Research Journal of Recent Sciences _________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502 Vol. 4(11), 83-87, November (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 83 Developing A Scale Sport Brand Personality in Iranian Sport Teams Amin Asadollahi, Kambiz Heidarzadeh HanzaeeMohammad Ali Abdolvand and Hamideh ReshadatjoohDepartment of Business Management, College of Management and Economics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRANAvailable online at: www.isca.in , www.isca.me Received 2nd May 2014, revised 12th November2014, accepted 11th May 2015Abstract Brands are among a company's most valuable assets and smart companies today realize that capitalizing on their brands is important. Based on above discussion, the purpose of this study is to gain in deep understanding about how can be create a local brand, and know challenges, processes and key principles. Research question have been developed in order to reach an above statements. Research question: "What are the challenges and key factors for success on creating Brand in Iran?" The objective of local brand, Model (Phonotis Semantic, Phonosemantic), selected the significant element in linguistic and cognitive perspective, that, creative local brands (consisting of an Iranian name parried with 3 elements of brand perspective in research Model). In this research offered a conceptual framework for managing brand name in an electronic industry market of Iran. As we discussed selecting a local brand name is the important part of conceptual framework for creating local brand. In the creating local brand name process, translation of foreign brand name that is global and international is one way to localize it.Keywords: Scale, brand personality, sport, Iran. IntroductionAt the moment, Sports- Entertainment is considered as an industry and one of the most important factors in national economy growth in many developed countries. As a main money-making industry of 21th century, Sports- Entertainment has involved millions of people all around the world. Sport itself is playing an essential role in production and consuming sports related products and goods and economic growth in many different countries, both theoretically and practically. The importance of sports globalism which began in 80's made a big change in sports' role in societies and provided many new income opportunities for many individuals, organizations and Medias. Football (Soccer) has been brought to Iran in late 13th RIC century (1280 to 1300) by Europeans, especially Britain’s. The word Football was coined by Iranian students who were sent to Europe. The sport was first played by British people resident in Tehran and foreigner sailors in the country's bays. Karim Zandi was the first Iranian player to play in those teams from 1287 to 1295. 1312 was the boom year for Iranian soccer and development of sports in schools. In 1316 Hossein Sedghiani was appointed in charge of teaching and developing Soccer in Iran after coming back from Europe. In late February 1325 RIC, Iran's National Football Federation was established and was accepted as a member of FIFA. From 1948 to 1998's world cup in France, Iran's football witnessed lots of ups and downs. National competitions began and after being given the title "Takht-e-Jamshid Cup" in 1350's, the competitions were held more consistently. Iran's national team made appearances in AFC cup and stood on top of the Asian Football from 1345 to 1355 as the golden era for the country's football. Iran's team participated in 1978's world cup qualifiers and entered the FIFA World Cup event for the first time. After Islamic Revolution, Iran's football ascended to top again and was the most elegant Asian team in 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. Brand's personality is a set of human characteristics related to the brand. Aaker's research shows 5 dimensions of brand's personality with different aspects. Sincerity is defined as being realistic, honest, healthy and harmless. Brands such as Coca Cola and Disney have a history in such characteristics. Excitement is defined as audacity, spirit and imagination; and to date, has proved itself with the aim of an energetic advertisement campaign. Competence is defined with titles as trustworthy, wise and successful. Sophistication is seen by attraction and temptation. BMW and Lexus are two brands in Car manufacturing industry which benefit from temptation. Finally we have ruggedness which shows signs of manhood and stability and can be found in brands like Jeep and Hummer. Aaker's brand personality is made of different aspects. Meanwhile a sports club is an intangible brand which does not necessarily falls in multi-dimensional aspects of a brand's personality3,4. It has been shown that a person's personality affects the way they are attracted to a sports club; although researches show that an individual's attachment to a club can depend heavily on the club's brand personality. Specifically a brand's personality can improve the customers' interaction with the brand. Therefore we are going to go through the aspects of the brand's identity that can be related to Sports-Entertainment; aspects such as being healthy, harmless successful, attractive, rough, and also imagination. Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(11), 83-87, November (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 84 Early attempts to explore the personalities of sports' brands were not so accurate5-7. Most of those attempts used Aaker's scale of brand personality but the final reports were disappointing or basically changed the scale (by eliminating some aspects and adding some new ones)5,7,8. Those results can lead us to understanding that not only Aaker's scale needs to be modified but also we need to use new tools to help scaling the products. Now considering the above mentioned results and other similar reports on products of the same scale, and also Austin's warnings on how Aaker's scale is not an effective and accurate tool, the second choice looks more logical. Literature Review: This Article includes a description of main concepts; brand and branding, strategies for creating brands, challenges for new brands and procedure for new brands and procedure for creating success local brands and finally offers a conceptual framework for creating local brand based on main research question that is: How can create success brand in Iran?, And sub questions:, What are the main challenges for creating local brand?, What are the key factors for success in creating local brand? There's this false thought among people that sports marketing is all about "show me the money". Sport marketing is 'using the proper techniques and methods of marketing for sports products and/or non-sports products that have anything to do with sports. Generally based on Cramton's model in 2004 sport marketing is consisted of three main parts: sport operations, sport products and sports advertising; each with specifications10: Sport operations include all sport activities which are designed for viewers' pleasure and they can freely choose to watch or participate in such activities. These operations are part of services marketing. Sport products and goods include products which take part in a certain sport's improvement and benefit, and are divided into two main types: Quality products that include tools and accessories such as balls, racquets, sports kits and such. Auxiliary products to help complete the quality products which include flags, medals, whistles or such. Sport advertising that includes all the activities related to promote sports, products, events or clubs. Advertisements in half times, sponsorship and commercials are also among this group. Sport marketing language can be studied from three different aspects: Company marketing in form of cooperation between sports and companies that can be found in sponsorship: Sports event marketing, Sports products and services marketing11. Brand's personality was first defined as 'a series of human properties attached to a brand' by Aaker. This definition seemed to enlighten the subject but later proved to be incomplete by researches and reports. It appeared as if the definition was not clear for all the properties and specifications. Considering the need of a more comprehensive definition, one of the researchers believed that we should question the validity of brand's identity first. Therefore it is important to know the limitations and deficiencies of the brands' identity pattern. The first criticism on Aaker's pattern was on its items. One researcher believes that the problem arises when we are using the incomplete and inadequate measures used in theoretical study of human identity to measure the equity of brand personality. Some big researches such as a recent huge one in Italy proved that brand personality scale is not necessarily related to brands in general. To help solving the problem, many tried to make and use new scales. Following researches stressed heavily on brand's own properties instead of humans. Some other researchers believe that we need to eliminate the properties which relate to creativity and intelligence. Another limitation in Aaker's model was that the model was heavily based on America's culture and social stuff. Other researches were done to weight the model in other cultures such as Japanese or Spanish. Limited dimensions in Aaker's model were tested and later more dimensional models were created in Korea and Canada. Sport is considered as the 20th main industry in the world12 and it worth more than 500 billion dollars13. Also, the net worth of sports clubs and teams are amazingly increasing in recent years. For instance the average net worth of a team in America's MLS is considered to be 957 million dollar14. Therefore brand managing and marketing need to be done delicately and with such techniques so that the teams' identity and picture is shown in its best way and fulfils the aim of shareholders and managers. Considering all the importance and boldness of sports In Iran, the scientific and methodical sport marketing and brand managing is not applied. This does not necessarily mean that there is no attempt to do so, but he proper techniques of professional sports is not applied; some clubs and teams are using different methods (sometimes unprofessional) to earn money and benefit to compensate for their costs. Some examples are selling and buying players and managers which is called transferring. Sponsorship, advertising on teams' kits or around the courts and other places in sport events are as such. But many other professional methods like establishment of official fan clubs, club membership or international sponsorship is still ignored and not applied properly. Strategic planning is another important factor in a sport brand's success. A club's proper and well-studied strategic marketing and planning can help absorb better customers/members which can ultimately benefit the brand/club both financially and strategically. Sport marketing managers should use well planned marketing strategies in order to fulfill their organization's mission and vision in following years. They should be ready to shift in a flexible manner and set their strategies on a well-studied base. Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(11), 83-87, November (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 85 Creating Brand in Iran: Making decision for new brand in global market and local market need clear procedure to identify roadmap from creation to management of new brand. A corporate brand is more than a name or a logo; a brand should live in the minds of people for a long terms and a strong brand can create loyalty and advocacy. Most academic work on branding takes the position that brands are one of firm's most valuable assets and brands wield power in the market place however this view is not without critics. International branding may involve transferring home country brands to foreign markets or creating new brands in each local market or a local company may involve to create local brand by transferring a global brand into local or creating a local brand, that in each case need deep attention and analysis of benefits, values, culture and other issues that affect the success of new brand in interring new market. Base on main research question: "What are the challenges and key factors for success on creating local brand in Iran?" in this research, in previous parts tried to review on proper researches and understand related theories and opinions to be more familiar with the related literature in branding field. Today markets also in Iran are more complicate than before and creating a brand that is a long-term project and also is a most valuable asset of each firm, need to understand the environment characteristics (market, customers, competition, product, trends and etc) and challenges. Creating a successful local brand need to arrange a good and clear procedure to make a roadmap. Determining a specific field of business to concentrate study and selecting a specific market can help to clarify information of markets. With review on ideas and studies in branding, that pointed some of them in previous parts of this research, making a procedure from a vision and objectives to analysis the market characteristics based on competition evaluation and Competitive Advantage (CA) of firm, naming, brand equity, and management of brand as a sustainable criteria with considering the local market limitations and specifications is very important. Understanding the models that developed for global and international brands can help to develop a localize model for creating a brand with consider the challenges, limitations and key points for success. But in creating a local brand, naming is more complex process that need to deep understanding of local market specifications. In the global market place, local names can add to or destroy established brand equity. Research background: In the research done by Carlson, Donavan and Cumiskey entitled 'the relation between brand and customer in sports: brand's identity and identification' it is stated that15: Sports clubs are turned into mini brands that can affect the sales of the products related to their name and brand. Therefore many huge brands and companies nowadays try to relate themselves with famous clubs and teams in order to sell their products and goods16. They wish to somehow transfer some of the club's accomplishments and glory into their brand. There's an eyesight one to one relation strategy applied here whereas the customer makes a logical relationship between the brand name and the club's fame. A research done with subjects of 120 university students in the states showed that an individual's identity and personality can affect how the person is attracted to a certain club or team, and on the other hand it is clear that a brand's personifications and properties can be an important factor in absorbing fans or members17. Therefore both can have direct impacts on how the products/goods/services related to that certain club/team is being sold and how much the organization can benefit from strategic marketing. A research done by Tsiotsou in 2012 entitled 'making an scale in order to measure sport teams' personality stated that as professional sport brands such as teams, clubs and/or sport events are being more and more iconic to societies and individuals, they can be more interesting to be measured in researches18. Therefore with early attempts to come to an understanding of sport brands' personality, a more realistic and reliable scale was created. A lot was taken from Aaker's 5 dimensional model in these researches. Taking away some dimensions or adding some others seemed effective and led to create some more reliable measurement tools. Most of these researches used Aaker's scale of brand personality but the final reports were disappointing or basically changed the scale (by eliminating some aspects and adding some new ones). Those results can lead us to understanding that not only Aaker's scale needs to be modified but also we need to use new tools to help scaling the products. Now considering the above mentioned results and other similar reports on products of the same scale, and also Austin's warnings on how Aaker's scale is not an effective and accurate tool, the second choice looks more logical. In Rosenberger and Donahay's research entitled 'Brand personality differentiation in formula one: an Australian approach', the personality of different formula one teams and their properties in races were studied in comparison with each other and used Aaker's 5 dimensional scale to see if they have different and obvious personalities19. 