Ballouli, Khalid (2012-10). Building Sport Brands with Music: The Impact of Sport Brand Music on the Shopping Behaviors of Sport Consumers. Doctoral Dissertation.
Thesis
This study examined the effects of sport brand music on the shopping behaviors sport consumers. Sport brand music is custom-designed music that embodies the attributes and characteristics of the sport brand, and plays a formative role in priming concepts related to the sport brand in the minds of sport consumers. Since sport brand music features song lyrics directly related to the sport brand, the purpose of this research was to examine the effects of sport brand music on shopping-related outcomes in an online retail store. Specifically, it was hypothesized that sport brand music would have a positive influence on sport consumers' perceptions of musical fit with the sport brand, which would then lead to positive effects on various shopping behaviors, including evaluation of the store, attitude towards the brand, and purchase intentions. In addition, because people observe store environments in different ways, it was predicted that the personality trait of atmospheric responsiveness would moderate the relationships. The theoretical framework for this research is based on the principles and perspectives of conceptual fluency. It is argued that sport brand music that consists of song lyrics related to the sport brand will be more conceptually fluent and easier to process in a sport brand store than will popular music. A quantitative research design in the form of a laboratory experiment was used in this study. Participants (N=250) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: sport brand music (conceptually fluent) and popular music (not conceptually fluent). The conditions employed in this research involved shopping tasks that took place in a sport brand online retail store. Following the shopping tasks, participants were asked to answer questionnaire items via Qualtrics online survey software. Structural equation modeling (SEM) by means of AMOS 7.0 (Arbuckle, 2006) was utilized to test the hypotheses. Assessment of the measurement model fit for the entire model showed that all variables loaded as expected. Evaluation of the hypotheses showed that participants assigned to the sport brand music condition demonstrated more positive perceptions of musical fit than did participants assigned to the popular music condition(? = -.44, p < .001). Further, results supported the hypothesis that musical fit would then positively affect evaluations of the store (? = .50, p < .001) and attitudes toward the brand (? = .14, p < .05), but did not affect purchase intentions (? = .11, p = .06). In addition, findings indicate that evaluations of the store significantly related to attitudes toward the brand (? = .52, p < .001), which positively related to purchase intentions (? = .53, p < .001). Moreover, atmospheric responsiveness was found to have a moderating effect on musical fit (? = -.13, p = .06). Details of this research, as well as research limitations, study implications, and future directions, are forwarded.
