ADVANCED MARKETING IN SPORTS
CENTRE DE COMPETENCES : Competition & Competitivity
DISCIPLINE : Marketing
CREDITS ECTS : 5 EFFECTIF : 15-25
Nombres et format horaires des séances : 30 H
PROGRAMME(S) CONCERNE(S) : Master International Sport & Event Management
PRE REQUIS : Marketing - Strategy
LANGUE : English
PROFESSEURS : Bernard Cova & Robert Spencer
RCM : Bernard Cova
Bernard Cova is Professor of Marketing at Euromed Marseilles - School of Management and
Visiting Professor at Università Bocconi, Milan. A pioneer in the Consumer Tribes field since
the early nineties, his internationally-influential research has emphasized what he calls "the
Latin approach" of tribal marketing. His work on this topic has been published in the
International Journal of Research in Marketing, the European Journal of Marketing,
Marketing Theory and the Journal of Business Research. He is also known for his
groundbreaking researcher in B2B marketing, especially in the field of project marketing. His
latest publications include two books directly related to the topic of the course:
 CONSUMING EXPERIENCES (Carù A. & Cova, B.) published by Routledge,
2007;
 CONSUMER TRIBES (Cova, B., Kozinets, R.V. & Shankar, A.) published by
Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007.
BACKGROUND, SUMMARY AND LEARNING GOALS OF THE COURSE:
Part 1 : Tribal Branding Strategies - Brand Communities
It is well recognized that brands constitute one of the major assets of companies and that
brand strength is a major driver of consumer brand equity. The understanding of the
importance of Brand strategies is a key to the development of overall firms’ strategy.
However, the vast majority of brand strategies promoted by proponents of the dominant
marketing system are predicated in fact on a relatively simplistic and unidirectional schema:
on one hand, we find images, brands, products and services coming out of the corporate sector;
on the other, we find consumers who take in these images, brands, products and services. Such
analyses give no thought to what consumers are actually doing with such brands and products
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inside and outside of the marketplace. Consumers are not refusing these brands, but they are
transforming (and occasionally twisting) the meanings and usages they are being forced to
accept along with them. They are manifesting a wonderful ability to divert each symbol to
their own benefit, to circumvent customary rules, to invent meanings and functions that
producers and the market-based system have not foreseen. Marketing actions can offer images
and functions, but nothing more! Consumers can neither be forced to accept them, nor to
implement them in their daily lives.
Recent experiences have highlighted how hard it can be for some companies to interact with
consumers. Consumers today would appear to be more active, participative, activist,
recreational, social and community-minded than ever before. Some consumers’ shared
passion for or against a brand concretises nowadays in expertise and competence-based group
learning systems. The presence of impassioned, interconnected and expert consumers is
therefore predicated on a rebalancing of capabilities in the company-consumer relationship.
Remember what happened in early 2006 to Diet Coke and Mentos: hundreds of amateur
videos flooded the Internet showing an oddball experiment in which people would drop
quarter-size Mentos candies into bottles of Diet Coke. The combination resulted in a geyser of
soda that would shoot as high as 20 feet into the air. A wary Coca-Cola at first distanced itself
from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing a loss of control
over its brand. Coke tried to counter the incipient word-of-mouth reaction by saying that the
experiment didn’t fit with the brand personality of Diet Coke and that they wished people
would drink the cola and not experiment with it. Mentos, on the other hand, relished the
estimated $10 million dollars in exposure from a viral video that had cost it nothing. But the
story didn’t end there. Despite initially shunning the Diet Coke/Mentos viral video and
pursuing its previous marketing direction, Coke tried to capitalize on it a few months later and
it has now fully embraced the concept. Today the two companies collaborate with the
videomakers, who had imposed their power, overcoming Coca-Cola’s initial resistance.
Consequently, in this course, we cast branding in a different light by examining it from the
standpoint of the consumers’ life world, the web of relationships in which they are suspended.