4 teams were chosen and divided into two groups of strong (Ferrari and Williams) and weak (B.A.R and Jaguar). The questionnaires with 8-10 minutes of answering time in four copies were spread among formula one fan to reflect their thoughts and beliefs on teams. 160 subjects were randomly chosen to be divided into four 40 groups for each brand. The answers were collected in 3 weeks of the second 3 months of formula one season among salespersons from Sydney focused on formula one. The subjects were mostly men with the average on 27 years of age. 13% of the subjects had watched the most recent formula one race and 87% of subjects had watched 5 races or more. The results showed that there is a direct relationship between the sponsor brand's fame/success and the success/achievement of the teams. The more effective and bold would be the success of the winning teams, the more bold and effective would be the image of the sponsored brand. Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(11), 83-87, November (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 86 Methodology The objective of local brand, survey the 3 elements of CLB (Creating Local Brand) Model (Phonotis Semantic, Phonosemantic), selected the significant element in linguistic and cognitive perspective, that, creative local brands (consisting of an Iranian name parried with 3 elements of brand perspective in research Model). Respondents provided evaluations of the local brands an attitude scale in electronic industry. In this research, we use the consumers in industry that, measurement the attitude for selected significant variables, then, designs the questions as measurement tools. The objective of research selected the optimize sample in electronic industry, the content of research illustrated Quality and Quantity scale, author illustrated the mechanism of Quality and Quantity scale in statistics, the best of methodology use the normal distribution for decline the error or unbiasedness in research. This research use the (n=600) consumer that apply the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) and pilot survey, in order to selected the significant variables CLB model in Iran. In final, started from gather of data, editing, transformation, measurement of reliability and validity, to analysis with SPSS software. Sample Selection: After having determined to selection the variables, we have chosen the consumer in industry, including the public consumer and competition. For this purpose, we use the distribution curve that oriented normal and statistics, suggest the expert of industry including to select the n=600 consumer and use the CLT methodology. In the reliability and validity of research, use the Alfa Cronbakh and parried compared in parametric statistics, then, test the hypothesis by "t" Test, The sensitivity of problem in research, by opinion the expert acquisition = 0.5 (Confident Level = 95%). Data Collection: At first, after the design, the questioners with significant variables selected the variables and with selection sample, operational of survey started, operational of test on the questions action with parried compare. In this approach, we use the questioners for gather of data and add information of document in electronic industry, finally, acquisition the net data. Data analysis: After the gather of data, started the analysis. The purpose of analyzing the data collected from questions is to final answers on the key questions. Another steps are, editing the data with consideration the error of research, ( = 0.5) then, transformation and survey the consistency (reliability and validity) and finally, reaching the output of research. In this approach, we will use the SPSS software (SPSS including the central and ispreational parameters and skewness or kourties index). In the overall analysis process (figure 3-1) including: Results and DiscussionConducting research on sports fans behavior can benefit the sports marketing a lot. Today the sports information and data are the most important factor for sports marketing agents. Although understanding the full behavior of sports and especially Football fans is not an easy task, but can help create competitive advantage. One of the biggest challenges that sport marketing agents should face is to adapt to the constantly shifting and growing sports world environment. Sportsmen's income is always growing and the only thing which remains the same is the demand of the customers and viewers. We get informed about the sports on the internet, read about it on newspapers and magazines, watch it on TV or internet, talk about it with our friends and families, participate in sports events and buy sports products and goods. The industry is constantly growing globally. With the growth of students' interest in sports, the demand for having more and more sports marketing and management is inevitable. Figure-1 Data analysis process Research Journal of Recent Sciences _____________________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(11), 83-87, November (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 87 ConclusionAcknowledgment of the market, successful marketing managers and also the demand of the customers and also the availability of the products/ goods and how that can affect the sales is crucial. Meanwhile sports clubs and their respective fans can have a leading rule in branding the club and to reflect the image of the club on the market. It can heavily affect the way services/products of the club are presented on Medias or sports events. This on the other hand not only helps the shareholders and managers but also in many ways help the professional sports to develop and grow. 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