Dr. Close Investigates Event Marketing

Dr. Angeline Close is an assistant professor and one of three new faculty members in the Department of Advertising & Public Relations this year. Prior to joining the faculty here at Texas, Dr. Close studied advertising and business at the University of Georgia and served The University of Nevada at the Lee Business School for 5 years in Las Vegas.

Here Dr. Close talks about event marketing, the Super Bowl and senior prom.

Prior to joining the faculty here at Texas, you studied at the University of Georgia and The University of Nevada. What drew you to The University of Texas?

Both the Texas Advertising program’s tradition and culture of academic excellence attracted me to UT. The University of Texas’ tradition of excellence entails sharp, forward-thinking doctoral students, masters and undergrad students, colleagues, Longhorn alumni and business partners. Texas Advertising has consistently been a top three program over the last 2 decades, and a top-ranked advertising program. It is a real honor to be a part of this program.

The research culture lends beautifully to my continued goals of creating and disseminating scholarly contributions to the fields of marketing and advertising. Specifically, I research event marketing and sponsorship. I learned a lot about entertainment marketing in Vegas. Austin is a mecca for events, and Texas has various pro sports franchises. The research culture here entails doctoral programs both in advertising and marketing, the new Texas Program in Sports and Media, The Journal of Advertising, a large subject pool, and opportunities for generous research funding. I am beyond excited about the new Belo Center for New Media—especially the behavioral research labs. It will have a physiological and eye-tracking room, experimental labs, focus group facility, and survey area. But above everything, I am happy for the opportunity to teach undergrads and work with doctoral students. 

You currently serve as the President of the American Marketing Association's (AMA) Consumer Behavior division. Can you talk about the work you do with that organization?

CBSIG is the Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group of the AMA. We are a group of 601 scholars from across the country, and to a lesser extent, world, who actively research consumer behavior. I lead a board of directors, and we are responsible for providing value to members via academic programming, networking receptions, and cbsig.org. We are currently proposing two special sessions for the AMA conference—one on public policy and marketing, and another on the role of fit in event sponsorship. We are also in process of creating an awards program to recognize contributions to scholarship among members. 

The Super Bowl took place earlier this month and, according to the Chicago Tribune, there were 22 official sponsors for this year's event. What effect does it have on a brand to be an official sponsor of the Super Bowl?

Signaling Theory explains that consumers in part rely on signals to access brand perceptions. One signal of brand strength is being among the elite few who can and wish to invest (remember advertising is an investment not an expense) 2.65-4 million dollars to air an ad. Advertisers pay for reach and spillover effects. Where else can you get an audience of 163 million viewers that actually look forward to watching ads? It is a rare event where advertising is welcomed into our homes. Even during an increased state of market resistance, consumers expect top-notch (often humor) appeals during this event to entertain them and their loved ones. This in turn, sparks word of mouth and consumer discussion about the ads and the brands. More telling for investors, is that businesses that advertise during this main event outperform the Standard and Poor 500 when stocks are analyzed the following week.

The value of being an "official" sponsor (as opposed to sponsorship highjacking—where a sponsor "crashes" an event) is the legality. Only official sponsors have legal authority to use the Superbowl name in their ads and promotions. In turn, there can be negotiations that the event will not bring on a major competitor in the same industry. So, Pepsi’s official sponsorship can be a strategic move against Coca-Cola. Does that prevent you from being a Coke loyalist? Likely not.

At another level of sponsorship, both quarterbacks (Tom Brady and Eli Manning) have star power as brand spokespeople. Research shows that we seek expertise in the relevant area (here football), trust, and credibility in celebrity sponsors/endorsers. Botching one of those can have profound impact on an endorser’s relationship with the brand. Tiger Woods in his cheating scandal exemplifies this, as various sponsors (besides Nike) cut his contracts due to fears of negative affect transfer to their brand. This is especially crucial to companies like AT&T and Accenture, which are trust-based business services. There is value in victory, as America loves winners—yet winning is not always enough to carry a brand via endorsement.

I would reconsider traditional Superbowl advertising. I would consider investing that 4 million dollars not in a 30 second fleeting ad, but in lived, experiential sponsored events that embed promotion and product experience and leverage these with social media (which is IMHO still a steal and gets better targeting daily) to encourage viral media and consumer word-of-mouth. I would stage local events to get consumers involved and to have the brands help bring an (appreciated) sense of community involvement. I have tested efficacy of events/sponsorships, and if leveraged correctly with traditional advertising and social media to the target market, the emotional live atmosphere can work, be more appreciated than invasive traditional advertising, and can have a lower costs per reach. I would donate the leftover money from saving millions to a target-event-sponsor congruent nonprofit or charity. Done altruistically, it shows that companies have hearts and are not just profit-mongers as some consumers think. 

I encourage the new era of ad/PR/marketing scholars and practitioners (our students) to think outside of the box in allocating their marketing investments. There are so many newer (lesser-tested I understand) tools to engage customers in non-invasive—even appreciated ways.

There are a lot of popular books out there on consumer behavior. (Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational comes to mind.) Why do you think this academic subject has such crossover appeal with the general public?

