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Brand Awareness of Obstacle Course Racing Events A BRAND AWARENESS OF OBSTACLE COURSE RACING EVENTS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN KINESIOLOGY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HEALTH PROMOTION AND KINESIOLOGY COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES BY KIMBERLY COFFMAN B.S., M.Ed. DENTON, TEXAS DECEMBER 2020 Copyright © 2020 by Kimberly Coffman DEDICATION To Randy and Janet Coffman and Christopher “Bubba” Brewster; my inspiration to never stop at good and always strive for greatness. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Gwendolyn Weatherford, who throughout this journey has been an anchor of motivation, advice, and positivity. She pushed me to see this through and with her support, my academic goals have been fulfilled! Special thanks go also to Dr. Kayla Peak, who inspired me many moons ago to pursue this path in academia, Dr. Kimberly Miloch, who helped me develop the foundational ideas for this study and especially to my committee members Dr. Nichols, Dr. Webb and Dr. Picariello for their time, effort, and never ending support. Finally, I thank my husband, Bubba, for giving me love and support, and motivating me to never give up. iii ABSTRACT KIMBERLY COFFMAN BRAND AWARENESS OF OBSTACLE COURSE RACING EVENTS DECEMBER 2020 The current study investigated brand awareness, event awareness, and event satisfaction on event purchase and purchase intentions for three major obstacle course event companies (Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, and The Warrior Dash). The study also examined the influence of consumer characteristics (demographic and past behavior) on satisfaction and the satisfaction–repurchase relationship among race participants and spectators. Using a consumer awareness theory as a basis, an online survey was developed and the link was positioned on the Mud Run Guide Facebook site to recruit subjects. Descriptive statistics were presented for consumer characteristics, past behavior, and satisfaction of the survey participants. Correlations were presented for consumer characteristics and past behavior on event awareness, event purchase, and purchase intention. The last research question examined differences in event purchase intentions for event awareness, brand recognition, and tagline recognition. The main findings of the study were that brand imaging appears to have more of an impact on consumers than taglines, consumer satisfaction with events is focused in areas of quality of obstacles, (M = 4.0) atmosphere of the race events s (M = 4.1), and consumers are least satisfied with iv event price (M = 3.3). Additionally, the typical consumer in the study included males and females between the ages of 25–44 (n = 28, 72%) that had previous sport experience. Further, most previous OCR consumers plan to participate in future events so they are a prime target market group, and therefore OCR companies may focus strongly on customer retention. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... iviii LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................x Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................1 Purpose....................................................................................................................4 Significance .............................................................................................................5 Research Questions ................................................................................................6 Delimitations ...........................................................................................................7 Limitations ..............................................................................................................7 Summary .................................................................................................................8 Definition of Terms ................................................................................................8 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................................................10 Consumer Awareness Theory .............................................................................10 Branding ...............................................................................................................11 Building Brand Equity ........................................................................................12 Brand Awareness .................................................................................................14 Brand Association ................................................................................................15 Tagline Recognition .............................................................................................16 Promotions ............................................................................................................17 Consumer Satisfaction .........................................................................................18 Purchase Intentions .............................................................................................19 vi Obstacle Course Racing Event ...........................................................................21 III. METHOD ....................................................................................................................23 Participants ...........................................................................................................24 Instrumentation....................................................................................................25 Procedure ..............................................................................................................31 Expert Review ......................................................................................................32 Internal Validity ...................................................................................................33 External Validity ..................................................................................................35 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................35 Summary ...............................................................................................................36 IV. RESULTS ....................................................................................................................37 Expert Review ......................................................................................................38 Pilot Study Reliability Testing ............................................................................41 Survey Distribution ..............................................................................................42 Descriptive Statistics ............................................................................................42 Event Satisfaction.................................................................................................50 Correlation Analysis ............................................................................................51 ANOVA Analysis .................................................................................................55 Summary ...............................................................................................................60 V. DISCUSSION ...............................................................................................................62 Interpretations......................................................................................................63 Consumer Characteristics .......................................................................63 Consumer Characteristics Correlations with Event Awareness, Event Purchase, and Purchase Intentions .............................................66 Years of OCR Involvement .....................................................................67 Event Satisfaction.....................................................................................68 Brand and Tagline Recognition ..............................................................70 Strengths, Limitations, and Recommendations ................................................73 Conclusion ............................................................................................................77 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................78 APPENDICES A. Permission Letter .........................................................................................................92 B. Permission Letter Response ..........................................................................................94 vii C. Instrument......................................................................................................................96
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