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The purpose of this research is to investigate customer purchase of a service organization's logo/branded merchandise as a type of customer voluntary performance behavior.

The article employs three separate studies; two are conducted with customers of Curves, the world's largest fitness franchise, and the other is conducted at a weight‐lifting gym. Two empirical studies test a proposed mediation model using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques. The third study represents a humanistic inquiry that elucidates the social influences that encourage a customer to purchase a service firm's logo products.

The results show that a customer's integration into a service‐based community encourages him or her to purchase the firm's logo merchandise. In addition, a customer's ability to identify with the firm mediates this relationship. The immersion of customers' self‐ and social identities in a firm emerges as a critical factor to enhancing their appreciation of the firm by purchasing financially lucrative logo consumables.

The article theoretically links customer voluntary performance with a customer's integration into a service community (ISC), organizational identification, and pooled associations. Because the concept of ISC is newly coined in this article, researchers are encouraged to develop the concept both empirically and theoretically.

Service and retail managers should understand that a key to selling organizational logo/branded merchandise is to encourage customers to form in‐house social relationships with other customers and employees.

The article demonstrates that service‐based customer communities are often lucrative for service firms. Customers may demonstrate their appreciation for commercially based friendships by purchasing and displaying the host organization's logo products.

Branded merchandise and licensed apparel comprise a substantial portion of revenue for many organizations and public figures that choose to employ such an endeavor. Endorsement deals with apparel manufacturers have historically been utilized for athletes looking to supplement their salaries and establish greater brand awareness. However, as some athletes establish ownership of their logo and become less reliant on companies such as Nike and Adidas for merchandise distribution, assessing the influence of various entity's logos on the athlete brand has become worthy of analysis. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence that cobranded merchandise has on consumers when the athlete logo is displayed next to another team or manufacturer logo.

Using an online panel and survey, a final sample of 127 participants completed a questionnaire to examine their attitudes towards various athlete brand elements. ANCOVA's and MANCOVA's were utilized to assess significant findings, holding the variable of identification constant.

The results revealed that only the perceptions of merchandise quality significantly varied between an athlete brand and an apparel manufacturer (i.e. Nike) co-brand. The findings indicate that athletes should look to co-brand with high brand awareness manufacturers, and that there is no significant difference between consumers' perceptions of athlete brands when co-branding with team brands.

This is one of the first studies to evaluate the relationship between the athlete brand and external entities from a consumer perspective.

Despite its growth, there has been a lack of investigation on how sport rebranding influences fans and their behaviors. This study sought to examine how a critical aspect of rebranding – logo redesign – influences fans' attitudes toward a sport brand and intent to purchase merchandise bearing the rebranded logo. More specifically, we aim to investigate the influence of varying degrees of logo change and fan identification in relation to brand attitude and purchase intention.

An experimental design, 4 (degrees of logo change) × 2 (fan identification: low, high), was utilized with the sample of 277 participants. The current logo of the Ultimate Fighting Championship was redesigned into three fictitious rebranded logos as stimuli based on different rebranding types.

The results suggest that color change and revolutionary change generate the most negative attitudes from both high- and low-identified fans, and fan identification is not a significant factor influencing fan attitudes. Regarding purchase intention, low-identified fans are not significantly influenced by logo changes whereas highly identified fans showed similar response to their attitudes.

The findings advance the current body of knowledge on sport rebranding and fan behavior by demonstrating the effects of varying degrees of logo redesign and fan identification levels on brand attitude and purchase intention. Moreover, the current research has important implications for sport marketers on developing effective rebranding and logo redesign strategies.

The authors sought to examine how nostalgic feelings influenced purchase intentions of sport fans towards branded merchandise. Additionally, the goal was to test the childhood brand nostalgia (CBN) scale to see if it was an effective measure in this context. This was an important early step in understanding the way nostalgia may influence sport fan's merchandise preferences.

Surveys were completed by 601 fans of two professional sport teams in the USA. These consumers were targeted geographically through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and half given a modern branded t-shirt and the other half a retro branded t-shirt. To examine brand nostalgia in this context, the CBN measure was evaluated and examined to see its impact on each group, using hierarchical regressions.

The results demonstrated that CBN positively impacted consumers purchase intentions in the retro logoed t-shirt group. However, in the modern logoed t-shirt group, CBN did not significantly influence purchase intentions.

The findings of this study suggest that retro merchandise is working as expected, as it is attractive to those who feel nostalgic about their team. Secondarily, this study's findings suggest it may be vital for marketers to be conscious that their retro materials are connecting to the past.

This study was an early examination of a measure of nostalgia and its impact on purchase intentions in sport. The findings suggested that this CBN instrument may be appropriate in retro marketing research, especially regarding sport merchandise. Further, the findings suggest that nostalgic feelings may be influential toward retro merchandise, but not modern merchandise.

While some football clubs are recognised as popular brands, little is known about the way they leverage their brand in their merchandise retailing. To address this gap the purpose of this paper is to investigate retail branding strategies used by professional football clubs through brand equity and supply chain management. In particular, it analyses the type of product merchandised, the reasons for selling certain products and the ways through which football clubs merchandise, including their partners in distribution channels.

A qualitative approach was undertaken involving content analysis of 22 Scottish professional football clubs’ websites and annual reports, and semi-structured interviews with seven football clubs retail managers and four supply chain partners. Transcribed data were coded and thematically organised through an inductive process using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 10.

