Services Marketing in Mixed Martial Arts, Developing Jiu Jitsu in Seoul, Korea. Corey A. Nelson. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea

Transcription

1 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May Services Marketing in Mixed Martial Arts, Developing Jiu Jitsu in Seoul, Korea Corey A. Nelson Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea corey.mn@gmail.com Abstract Since the introduction of martial arts into the mainstream and more recently the development of mixed martial arts, Jiu Jitsu s popularity has grown by leaps and bounds. In Seoul, Korea, the home of Taekwondo and Hapkido, Jiu Jitsu has been able to establish itself, yet no studies have been performed on the demand variables in Korea. The objectives of this study were to locate the dimensions of market demand for Jiu Jitsu academies. Study participants (N=159) were students at six Jiu Jitsu academies located throughout Seoul who were males and females 18 years or older. Even though the survey was conducted in South Korea, foreigners accounted for 19.9% of the participants. The study covered areas ranging from an academy s environment and instructor s qualifications to personal benefits. The results showed that consumers participate in Jiu Jitsu to improve their physical and mental health. The academy s characteristics were really of no importance to Jiu Jitsu participants. Keywords: Martial Arts, Market Research, Jiu Jitsu, South Korea Introduction Although they have their roots in Asian systems of combat, due to an assortment of factors martial arts have managed to enjoy a sort of rebranding and are now used to achieve a diversity of goals: self-defense, combat sports, physical fitness (Hallander, 1987), and mental control training (Columbus & Rice, 1991; Daniels & Thornton, 1990; Finkenberg, 1990; Law, 2004; Richman & Rehberg, 1986; Spear, 1989; Trulson, 1986).

2 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May Since its introduction to a wide audience through the Ultimate Fighting Championship (Ultimate Fighting Championship [UFC], 2013), which began in the US in 1993, and Pride Fighting Championship (Pride FC, 2013), which began in Japan in 1997, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (often called BJJ or simply Jiu Jitsu) has spread worldwide. In part, it was thanks to the early successes of its practitioners that Jiu Jitsu quickly gained a reputation for dominating other fighting systems. The wave of interest has even managed to reach the shores of Korea, which has a highly competitive market. For example, Taekwondo and Hapkido, both developed in Korea hundreds of years ago, remain very popular (World Taekwondo Federation, 2013) (World Hapkido Federation, 2013). Therefore, although many mixed martial artists train in Jiu Jitsu to prepare for grappling and ground fighting (UFC, 2013), Jiu Jitsu faces more than one type of challenge in Korea. Anyone wanting to train has a number of well-established martial arts from which to choose. On top of that, martial arts rebranding as a sport and a way to achieve physical fitness puts Jiu Jitsu in direct competition with all other sports organizations. The success of Jiu Jitsu academies in a highly competitive market depends on the academies willingness to adapt to the marketplace. Generally, academies are still virtually 100% reliant on membership fees for income. The revenue generated from membership fees actually consists of two separate channels: the first is attracting new students to the academy, and the second is retaining those students once they have joined. Academies understand that effective marketing as well as productive management strategies need to be employed to maintain financial stability. For them to generate a full return on their time and effort, a good understanding of the marketplace is required. Even with academies acceptance of the importance of marketing, martial arts academies as a group are still falling behind other industries. (Ko, 2003) There have been multiple studies focusing on the reasons to participate in martial arts (Ko & Valacich, 2004),

