Abstract

In the evolving age of marketing, modern advertising reaches every consumer demographic, through a variety of touchpoints, at an almost constant rate on a daily basis. From print, to television, to digital, and today with the advent of social media influencers, the scope of advertising is growing, and the traditional boundaries between commercial and personal spheres are weakening. The intrusion of idealized models and unrealistically beautiful scenes into social media invites social comparison and poses threats to emotionally vulnerable populations such as adolescents and minorities as well as groups identified as being less likely to seek help for emotional issues such as athletes. As consumers’ online presence continues to grow and their use of social media continues to increase, they are facilitating deeper relationships with brands, their ambassadors, and consumers, which form stronger connections to the themes they promote. In the fashion industry, clothing brands typically advertise using idealized models, aspirational messages, and emotional storylines in order to create an allure for the brand and appeal to their target market; however, there is evidence that these techniques can hinder development of self- esteem and motivation. Activewear marketers specifically rely on elite athlete endorsements, muscular models, and aspirational messages in order to reach their primary consumers: teens, young women, and athletes. While this may be done with positive goals in mind, there is a growing body of literature that finds athletes are at a higher risk of struggling with self-esteem and body image issues, making them emotionally vulnerable. For this reason, my research intends to develop an understanding of the extent to which athletic clothing advertising can have an impact on self-esteem and motivation of female college athletes.

Conceptual Development

Research has shown that the cognitive processes involved with self-esteem are affected by a number of sociocultural elements ranging from social media, peers, and even yourself. This is based in two theories: Self-Comparison Theory and Self-Verification Theory. Self-Comparison Theory states that people are thought to automatically compare feedback that they receive with their preexisting self-conceptions, and to accept feedback only when it fits reasonably well with those self-conceptions. Similarly, Self-Verification Theory states that people are motivated to preserve their self-concepts because, even an unfavorable self-view, however painful, affords clarity and predictability. This is evident in a study that focused on positive self-statements, by which researchers found that positive self-statements have a negative effect on self-esteem when people already have a lower than average self-esteem. For the purpose of my research, I transitioned these theories to hypothesize that aspirational messaging and idealized models in clothing advertisements will have a similar effect.

H1: Clothing advertisements with idealized models and aspirational themes will have a negative impact on female college athletes with a lower self-esteem, causing these athletes to experience decreased self-esteem following advertisement exposure.

In many of the advertisements seen today, there are often apparent themes focused on gender discrimination and sexism which take a feminist tone. In the realm of athletics, this theme is of utmost relevance as female athletes fight for equal representation, equal pay, and equal respect; however, being a sensitive topic for many women who have experienced this discrimination, I expect these themes to have possible negative effects. Consistent with an understanding of self-comparison theory and self-verification theory, it would make sense that for women who have lower self-esteem and pre-existing sensitivity to gender discrimination, commercials emphasizing gender discrimination would increase their sensitivity to it, because it would emphasize their feeling of inferiority, which is already emphasized by low self-esteem.

H2a: Clothing advertisements with feminist themes will have a negative impact on female college athletes with lower self-esteem, resulting in an increased sensitivity in women with lower self-esteem following advertisement exposure.

H2b: Clothing advertisements with feminist themes will have a negative impact on female college athletes with a higher sensitivity to gender discrimination in athletics, by which women with higher sensitivity will experience increased sensitivity following advertisement exposure.

Prior industry research indicates that consumers’ purchase intentions are directly related to their emotional response to an advertisement. Analysis of self-esteem and the ways in which it affects advertisement and product evaluations has proven self-esteem to have a negative effect on attitude toward the advertisement and product. In another study, researchers prove that social comparison that reduces self-esteem creates a statistically significant negative product attitude.

H3: Advertisement exposure resulting in decreased self-esteem will have a negative effect on brand attitude and purchase intent.

Research Design

Participants, all of which were Brown University female varsity athletes, were told they would be watching a television show and completing a survey to go along with the visual stimulus. Before coming to the in-person viewing, they were to fill out part-one of a survey intended to gauge self-esteem, body satisfaction, athletic satisfaction, sensitivity to gender discrimination, and sensitivity to environmental pressures. The survey combined the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale with a set of self-developed questions. During the in-person viewing, participants watched HGTV’s home improvement show, “Fixer Upper”, which was divided by four commercial breaks. Each of three commercial breaks included two control commercials and one experimental commercial, while one commercial break included only control commercials. The experimental commercials were from three different athletic clothing campaigns: Nike, Athleta, and Under Armour. The control commercials were included as an attempt to disguise the purpose of the experiment and were intended to be completely neutral in terms of self-esteem and body satisfaction. Following each commercial break, participants filled out another portion of the survey, which focused on ad/product liking as well as purchase intent. At the end of the visual stimulus, participants re-answered part-one of the survey, which was later used to calculate the statistically significant changes in self-esteem and body satisfaction.

Results

In the overall population, body satisfaction, athletic satisfaction, and purchase intent significantly increase after participant exposure to the advertisement stimulus. This suggests that exposure to the commercials has a positive overall effect on viewers. Despite this increase in body and athletic satisfaction, results show a minor decrease in self-esteem, however, it does not prove to be significant in the calculations. Results also show a minor increase in brand attitude, however, again, this result do not prove to be statistically significant.

Self-esteem has a moderately strong positive correlation to attitude toward the advertisement with a correlation coefficient of 0.5174. This means that for the overall population, increased self-esteem resulted in an improved attitude toward the advertisement about 52% of the time, supporting H3.

For participants with self-esteem greater than or qual to the population average, results show a significant increase in body satisfaction along with a minor increase in athletic satisfaction, however, self-esteem stays relatively the same.

For participants with self-esteem below the population average, there is not a significant shift in any of the categories represented. With that being said, however, when compared to the shift in self-esteem calculated in the overall population, the decrease in self-esteem calculated in the low self-esteem group more than doubled. This provides slight support for H1.

Results regarding sensitivity to gender discrimination were, for the most part, inconclusive.

Implications

As an industry that is intimately integrating psychological tactics, emotional development, and creative exploration with disguised yet convincing sales methodology and targeted marketing, advertising is prospering brands that are thriving off of deeper relationships with consumers of all types. The scope of these evolving techniques continues to expand, not only to increase product sales and brand following, but also to further blind advertisers to the harsh emotional effects that these techniques can have, allowing them to continue with no regard for consumers who are at the mercy of the culture that such a strong platform can create. While people in the industry should be excited about the increased capacity for brand development and product sales that comes with the modern scope of advertising, they should also proceed with caution as these tactics could be facilitating heightened emotional responses.