We are in a society where advertising is the backdrop to life. We can’t escape the marketplace and consumerism, and the Internet and globalization will continue to keep consumerism as a main force in our lives and economies. So, consumer behavior is the study of consumer attitudes, emotions, and resulting behaviors as they relate to brands and the marketplace. With my research, I examine consumer attitudes and behaviors, and make implications for consumer-driven business and public policy. The general public has a lot to gain from this power shift from big corporate America to a more transparent, online, consumer-driven culture. Because advertising and marketing and brands and events help form our lives and experiences, most people are interested in how marketing impacts them. I think it is interesting that most people I have talked with on this topic seem to think that advertising doesn’t impact them. There are subconscious effects that we don’t care to admit do impact us at some level.

Yes, there are some good books on consumer behavior that have focused on these topics, and Professor Ariely’s book is wonderful in that it is research-based. That is an important distinction when reading a marketing book. I think the most useful, valid ones, are based on tested theories and not just hunches. I have really enjoyed editing two books on consumer behavior research (one on sports event marketing and a new one on social media/online advertising). It is valuable to have authors and editors that have the ability of taking complicated research-driven theoretical models to a conversation style that most can appreciate and apply to their businesses and selves as a consumer. I hope to see more books about consumer behavior, especially research-driven ones, on the market because new technology brings new avenues of consumption contexts to explore.

Your work in consumer behavior extends online. How do you think the lessons we've learned from your consumer behavior studies can be applied to electronic marketplaces?

One lesson my research shows is that physical, experiential aspects of consumption have pronounced effects on consumer attitudes, emotions, and behaviors. For instance, the event marketing setting serves as an environment where consumers seem more appreciative of advertisers (sponsors) because they help make events happen—instead of interrupting programming. We have a long way before online environments can entail the same emotional connection and consumer experience that live events (e.g., a sporting event) bring. When brands (sponsors) bring people together who enjoy the same thing, be it a fashion show or a race, there is a heightened sense of community and appreciation.

My event marketing research shows a few important things. One, when marketers provide opportunities for the consumer to experience the sponsor’s products during an event, it enhances consumer perceptions of the event and brand. Two, event attendees who are more community-minded have a more positive opinion of the sponsor as a result of their experience at the sponsored event. Three, if they keep returning to an event, consumers show a lift in enhanced brand image and purchase intentions of an ongoing title sponsor’s products. That is, attitudes towards the title sponsor are most favorable among consumers who attended the event multiple times. This points to the power of live experience. Four, I show that congruity is key. Namely, self-congruity with the event enhances persuasiveness of the event, likelihood to do business with the sponsor. I have not been successful in replicating these studies in an online envorinment; I think the lived experience is the stronger condition.

Note that consumer behavior and online consumer behavior are different; online environments often take out the social aspects of purchasing. Shopping context aside, attitudes are relatively stable. People, over time, really have not changed that much fundamentally. The golden rule still applies. The context in which we deliver and receive communication of course has progressed to socially-networked, online, computer or mobile device mediated environments. There is some resistance to change and technology—but I have also uncovered resistance to markets, retailers, and gift rituals. The universal is that consumers resist change when it is not their idea and they feel powerless. Point is live versus computer-mediated contexts are different. It is not appropriate to take our knowledge of consumer behavior and assume truths hold in online environments of social networks or e-tail.

With respect to your research, what current work are you most passionate about right now?

I am eager to uncover some more of the emotional and attitudinal conditions that live or special events bring to people. With the exception of my early online dating and Valentine’s event work, I have mainly focused on the marketing/advertising effectiveness of sponsored events. But there is a bigger picture that entails how the person—the consumer—is impacted by events. Please think about your senior prom. That was likely a major event in your young life. How were your attitudes and behaviors in part driven by emotion or peer-pressure? I think that we have to think about how special events impact us as human beings just as much as how they impact marketing effectiveness. So, my new prom event study taps into this. I have interviewed 22 young women here at UT about their prom event experiences, and I have some insights about how to recognize event-driven peer-pressure among adolescent women. 

This semester you're teaching Integrated Communications Management. What are you hoping for students to get out of that class?

I am focused on giving them a useful, tested approach to make managerial decisions in the arena of modern marketing campaigns. I teach them how to pull a precise problem or opportunity out of a muddled situation. I tell them that I think this is the hardest part. There are so many things to think about, we have to narrow down a focused problem to attack. Then, I show them how to rank order and draw critical factors in a managerial case. I show them how these critical factors are crucial to coming up with alternative strategies of how to address the problem or opportunity. We learn how to recognize and address pros and cons of all alternatives before confidentally recommending a campaign/solution to upper-management. This is a skill they will take with them, no matter if they land agency-side, client side, in media, account-planning, or creative.

To role-play the agency setting, I have placed them each on a top-grossing ad agency account. So, each time they present, it is in a professional setting where they speak and write on the account of BBDO, Omnicom, or another major agency. They write case papers and give presentations to our TA Kate and I, where we role-play as the managerial decision makers. Like in the agency setting, we drill them with questions about their account, client, budgets, strategy, social media, and decision-making process. While they may not like this now, I am preparing them for the competitive real-world.

Also to get tuned into the agency world, I am excited to taking students to top ad agencies in New York City’s Madison Avenue next month. We are going to get to see this managerial framework put into live action. When I was an undergrad advertising student, my professor took me on a similar trip to Madison Avenue, and it sparked a lot. I hope to do the same for at least one of the students on this trip. I hope I can help open doors for them.