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Supporting the Cause: How Can Football Supporters Engage with a Club's Brand Extensions

Solmi, Alessandro LU and Moane, Peter LU (2021) BUSN39 20211
Department of Business Administration
Abstract
Title: Supporting the Cause: How Can Football Supporters Engage with a Club’s Brand
Extensions
Seminar Date: June 4th, 2020
Course: BUSN39: Degree Project in Global Marketing
Authors: Peter Moane and Alessandro Solmi
Supervisor: Ekaterini Drosou
Thesis Purpose: This research aims at understanding what English supporters of football
teams with a small fan base deem important in order to buy, engage or interact with the brand
extensions put in place by their favourite club, thereby contributing to the club’s revenue.
Methodology: The thesis adopts a relativist ontology and a social-constructionist
epistemology, which induced authors to choose a qualitative method and an abductive
approach. 12 semi-structured interviews were... (More)
Title: Supporting the Cause: How Can Football Supporters Engage with a Club’s Brand
Extensions
Seminar Date: June 4th, 2020
Course: BUSN39: Degree Project in Global Marketing
Authors: Peter Moane and Alessandro Solmi
Supervisor: Ekaterini Drosou
Thesis Purpose: This research aims at understanding what English supporters of football
teams with a small fan base deem important in order to buy, engage or interact with the brand
extensions put in place by their favourite club, thereby contributing to the club’s revenue.
Methodology: The thesis adopts a relativist ontology and a social-constructionist
epistemology, which induced authors to choose a qualitative method and an abductive
approach. 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted via video-call, where participants
were Fulham supporters younger than 35 years old living in England, with more male than
female supporters. The collected data was analysed following a thematic analysis approach.
Theory: Three theories were used when approaching this study: social-identity theory (and
consumer-company identification), categorisation theory, and expectancy-value theory. These
theories were used as inspiration for the development of the interview guide and for data
interpretation, though other aspects unrelated to the three theories emerged from the data.
Conclusions: English supporters of football clubs with a small fan base consider six aspects
to be important when it comes to the favourite team’s brand extensions: accessibility of the
extensions, affordability of the extensions, respect of sentimental values, avoiding mismatch
between the values attached to the club and business decisions, sense of belonging, and team
performance.
Practical Implications: The six aforementioned aspects should be taken into account by
marketing managers and practitioners within the football industry, when trying to convert
supporters into consumers of the club’s brand extensions.
Keywords: Brand Extension, Engagement, Interaction, Supporters, Football Clubs (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Solmi, Alessandro LU and Moane, Peter LU
supervisor
organization
course
BUSN39 20211
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Brand Extensions, Engagement, Interaction, Supporters, Football clubs
language
English
id
9050455
date added to LUP
2021-06-29 14:23:54
date last changed
2021-06-29 14:23:54
@misc{9050455,
  abstract     = {{Title: Supporting the Cause: How Can Football Supporters Engage with a Club’s Brand
Extensions
Seminar Date: June 4th, 2020
Course: BUSN39: Degree Project in Global Marketing
Authors: Peter Moane and Alessandro Solmi
Supervisor: Ekaterini Drosou
Thesis Purpose: This research aims at understanding what English supporters of football
teams with a small fan base deem important in order to buy, engage or interact with the brand
extensions put in place by their favourite club, thereby contributing to the club’s revenue.
Methodology: The thesis adopts a relativist ontology and a social-constructionist
epistemology, which induced authors to choose a qualitative method and an abductive
approach. 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted via video-call, where participants
were Fulham supporters younger than 35 years old living in England, with more male than
female supporters. The collected data was analysed following a thematic analysis approach.
Theory: Three theories were used when approaching this study: social-identity theory (and
consumer-company identification), categorisation theory, and expectancy-value theory. These
theories were used as inspiration for the development of the interview guide and for data
interpretation, though other aspects unrelated to the three theories emerged from the data.
Conclusions: English supporters of football clubs with a small fan base consider six aspects
to be important when it comes to the favourite team’s brand extensions: accessibility of the
extensions, affordability of the extensions, respect of sentimental values, avoiding mismatch
between the values attached to the club and business decisions, sense of belonging, and team
performance.
Practical Implications: The six aforementioned aspects should be taken into account by
marketing managers and practitioners within the football industry, when trying to convert
supporters into consumers of the club’s brand extensions.
Keywords: Brand Extension, Engagement, Interaction, Supporters, Football Clubs}},
  author       = {{Solmi, Alessandro and Moane, Peter}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Supporting the Cause: How Can Football Supporters Engage with a Club's Brand Extensions}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}