3 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May but research focusing on Jiu Jitsu academies regarding market demand variables has not yet been conducted. The purpose of this study is to understand the specific motivations behind learning Jiu Jistu so the industry can continue to grow. Literature Review Brief Background on Jiu Jitsu Traditionally, when people in Korea think about martial arts, they think of Eastern martial arts such as Taekwondo, Kung Fu and Karate. From early childhood, Koreans are exposed to martial arts. Elementary schools are full of students wearing Taekwondo kimonos in preparation for after-school classes. During their mandatory military service, Korean men learn Taekwondo as part of their training (Black Belt, 2013). Martial arts are also present in mainstream entertainment. Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are household names. From direct training to fanciful representations in popular culture, martial arts are a part of everyday life. In many ways, the mechanics of Jiu Jitsu are the same as those of other martial arts. Gracie Jui Jitsu Academy explains that the originators applied laws of physics such as leverage, momentum, balance, center of gravity, friction, weight transmission and manipulation of the human anatomy s vital points in order to create a scientific art of selfdefense (Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy, 2013). Broadly speaking, Jiu Jitsu is a combination of Judo and submission wrestling and grappling. The goal is to use leverage and timing instead of power and force, allowing smaller practitioners to successfully challenge much larger and more powerful opponents. It was first developed by samurai for close combat against enemies wearing body armor, and therefore relied heavily on joint manipulation and throws. Early in the twentieth century it was brought to Brazil by Mitsuyo Maeda, who had been giving demonstrations throughout Latin America. Carlos Gracie is the most famous of Maeda s Brazilian students,

4 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May because it was the brothers of the Gracie family who later modified Jiu Jitsu to make it more suitable for men and women of all shapes and sizes (Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy, 2013). The Gracie family has been the face of Jiu Jitsu for many years, and their combined success at international competitions helped push Jiu Jitsu to the forefront of the martial arts world. In 1993 Royce Gracie won the first UFC, finishing every match by submission in under two and a half minutes (UFC, 2013). The Gracie family also competed in Japan s Pride FC, where Royce s brother Rickson famously defeated the wrestler Nobuhiko Takada (Price FC, 2013). These two fights introduced Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to the world and proved its effectiveness against more traditional fighting systems. There are a lot of people following mixed martial arts. In 2008 the UFC generated around $250 million and the company is estimated to be worth over $1 billion (Miller, 2008). The expansion of mixed martial arts helps generate interest in Jiu Jitsu, but there is more to it. Yong Jae Ko (2002, 2003, & Ko, & Yang, 2008) identified multiple factors that influence the increased interest in martial arts: (a) the alteration of the characteristics of martial arts training, (b) the mutation of instructional curriculum to meet today s needs, (c) a martial art s country of origin s help promoting it worldwide, (d) the commercialization of martial arts combined with expanded marketing efforts, (e) martial arts becoming globalized through them all following the same set of standards, (f) heterogeneity of martial arts devices (e.g., movie and health program), and (g) development of a new era of martial arts functions (e.g., mixed martial arts competition) Concept on Market Demand The largest challenge the sports industry has is consumer retention (Sawyer & Smith, 1999). Therefore, sport marketers must understand market demand. They need to understand what their consumers are looking for before they create marketing plans. It has been shown that research can be conducted by sports organizations to gain an understanding of consumer

5 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May expectations. Sports organizations can then use this research to design appropriate marketing plans. In the past, most market demand studies have focused on professional sports (e.g. Zhang, Connaughton, Ellis, Braunstein, Cianfrone, & Vaughn, 2004). There have only been a few studies focusing on martial arts, but none could be found on Jiu Jitsu (e.g. Kim, 2009.). The professional sports studies do not help in understanding market demand for Jiu Jitsu academies. The differences between professional sports and martial arts academies are too great. The study performed on Taekwondo schools in North America was used as a guideline for developing the variables used in this study (Kim, 2009). Economic Consideration Eschenfelder and Li (2007) state the expected costs and benefits decision makers in sport face are influenced by the type of economic system used to make decisions in society (p. 26). Past research has focused on aspects such as the financial situation, including ticket prices; marketing promotion; alternate methods of entertainment; the forces of television; salary; and opposition from of other athletic affairs (e.g., Hansen & Gauthier, 1989; Schofield, 1983; Zhang et al., 1995, 2003a, 2003b). To be more exact, Zhang et al. (2004) discovered that the price to sporting events, whether it be by the regularly priced or discounted tickets, played a vital role in deciding to watch an athletic event or not. Kim, MK., 2009 found that Taekwondo academies commonly relied on three marketing methods: sales promotion, advertising, and publicity. Advertising and publicity have proven to be better in creating awareness among future clients (Kim, 2009). Sales promotion has gone a different path and is more focused on growing satisfaction and purchase (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 1992). Employing price promotion tactics is the most often used (i.e., free month, buy one get one free, coupons, free equipment, and lost leader pricing) (Schultz & Robinson, 1982). Academies use all these methods to try to increase the

