Introverts Prefer Ping- Personality Types Drives Golf Brand Alignment

 

6th March 2021 ,  London, UK, 1400 GMT

For Immediate Release

Introverts Prefer Ping

Sport Psychology Ltd (SPL) delivered  a study to look at classic personality typology in golfers and the way it impacts their choice of preferred equipment brand.

SPL Chief Psychologist (Stephen Smith) stated:

“The results are clear that personality is a huge factor in the way that golfers align to brands and equipment. It is an area of design and marketing that golf brands will need to pay more attention to achieve commercial success in the mid 21st century”.

The Technical Bit (which is still really interesting )

The Model and Results

SPL asked golfers to indicate which was their favourite brand. They also were asked to self-classify their preferred personality type against classic Jungian factors*:

·         Introvert vs Extravert

·         Pragmatic vs Visionary

·         Logical Vs Idealist

 *The  4th Pairing (structured versus spontaneous) was not used in this study.

40% of those who identified as introverts named Ping as their preferred brand. With 18% indicating Titleist as their favourite these two brands dominated this typology.

No brand was as dominant when it came to extraverts but two brands stood out from the rest with Callaway and TaylorMade accounting for 40% of the sample in this typology.

The more nuanced and intriguing results occurred when the other Jungian Typologies were assessed.

There were more than double the Intuitive Visionaries in golfers  than one would normally see in the general population. They are a group that want to buy from brands that provide a compelling vision of the future which may be an area that golf marketing misses.

Most golfers (60%) are, however, Sensory Pragmatics who will be driven by the look, feel and sound of any equipment. This aligns with research in many other industries which has shown that the aesthetics of a product are far more powerful than the technical capability it may have. The history of golf equipment design is littered with stunning engineering concepts that fell by the wayside because they  simply did not “Look and feel right” to the average golfer.

80% of human judgements have been shown to be instant and driven by subconscious feelings/emotions. Research in other key industries (aerospace, defence, space and oil exploration) have demonstrated the importance of the ALC (Anticipated Level of Confidence) in the take up and use of new designs. Unless it has a high ALC and that is communicated in a style that meets the needs of the predominant psychological type of the target audience a great piece of equipment will be ignored and left to rust.

The split between The Logicals and the feelings driven Idealists was much closer but there were just a tad more Idealists (52%). This is interesting as most of golf equipment marketing is driven by a ‘Logical oriented’ approach focussing on statistics and technical performance which will exclude the key decision making drivers of more than half the golfing population.

 SPL Chief Psychologist (Stephen Smith) stated:

“ This study shows that golf needs to be much more sophisticated in its understanding of the customers it is connecting with and in the way it communicates to build that connection. It is clear that the aesthetics of any design combined with the values that enable a customer to buy into that golf brand will be key to brand growth and sales. The 2020s may be the decade when the psychology of design will be as important as the engineering that underpins it”

For further details contact

psych@sportpsychology.co.uk

+44 (0)7806 794 527

ENDS###

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