only sports brands, so the findings may not apply to other industries.
  • Data were self-reported by a non-representative snowball sample that does not reflect the Australian population, which limits generalisation.
  • The emotional response scale had a Cronbach's alpha (0.63) below the usual 0.70 threshold.
  • Future work could test other industries, countries and variables such as brand loyalty, satisfaction or digital and social media engagement, and use more objective measures.

Questions this paper answers

Do brand experiences make consumers more engaged with sports brands?

Yes, through emotions. In a survey of 526 Australians, brand experience raised emotional response (β = 0.39), and emotional response raised consumer brand engagement (β = 0.50) (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).

Why do emotions matter for sports marketing?

Emotional response had the largest effect in the model (β = 0.50): people who felt more strongly after a brand experience thought about the brand more, felt better using it and chose it over other sports brands (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).

What is experiential marketing?

Marketing that creates direct, memorable encounters with a brand, such as events, activations or branded training sessions like the Nike Run Club, rather than relying only on advertising messages.

Does age or gender change how engaged sports fans are?

Not in this study. Neither age nor gender had a significant effect on consumer brand engagement (Schivinski, Mancuso & Brzozowska-Woś, 2024).

Key concepts

Brand experience
Sensations, feelings, thoughts and behaviours evoked by brand-related stimuli such as design, identity, packaging, communication and environments (Brakus et al., 2009).
Emotional response
The positive and negative emotions, such as happiness, excitement or disappointment, that consumers feel during or after an interaction with a brand.
Consumer brand engagement
A consumer's cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity in brand interactions (Hollebeek et al., 2014).
Stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model
A framework in which an external stimulus affects a person's internal state, which in turn shapes their behavioural response (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974).
Experiential marketing
Marketing that creates direct, memorable encounters between consumers and brands.

Open science and materials

Study materials

Scale items
All 29 items for emotional response, brand experience and consumer brand engagement, with means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis, are in Table 3 below (all on 5-point scales).
Screening question
“Have you had a real-life advertising experience with a sports brand in Australia?” Respondents then named one sports brand whose advertising they had experienced in real life and answered about that brand.
Data screening
Incomplete questionnaires, straight-lining (SD across items = 0) and low-variance responses (SD 0.1 to 0.5) were removed, along with univariate outliers, leaving 526 of 610 responses.

How to cite

Schivinski, B., Mancuso, G., & Brzozowska-Woś, M. (2024). Exploring the role of brand experience in driving consumer emotions and engagement with sports brands in Australia. Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, 204, 553–574. https://doi.org/10.29119/1641-3466.2024.204.33

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