The Investigation of a Professional Athlete’s Endorsement Deal, and Other Drivers of Brand Loyalty in the Sports Apparel Sector

2020 dissertation for MSc. With an incurrence of growth of globalisation, marketers are increasingly aware of attaining brand loyal consumers in today’s vastly competitive markets. The sports apparel sector is one of these competitive markets, where there is a need for achieving brand loyal customers, as well as a differentiation with competitive brands in order to thrive. Sports apparel brands increasingly use celebrity endorsements in order to achieve a non-replicable advantage over competitive brands. This study attempts to find a link between celebrity endorsements and brand loyalty, as well as examine what brand loyalty drivers are of importance in this industry.
The data was processed through the positivism approach, whilst using a quantitative research methodology for the data collection. The data was collected through an online questionnaire and was analysed through the IBM SPSS software, as well as through Excel. A Pearson’s test, as well as a crosstabulation of data was utilised to analyse the data. The research findings found no significant correlation between celebrity endorsements and brand loyalty, however it identified certain brand loyalty drivers, such as: quality and price, wide selection of choices, and satisfactory previous purchase experience as significant factors for customer loyalty in the sports apparel industry. Furthermore, the results of
the study found a relationship between previous purchase experience and postpurchase behaviour. Based on these findings, the research was able to bring forth a recommendation for a market strategy in the sports apparel industry to achieve
a customer-loyal base.