Building Service Brands via Social Identity: Lessons from the Sports Marketplace

This article forwards a framework illustrating the role of social identification in the construction of brand equity for services marketers. Services markets are proposed to exist along an identification continuum based upon levels of consumer commitment and emotional involvement. We illustrate the impact of social identification by focusing on one service industry, the sports marketplace, an industry typified by exceedingly high levels of identification between consumer and market offering. The authors examine four characteristics of the services environment (group experience, history/tradition, physical facility, rituals) that marketers can leverage to enhance consumers’ identification with a service and, ultimately, increase brand equity.