Golf career or message letter type influences on the choice of take-out coffee with message appeals on golf courses

Abstract

Background/Objectives: This study examines that message types (soft-sell vs. hard-sell), which are expressed in the texts of take-out coffee cups used for selling on golf courses in Korea, influence on the attitude towards the messages and the purchase intentions of customers who buy coffee. That is, the study reviews whether abstract, implicit soft-sell messages are more effective, or clear, specific hard-sell messages are more effective on the message attitude and coffee purchase intentions. In addition, the moderating effects according to the golf career (long vs. short) and how the message is written (printed vs. hand-written) are tested. Methods/Statistical analysis: To that end, an experiment stimulus item of 2(message type: soft-sell vs. hard-sell) × 2(writing method: printed vs. hand-written) was manipulated and the differences in respondents when their golf career (long vs. short) was considered for the 2×2×2 experiment design. In the end, 155 copies of the survey were used for statistical analysis. Findings: The findings were as follows: 1) Attitudes were more favorable to soft-sell messages than hard-sell messages on coffee cups. 2) For hard-sell messages, there was a difference in attitude depending on golf career (long < short), but for soft-sell messages, there was no difference in attitude depending on golf career, indicating that golf career had a moderating effect between massage types and message attitude. 3) The moderating effect of how the message was written was also verified between them. For hard-sell messages, the attitude towards printed messages were more favorable, while for soft-sell messages there was no difference across the way message was written, indicating a moderating effect of the way the message is written. Lastly, 4) the attitude towards the messages on the coffee cup was found to have a positive effect on the intention to purchase take-out coffee. Improvements/Applications: Such findings indicate that the intention of visitors to golf courses to purchase take-out coffee, the attitudes towards messages on the coffee cup can be changed depending on the messages written on the coffee cup as well as how the message is written. Moreover, the attitude towards messages and coffee purchase intentions were also affected by golf career. Therefore, when drafting a marketing strategy for take-out coffee on golf courses, the various type of customers and situations, in addition to the coffee itself, would have to be considered.