The role of brand ambassador & consumer past technological behaviors on people’s interpretation and representation of running activities

Abstract

Despite the pandemic, we have observed an increase in the practice of running. As people added this activity to their routine, they also wanted to track each run, using multiple apps. Existing literature shows that through the scope of self­ expansion theory individuals tend to seek a role model that has high social status and a greater number of resources. Through this logic, we wanted to determine how people will perceive an app depending on the type of skill of the ambassadors. The objective was to ensure that different stimuli, would be perceived somewhat differently, depending on the character presenting it. We introduced two independent variables in this study. The type of brand ambassador with one having a strong expertise in health (doctor) and the other one having a clear connection with running activities(athlete). On the other hand, we have the goal of the app which can be related to health or performance. It is important to note here that those two app were fictitious. This study adopted a 7­point Likert scale questions to really understand the tangible impact that brand ambassador has on runners. Testing our main hypothesis, we found a significant correlation between the app's goal and the ambassador's characteristics regarding adoption. Our control group also had lower trust in the app, whichs show how impactful the introduction of an ambassador can be on consumer response.

Date of Award	1 Feb 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Sofia Jacinto (Supervisor)