A field experiment for analysing organisational communication strategies and outcomes

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify major expenditures on public leisure programmes and infrastructure without taking more care in communicating to citizens the benefits associated with participation of even the existence of these resources. Despite this, the promotion of public leisure services is perhaps the least studied, and most misunderstood, aspect of the marketing mix. The purpose of this study was to increase our knowledge of promotion in a services context; more specifically, a leisure services context. To do this, consumers' responses to an organisation's communication efforts were investigated. Homecoming at the University of Waterloo was chosen as the venue for the field experiment because it is comprised of multiple events and therefore reflects, reasonable well, the variety and scope of what might be offered by a public leisure service agency. As summarised in A Conceptual Framework for Analysing Organisational Strategies and Outcomes, the responses that were of interest in this study were as follows: attitude toward the communication effort, post-exposure attitude toward Homecoming, recall of the communication effort, post-exposure intent to participate in Homecoming, behaviour, and post-event attitude toward Homecoming. Ultimately, this study attempted to assess the relative effectiveness of four communication efforts for communicating with potential consumers of leisure services. The first communication effort included in the field experiment was a brochure that contained only information about the event for Homecoming. This treatment represented the current standard in public leisure service agencies in terms of their communication efforts. Each subsequent communication effort represented a reasonable improvement on the current standard. The remaining communication efforts included in this study were as follows: brochure with information and persuasive messages, a website, and a personal appeal. Ultimately, organisations are concerned with the effectiveness of communication efforts as encouraging a particular behaviour. In the current study that behaviour was participation in Homecoming. Although there were no significant differences in the participation rates of subjects assigned to one of the four experiment groups, the majority of hypothesised relationships related to attitude, subjective norms, and intentions were significant in the hypothesised direction. In particular, there appears to be a number of variables that act as filters through which an organisation's communication efforts must past. These moderators influence an individual's pre-exposure attitude toward Homecoming as well as their pre-exposure intent to participate in Homecoming. The moderators identified in this research included the following: past experience with Homecoming, involvement with Homecoming, commitment to the University of Waterloo, and subjective norms as they relate to Homecoming. The data suggest that the current standard of communication effort used by public leisure service agencies is less effective as compared to the other communication efforts included in this study. In addition, although subjects in this study viewed each communication effort positively, the current standard (i.e., the brochure with information only) elicited the least positive response. Finally, the data suggest that citizen's attitudes toward the services provided by public leisure service agencies can be improved merely by communicating with citizens. The conceptual model was generally supported by the data.