“Who is Your Hero?” Implications for Athlete Endorsement Strategies

Abstract

Over the past decade, the use of athlete endorsement has emerged as a significant marketing strategy within the sport marketplace. Essential to the success of this strategy is the on-going examination of the sport hero figure and what this image represents to a constantly changing consumer demographic. The purpose of this research was to examine one important segment of the sport market: Generation Y, generally defined as today's pre-teens and teens (born after 1978). The goal was to investigate who this segment identifies as its sport heroes, and why. Questionnaires were distributed to 888 Generation Y youth across Canada. Qualitative analysis yielded results that indicated Canadian Generation Y identified youth sport heroism with attributes of athletic skill, pro-social behavior and personal trait characteristics, rather than characteristics of celebrity status. The implications of these results for athlete endorsement strategies are discussed.

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