This impacts directly the management of brands and helps to critically rethink the branding
approach. In this course, an alternative or enriched model is proposed that allows a more
responsible view on branding. This model is the one that a group of researchers known under
the name of CCT (Consumer Culture Theory) has chosen to be its basic framework.
The learning objectives of the course encompass “savoir” (know), “savoir faire” (know how
to do), “savoir être” (know how to be) and “savoir devenir” (know how to become) and
include the following:
- Understand the impact of brands on the consumer life;
- Gain both a conceptual and analytical understanding of key concepts: brand authenticity,
brand community, brand hijack;
- Approach the branding phenomenon as a socio-cultural one.
Part 2 : B to B marketing : Networks and Markets performance
The notion of Marketing in the area of Sports Management is often reduced to ideas of such
issues as brand management and effects on sales of derived products (sports apparel,
fashionwear etc), - this translates as an interest in typical activities such as sponsorship - or
else the staging of sports events and associated promotional activities.. A closer look rapidly
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reveals however another, subjacent, reality : that of the Business-to-Business world and
associated market characteristics and marketing practice. In actual fact these two “realities”
are fatally intertwined, and outcomes of marketing action in one have an, effect on the other,
and vice versa.
This course starts by questioning assumptions relative to the world of sports marketing and
explores, initially, the differences between consumer marketing and BtoB marketing. Focus is
then placed on the BtoB marketing dimension, highlighting both its importance, and the tools
and methods used, Students are brought to reflect on specific examples and applications in the
sports field.
Knowledge
.
Acquire knowledge on the fundamental nature of sports markets
Acquire Knowledge on the tools and methods adapted to BtoB markets
‘Know-how
Develop analytical and problem solving capability faced with a sports marketing
context
Develop know-how as regards the applicability of appropriate marketing tools
depending on context
Develop know-how and competency as regards group work
Develop information search capaboilities
Part 1 Tribal Branding Strategies - Brand Communities
by Bernarc Cova (15H)
SESSIONS AND THEMES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Consuming in a Postmodern Society
Consumer Identity Strategies and the Brands
Consumer Tribes
Brand Communities
Brand Authenticity
Consumer Made Brand Strategies
Beyond Tribal Branding
COURSE MATERIAL:
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Slides of the lectures
Mini cases studies
Videos
Selected readings
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WORKLOAD and WORKFORMS
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Class room sessions: 15 h
Research assignment (an introspective analysis of your life with a brand): individual
assignment: 2 h
Company evaluation (analysis of a branding strategy): group assignment: 2h (each
student)
Final assignment (answers to a list of questions): individual assignment: 1h.
Part 2 : B to B marketing : Networks and Markets performance
by Robert Spencer (15H)
SEANCE
THEME
Session 1 : Sports marketing. BtoB or BtoC ? Recap and Analysis of the Sports marketing
context
Session 2: A recap on BtoC marketing basics. A comparison of BtoC and BtoB marketing
theory and practice
Session 3: Specifics of Business Markets: the Buying centre concept, BtoB relationships,
Networks…
Session 4: Tools and Methods used in in a BtoB context
Session 5: BtoB examples in a sports marketing context and an exploration of BtoC/BtoB
market Interdependencies
EXAMINATION AND GRADING:
Research assignment: 30 % of the final grade
Company evaluation: 30% of the final grade
Final assignment: 40 % of the final grade
Students are required to participate in selected theme analysis and group exercises, and
prepare a presentation for class discussion in the final session (group work)
Presence is mandatory
Final grade: is a combination of the all the above mentioned.
COMPULSORY READING:
Articles (available before the course in pdf format)
Cova, B. (1996), “The Postmodern Explained to Managers: Implications for
Marketing”, Business Horizons, Vol. 39, N° 6, Nov.-Dec. pp. 15-27.
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Cova, B. (1997), “Community and Consumption: Towards a Definition of the Linking
Value of Products or Services”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31, N°
3/4, pp. 297-316.
