Brand Personality of IPL teams A factor Analysis approach

Sports have always been a great tool in marketers accouterments for marketing and branding purposes. India being a country known for its passion for cricket has seen many brands relying on cricket as an important component of overall marketing plan. Cricket icons like MS Dhony, Sachin Tendulakar are known for the highest and biggest endorsement deals. Indian cricket team commands great respect among brands both national and international due to the sheer popularity of cricket in India. Keeping up with this, IPL, within a short span of 34years, also has become a global sports brand. IPL has also become one of the most valuable brands in India. Carlson et al (2009) investigated the relationship between Brand personality of a team and various consumer outcomes like watching the teams match and purchasing the team merchandize. They established through their research that a customers identification with the team results in various positive and negative outcomes. People tend to patronize teams on the basis of brand personality of the team. The brand personality of the team is also important to study, from the point of view of the product marketers which have to decide which team to associate with. Purpose The aim of this study is to assess the brand personality of the Indian cricket team, IPL and four IPL teams i.e. Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings. The study also aims at investigating the impact of congruence between a teams brand personality and a consumers self perceived personality on the consumers attitude towards the team. The study also attempts to measure the customers attitude towards major brands endorsed by the teams. Research Method The study is descriptive in nature. The study uses J Aakers (1997) brand personality instrument which asses 42 traits using a 5-point Likert scale (1= not at all descriptive, 5 = extremely descriptive) rating the extent to which each trait describes the specific brand of interest. The 42 traits measure brand personality along 5 dimensions i.e. Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. The data are collected from 120 college students from Indore city. Finding / Implications - Considering the lack of literature on the brand personality of the any sports team in India such as Indian cricket team, IPL or IPL teams, the study does provide a new direction for future research in the area. The sports team can use the insight from this study to better promote their brands. The sports team may also find the study useful while deciding about which product brands to endorse. Similarly, the product marketers may find the study useful when contemplating about which team to associate with.

Limitation / Scope for further research The study covers only four of the total IPL teams. The data have been collected from sample of 120 university students from Indore. The study covers only five dimensions as suggested by J Aaker(1997) as against 6 dimensions suggested by more recent work of Smith et al (2006). Thus the study does not take in to account the factor i.e. Innovativeness as suggested by Smith et al (2006). Further studies can focus on other teams as well. The impact of brand personality of IPL teams on the various consumer behaviors is also an area which may be explored further.