Thrill Me! Advertising Effectiveness in Extreme Versus Traditional Sports

Abstract

Millions of people enjoy extreme sports, and many brands use them as contexts for advertising. This chapter considers extreme sports through the lenses of edgework theory and cognitive adaptation theory, and develops two experiments that compare the challenge of leveraging advertising effectively and the degrees of difficulty in extreme and traditional sports settings with regard to high- and low-involvement products. Results suggest that challenge-based and difficulty-based advertisements positively affect persuasiveness, product attractiveness, intention to purchase, and willingness-to-pay only when set in an extreme sports scenario. Results are not influenced by the nature of the sports participation (i.e., active versus passive). Quantitative results are further supported by qualitative analyses based on follow-up interviews, which suggest the existence of relevant differences between extreme and traditional sports. An executive summary for managers and practitioners is provided at the end of this chapter.