Cova, B. and Cova, V. (2001), “Tribal aspects of postmodern consumption research:
The case of French in-line roller skaters”, Journal of Consumer Behavior, Vol.
1, N° 1, pp. 67-76.
Cova, B. and Pace, S. (2006), “Brand Community of Convenience Products: New
Forms of Customer Empowerment. The Case my Nutella the Community”,
European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40, N°9/10, pp. 1087-1105.
Cova, B., Pace, S. and Park, D.J. (2007), “Global brand communities across borders:
the Warhammer case”, International Marketing Review, Vol. 24, N. 3, pp. 313329.
ADDITIONAL READING:
Books
Arnould, E., Price, L. and Zinkhan, G. (2002), Consumers, McGraw-Hill, New York
Atkin, D. (2004), The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers,
Portfolio, New York.
Elliott, R. and Percy, L. (2007), Strategic Brand Management, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Holt, D.B. (2004), How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding,
HBS Press, Harvard.
Solomon, M.R. (2003), Conquering Consumerspace, Marketing Strategies for a
Branded World, Amacom, New York.
Wipperfürth, A. (2005), Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing, Portfolio, New
York.
Articles
Algesheimer, R., Dholakia, U.M. and Hermann, A. (2005), “The Social Influence of
Brand Community: Evidence from European Car Clubs”, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 69, N° 3, pp. 19-34.
Arnould E. J. and Thompson C. J. (2005), “Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty
Years of Research”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, March, pp. 868882.
Broderick, A., MacLaran, P. and Ma, P.Y. (2003), “Brand Meaning Negotiation and
the Role of the Online Community: A Mini Case Study”, Journal of Customer
Behaviour, Vol. 2, N°1, pp. 75-103.
Brown, S. (2004), “O Customer, Where Art Thou?”, Business Horizons, Vol. 47, N°4,
pp. 61-70.
Cova, B. and Cova, V. (2002), “Tribal Marketing: The Tribalisation of Society and its
Impact on the Conduct of Marketing”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol.
36, N°5/6, pp. 595-620.
Deighton, J. (2002), “How Snapple Got Its Juice Back”, Harvard Business Review,
January, pp. 47-53.
Earls, M. (2003), “Advertising to the Herd: How Understanding our True Nature
Challenges the Ways we Think about Advertising and Market Research”,
International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 45, N°3, pp. 311-336.
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Fournier, S. (1998), “Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in
Consumer Research”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, June, pp. 343373.
Kozinets, R.V. (1999), “E-Tribalized Marketing? The Strategic Implications of Virtual
Communities of Consumption”, European Management Journal, Vol. 17, N°3,
pp. 252-264.
Kozinets, R.V. (2001), “Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek’s
Culture of Consumption”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 28, June, pp.
67-88.
Kozinets, R.V. (2002), “The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for
Marketing Research in Online Communities”, Journal of Marketing Research,
Vol. XXXIX, February, pp. 61-72.
McAlexander, J.H., Schouten, J.W. and Koenig, H.F. (2002), “Building Brand
Community”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 66, January, pp. 38-54.
McWilliam, G. (2000), “Building Stronger Brands through Online Communities”,
Sloan Management Review, Spring, pp. 43-54.
Muniz, A. M. Jr. and O’Guinn, T.C. (2001), “Brand Community”, Journal of
Consumer Research, Vol. 27, March, pp. 412-432.
Muniz, A. M. Jr. and Schau, H.P. (2005), “Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple
Newton Brand Community”, Journal of Consumer Research, March, Volume
31, March, pp. 737-747.
Schouten, J.W. and McAlexander, J.H. (1995), “Subcultures of Consumption: An
Ethnography of the New Bikers”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22,
June, pp. 43-61.
Selected readings will be distributed during class sessions. Complementary reading can
be found on www.impgroup.org
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