TALLINN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY School of Economics and Business Administration Department of Business Administration Chair of Marketing Jussi Alanen SPORT EVENT CONSUMER MOTIVES IN FINLAND Bachelor ́s Thesis Supervisor: Lecturer René Arvola Tallinn 2016 I declare I have written the bachelor’s thesis independently. All works and major viewpoints of the other authors, data from other sources of literature and elsewhere used for writing this paper have been referenced. Jussi Alanen ................................. (signature, date) Student’s code: 123434 Student’s e-mail address: [email protected] Supervisor: Lecturer René Arvola: The thesis conforms to the requirements set for the bachelor’s theses ................................................... (signature, date) Chairman of defence committee: Permitted to defence ....................................... (Title, name, signature, date) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 4 1. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR ......................................................................................................... 7 1.1. Motivation ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.1.1. Maslow’s theory of human needs ................................................................................... 7 1.1.2. Human needs as a basis for segmentation ...................................................................... 9 1.2. Theory of consumer behavior ............................................................................................. 12 1.2.1. Word-of-Mouth ............................................................................................................ 12 2. SPORT MARKETING AND SPORT EVENTS ...................................................................... 14 2.1. Sport marketing ................................................................................................................... 14 2.2. Sport Events in Finland ....................................................................................................... 16 2.2.1. Competition between events ........................................................................................ 19 2.3. Sport in Finland .................................................................................................................. 19 3. MY RESEARCH ....................................................................................................................... 21 3.1. Research method ................................................................................................................. 21 3.2. Results and findings ............................................................................................................ 25 3.3. Recommendations ............................................................................................................... 33 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................... 36 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 38 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................... 41 Appendix 1. Covering Letter ..................................................................................................... 41 Appendix 2. Questionnaire’s questions ..................................................................................... 42 Appendix 3. Answers from the questionnaire ............................................................................ 43 ABSTRACT The competition for spectators in sport events is hard. There is a large variety of free time activities from which to choose. The research problem is that the organizers of sport events in Finland might not know enough about motives of sport consumers. The objective is to find out why people attend sport events and therefore help the organizers in marketing their events more efficiently. A qualitative research method and content analysis has been used in this thesis. An open-ended questionnaire was sent to a group of randomly selected spectators of an ice-hockey game in Helsinki. The research data was collected from answers of the questionnaire and that data was analyzed in order to find out the motives for attending the game. As a result there were three key factors found. They were affiliation, achievement and emotions. This is useful information for organizers when trying to market sport events more efficiently. It helps to advertise cost-efficiently when methods and timing is correctly targeted. Keywords: sport events, sport event consumers’ motives, affiliation, achievement, emotions, efficient marketing INTRODUCTION The competition between free time events in Finland is getting stronger. Sport events are facing competition for participants with other free time events. Also the availability of sport on pay channels on television and internet is making the competition even harder. Organizers of sport events are working in a difficult environment, and for marketers of sportsevents the important question is raised: how to get consumers to participate in sport events. (Alaja 2000, 17) Sport events have lost spectators because there is huge variety of sport activities on offer in the media. In addition to that new free time events will be available in the market for consumers. These all are competing for the same audience. The rapid development of media industry brings out new unseen possibilities of showing sport online. The consumers can watch their favourite sport with various devices anywhere. The primary motive for participation in a sport event is worth researching. Finding out the key factors that attract spectators of sport events the organizers get valuable information that can be used when planning the methods of marketing. Consumer motives of sport spectators in Finland are to be researched because many sport clubs are struggling with financial difficulties. With the help of findings of the research the event organizers can reach the potential spectators more efficiently. The research problem is lack of up-to-date knowledge about consumer motives of sport event participants in Finland. The research objective is to find out consumers’ motives for attending sport events in Finland. Information gathered from the research will help sport event organizers to market their events more efficiently. If the organizers knew how to find the target group of marketing their event, the marketing campaigns could be well-targeted. They can improve their marketing practices and marketing will be cost-effective. This will benefit also the participants because they will receive information about events they most probably are interested in. If the consumers did not have to actively search for interesting sport events they might 4 participate more often in them. When the organizers get more information about the factors that consumers find important they can improve their events. Consumers are more satisfied and experience getting value for the money spent on the event. This will more likely get the consumer to participate in the sport event again. The research tasks in the thesis were finding the research problem, defining the objective of the research, finding the theory as well as solving the research problem based on the theories. Solving the problem included analyzing the problem, doing empirical research by choosing the research method, inventing the correct questions to the questionnaire, performing the survey, analyzing the gathered data in order to find out the results of the research and finding possible solutions. In this thesis a qualitative method of research has been used. An open-ended questionnaire was implemented and the data gathered was analyzed using content analysis as a method. The data obtained from the questionnaire formed the research data. In consumer behavior chapter the key concepts of human behavior are explained. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs is the framework through which the theories of consumer behavior are introduced. It has also been applied to the motives of sport consumers. Some theories of consumer behavior and the factors which affect to the decision making of the consumer are presented here. This chapter provides a basis for analysis stage of the research. In sport marketing and sport events chapter the participants of sport events are classified by means of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The motives of sport event participants found in previous research studies are presented in this chapter. The chapter provides an overview of sport events in Finland: some statistical information on sport events in Finland as well as sport events favoured by sport spectators in Finland is included in this chapter. The number of spectators has declined over the years and sport event organizers are struggling with major challenges in trying to keep the events profitable. This chapter helps determine the objectives of the research. Research chapter describes the research method and data collecting process. The research method was qualitative and data was collected with an open-ended questionnaire.