Experiential marketing in sport spectatorship services: a customer perspective

Research question: Services play a growing role in modern sport industries. Relatively little is known about the impact of experiential marketing strategy on consumer behaviour and within the context of sporting events industry in particular. The study seeks to start addressing this gap in knowledge and to better examine the subjectively based aspects of extra-ordinary experiences, which define experiential marketing, in sporting events lived by consumers, and their impact in terms of consumer behaviour and experiential and branding strategies.Research methods: A series of in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with Stade de Français' spectators who witnessed what is considered as extra-ordinary experiences. The 26 interviewees were aged between 18 and 56 years old (M age = 24.7), and were comprised of 18 males and 8 females.Results and findings: It was found that the pricing issue, which highlighted the presence of opportunistic behaviour, was probably as important as the experiential marketing strategy. Moreover, if experiential marketing influenced brand awareness and brand associations, those associations were not always perceive positively particularly from the most committed and connoisseur fans. Finally, this marketing strategy did not seem to have any conspicuous positive result in terms of brand loyalty.Implications: An explanation relying on the tribal marketing approach, which emphasises the link between consumers rather than between consumers and the brand, could be put forward estimating that the consumers attracted by the extraordinary experiences provided are more interested in the link with the other consumers than the brand and the service offered