Exploring the Explicit and Implicit Appeal of Retro Sport Logos

Abstract

The current multi-study examination explored explicit and implicit appeal of a prominent form of retro sport marketing: retro team logos. Study 1 utilized the stimuli-organism-response framework to test preference differences between those offered team merchandise with a retro logo and those offered the same merchandise with the current logo. Statistically significant preference differences were not uncovered, yet it was found that previous exposure to the retro logo negatively impacted preference of the retro logo. Based on these results, Study 2 utilized an implicit association test to assess the style appeal of retro and current logos. This assessment, once again, found no difference in the explicit preference for the retro and current logos, yet an implicit bias of freshness toward the current logo and outdatedness toward the retro logo was found. Together, the results provide preliminary evidence of the ephemeral impact of retro team logos within a professional sports context.

Time will tell: examining the role of nostalgia in retro sport merchandise purchase intentions

“…This finding makes sense as Tian et al.’s (2001) scale was created to measure aspects of consumers need for uniqueness and retro logos are often seen as cooler and more unique. Dwyer et al. (2020) examined and suggested creative choice could be an important factor in the exploration of retro preferences.…”

“…It was important to include this scenario, as it provided the context to answer the upcoming purchase intention question. A similar procedure was used by Dwyer et al (2020) whereas price was selected after surveying Amazon.com for similar shirts at the time of the study. The role of nostalgia Survey items to measure the organism factors included the following scaled instruments: attachment to team, creative choice and brand nostalgia.…”

“…That does NOT include shipping or sales tax.” It was important to include this scenario, as it provided the context to answer the upcoming purchase intention question. A similar procedure was used by Dwyer et al. (2020) whereas price was selected after surveying Amazon.com for similar shirts at the time of the study.…”

“…It has often been used in retail settings (Sherman et al, 1997) and has been utilized to explore a nostalgic setting in an online retail space (Chang et al, 2011). In the realm of sport, it has been utilized to explore the atmosphere around a major sporting event (Uhrich and Koenigstorfer, 2009), to contextualize retro marketing practices in sport (Scola and Gordon, 2018), to examine the potential appeal of retro sport logos (Dwyer et al, 2020) and to attempt to examine demographic differences in sport fans who prefer retro logos (Scola et al, 2022).…”

“…The authors sought out fans of these two teams rather than general consumers because the goal of the study was to examine the impact that brand nostalgia may influence sport fan's feelings towards their favorite team's branded merchandise. Countless sport marketing studies have utilized as few as one fan base as a sampling frame to generalize back to the sport fan base as a whole, most similarly Dwyer et al (2020) surveyed fans of the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Phillies to examine their feelings towards each teams retro logos. There are potential limitations to using MTurk like bots and professional survey takers (Chmielewski and Kucker, 2019) yet it has been found to draw more representative samples of sport fans (Goodman et al, 2013).…”