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**