QMR Special Issue Launch Event - Critical Sports Marketing Research

Join us for a special online event on May 8^th,12:00pm BST to celebrate the launch of a special issue of Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal. The special issue - Critical Sports Marketing Research - aims to advance critical scholarship on the intersection of sport and marketing, focusing on how sport, marketing and consumption can often reflect and perpetuate social injustices, providing a foundation for meaningful societal change.

To mark the occasion, we are hosting a series of guest talks exploring key themes from the special issue. We are pleased to be hosting special guest presentations from Professor Simon Chadwick (Emlyon Business School), Dr Samantha Ford (University of Bristol), and Dr Fiona Spotswood (University of Bristol).

Further information on our special guest speakers is available below.

The event will also introduce the special issue, outlining key topics, the review process, and a Q&A session for prospective contributors.

More details of the special issue, the guest editors and possible list of topic areas can be found here: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/calls-for-papers/critical-sports-marketing-research.

For further details, please email Dr Jamie Wheaton at jamie.wheaton@bristol.ac.uk.

We hope to see you there!

Guest Speakers

Professor Simon Chadwick will be presenting on the contested nature of the sponsorship of sport, with a particular focus on gambling-related sponsorship. Simon is a researcher, writer, academic, consultant, advisor, and speaker, whose work focuses on leading and managing in complex environments. His particular areas of expertise are in policy and strategy, international and global markets, as well as business and marketing. Chadwick has three decades of experience working in the global sport, event, and cultural industries, particularly in an Afro-Eurasian setting (notably the MENA region, East/South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe). He currently works as a Professor of AfroEurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School and is advising several clients from across the world of sport.

Dr Samantha Ford will present collaborative, qualitative research on brand activism in sports advertising, focusing on the role of metaphor in shaping gender representation. This study examines how brands attempt to communicate empowering messages while often reinforcing essentialist gender narratives. Using critical metaphor analysis (CMA), the research explores the tension between progressive messaging and covert biases in sports brand advertising. The findings reveal how tokenism and gendered discourses persist in brand activism, even in campaigns promoting equality. The talk will outline the use of alternative theories (CMA) to provide further insight into and scrutiny of sports advertising, and will discuss implications for brands aiming to navigate gender representation more authentically in advertising.

Dr Fiona Spotswood will present research from Project FIAS (Fostering Inclusive Action Sports) that examines the gendered institutional dynamics of marketing and media production sector in mountain biking. This qualitative research involved 18 interviews with UK and European marketing and media professionals. The analysis sets out the significance and practices of the reflexive 'gender progressive institutional entrepreneur' who understands and attempts to forge change in the cultural representation of mountain biking. The research illuminates residual societal discourses that subordinate women in action sports, and institutional constraints that limit the outcomes of entrepreneurial activity. She sets out the implications and opportunities for marketing organisations operating in masculine dominated sports cultures.