Three types of merchandise have been identified: basic, fashion and short season. Building brand equity is considered the main motive for retailing merchandise. Some football clubs use intermediaries or outsourcers to respond to sudden consumer demands and to ensure high levels of service, whereas others have an integrated supply chain which allows for greater control.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the role of retailing in football club brand equity. It suggests initiating intermediaries in the distribution channels to build brand equity thus enabling clubs to become more responsive to consumer demand.

This is the first paper to look at retail branding strategies of professional football clubs.

In 1930s Britain, tennis champion Fred Perry was a household name. However, the name Fred Perry is more commonly associated with striped-collar polo shirts featuring a laurel wreath logo. In the late 1960s, Fred Perry polo shirts were standard mod and Skinhead dress. When worn by working-class youth the shirt became subversive commentary on English elitism because it had originally been designed for the tennis courts. Many punks also aligned with the brand in dual demonstration of association with working-class ethics as well as an alternative to t-shirts. In the 1980s and onward, this sartorial style was appropriated by right-wing white nationalists, which stripped it of its subcultural spirit. Patriot groups, such as neo-Nazis and the alt-right have continued to co-opt the subcultural style, simultaneously turning the Fred Perry polo into a symbol of racism and bigotry. The multi-use of the Fred Perry brand creates a challenge in how to interpret visual cues when one garment has competing perceptions that at times can be completely opposing. This study examines the history of the Fred Perry brand through the lens of symbolic interactionism, specifically how the shirt evolved from a rather innocuous, yet subversive, form of merchandize repurposed from the tennis world to youth subcultures where the polo communicated group identity. As the brand has moved through fashion cycles, the association of the Fred Perry polo with deviant groups has reduced the brand to representations of hate and separation, which has impacted sales and brand image with its intended consumers.

Building on existing sport licensing research from the North American market, the primary goal of this study was to explore meanings embedded in sport licensed products in the Greek sport market. The secondary goal was to examine the extent to which product meanings can predict favorable sport consumer behaviors.

Data were collected from football and basketball fans of the two biggest professional sport clubs in Greece. A total of 255 Greek fans completed the surveys. Data were analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The findings uncovered a 14-item solution to capture the meanings attached to sport licensed products in the Greek market, including four factors-sources: experience, socialization, aesthetics and locality. Meanings related to aesthetics and experience significantly and positively predicted customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth communication, purchase intention and willingness to pay a price premium for licensed products of one's favorite team.

From a practical standpoint, this study shows that sport licensed products need to be positioned in the market based on their aesthetic quality. Also, communication plans that associate these products with opportunities for unique experiences, relationships with other fans and a connection to one's local community can drive sales, especially in less developed sport markets such as Greece.

This research contributes to existing literature by highlighting the prominent role of the aesthetic appeal of team licensed products as well as the experience of sport consumers as sources of meaning and value for the owners of those products.

Company stores market to their internal employees via the distribution of branded promotional products. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that may influence when an employee is more likely to purchase from a company store.

A survey was administered to the members of a chamber of commerce located in the southeastern USA. Data were analyzed using regression, and post hoc analyses were conducted using an analysis of covariance.

Organizational identification and job satisfaction significantly impacted employees’ intentions to purchase from a company store. Gender, education, marital status and years of work experience were personal factors that moderated that relationship. Firm size and employee rank were company factors that moderated the relationship between employee work perceptions and employee purchase intentions at a company store.

No research to date exists on company stores. This study is unique in that it proposes internal branding as a theoretical foundation for understanding company stores and examines factors that impact employees’ intentions to purchase from a company store.

The primary purpose of this study was to generate a composite sport fan equity index (SFEI) for use in estimating the asset value of an individual fan to a sport organization. The index was developed by applying a simple additive weighting (SAW) method.

A cross-sectional survey-based research was carried out to validate key components of sport fan equity (SFE) and formulate the SFEI on the basis of the NCAA Division I collegiate sport context. These objectives were satisfied through a twofold process involving first-order confirmatory factor analysis intended to assess the validity of SFE measurement scales and SAW designed to produce the composite SFEI.

The developed index indicated that the average SFE of focal sport fans of Division I collegiate sport was 54.8 and that the overall SFE of such contributors ranged from 20.4 (the lowest score) to 94.6 (the highest score). The SFEI serves as a single, summary score and an essential gauge for sport marketers to use when assessing profitable fans and tracking/comparing them over time.

This research contributes to the sport marketing literature through its application of SAW in an initial effort to produce an easily understandable index that determines the asset value of sport fans and serves as an imperative criterion for overall sport team valuation from the sport consumer side. Specifically, the SFEI can function as a standard numeric measure that enables sport marketers to identify fans from whom sport organizations can generate considerable profits, segment these devotees systematically, and tailor marketing strategies to each fan base.

The purpose of the study is to develop and empirically test a model of how consumers process logo changes used in rebranding.

Individual in-depth interviews with 12 informants allowed researchers to better understand how consumers respond to logo changes. After developing a model of how consumers process logo changes, researchers deployed a field study evaluating two actual retail brands using survey methodology with 406 respondents.

Nine of the ten hypotheses of the study receive support. Notably, both interest in the logo change as well as doubt about the logo change characterize consumers’ processing of the logo change.

Although study respondents viewed multiple brands along with variations of these brands, other brands might elicit other responses from consumers. Further study is now in order.

As a result of the study, brand managers can be more aware of the positive and negative processing that brands receive from consumers when brands change their logos. Accordingly, communication programs of brands can better anticipate such processing before logos are changed.

Social enterprises that change their logos stand to benefit in a similar way to for-profit businesses that change their logos.

This is the first study to include two types of curiosity – interest curiosity and deprivation curiosity – in a comprehensive model to better explain how consumers process logo changes.