The Effect of Brand Identity Elements on Fans’ Identification with Brands of Iran Football Pro League Clubs

The aim of the current study was to study the effect of brand identity elements on identification of fans with the brands of Iran football pro league clubs. The research method was descriptive–correlation, survey and practical. The data were collected by brand identity of Koo (2009) and a combination of fan-team identification scale of Meal & Ashforth (1992) and Wann & Branscomb (1993). The statistical population consisted of fans of popular teams in Iran football pro league and a sample (n=266) was randomly selected. The validity of the questionnaire was verified by viewpoints of experts in sport and marketing management and the reliability of the total questionnaire was found to be 0.851 according to Cronbach’s alpha. The conceptual framework of the current study was a model which involved visual identity, product identity, non-product identity, experience identity as well as fan-team identification. To measure the validity and fitness of the model, Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) was applied, and based on path analysis, the relationships of the study variables were verified. AMOS22 and SPSS20 were used for data analysis. The results indicated that visual identity, experience identity, product identity, as well as non-product identity had a positive and significant effect on fans’ identification with brands of Iran football pro league clubs.