6 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May number of new customers. Methodology A survey consisting of 33 questions divided into five sections, (A) Individual Demographics, (B) Jiu Jitsu Experience and Training, (C) Personal Benefits, (D) School Operation, and (E) Instructor Quality. The questions from sections C, D, and E were based on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 being Not at all important and 5 being Extremely Important. Sections A and B were separated into a combined 12 variables based on a multiple-choice format (i.e. gender, age, nationality, marital status, annual income, number of children in household, occupation, education, length of training, current rank (belt), frequency of training, and annual financial investment.) Evaluation The participants for this study were all located in the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea. In total there were 159 (148 males, 11 females) participants from six Jiu Jitsu academies in Seoul. All six academies are focused completely on teaching Jiu Jitsu, none offer other martial arts. From the six schools where the survey was handed out, there was an overall participation rate of 30.57%. Nearly all of the participants were between the ages of 18 and 45 years old (96.77%), with 56.61% being in the range. Even though the survey was conducted in South Korea, foreigners accounted for 19.9% of the participants. The majority were single (71.35%) and without children (77.96%), but 22.04% of the participants had at least one child. The two largest annual income categories were under $9,999 (34.78%) and $35,000-49,999 (20.11%). No single occupation was dominate among the participants, with students and office workers being the highest two with 28.65% and 18.92% respectively. Almost half of the participants were university graduates (46.77%)

7 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May Table 1. Participants demographics where N = 159. Number Variable Category N % 1 Gender Male % Female % 17 and under % 2 Age % % over % Korean % Japanese % 3 Nationality American % Canadian % Australian % Other % 4 Marital Status Single % Married % One % Two % 5 Number of Three or four % Children Five or six % seven or more % None % Under $9, % $10,000-14, % $15,000-24, % 6 Annual Income $25,000-34, % $35,000-49, % $50,000-74, % $75,000-99, % Over $100, % Management % Professional % Technical % Education % 7 Occupation Sales % Military % Student % Others % Unemployed % Some high school % High school graduate % Some university % 8 Education University graduate % Graduate degree % $1,000-1, % $1,500-1, % $2,000 and over %

8 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May Regarding the participants relationships to Jiu Jitsu, 95.13% hold belts with a rank of purple or below. Slightly more than half of the participants trained three to four times a week (51.09%). The length of training for survey participants was pretty spread out, the highest being less than a year (24.32%) and the lowest being six or seven years (3.24%) % said they spent under $999 but 34.41% spent $1,000-1,499 annually. Table 2. Participants relationships to Jiu Jitsu where N = 159. Number Variable Category N % Less than a year % One or two years % Two or three years % 1 Length of training Three or four years % Jiu Jistu Four or five years % Five or six years % Six or seven years % Over seven % White % Blue % 2 Belt Rank Purple % Brown % Black % 1-2 times a week % 3 Frequency of Training 3-4 times a week % 5-7 times a week % 4 Annual Financial Investment Under $ % $1,000-1, % $1,500-1, % $2,000 and over % Table 3 was separated into three categories, and the first one was What is the most important reason you train Jiu Jitsu? The top three results were improving health (55%), increasing confidence (51%), and releasing stress (49%). These three benefits were extremely important to Jiu Jitsu participants. It is interesting that the most frequent answers involve improving one s self-image. The second section of Table 2 was based on an academy s characteristics. The results were quite negative and really of no importance to Jiu Jitsu participants. The results did not show a trend of any sort nor concrete evidence around which to build a marketing plan. The

9 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May third and final section was the instructor s characteristics and their importance. Two characteristics were extremely important to the participants, and they were the instructor s qualifications (49%) and depth of knowledge (50%). Not far behind those characteristics, friendliness had 39% saying it was extremely important. Table 3. Benefits of Jiu Jitsu There are many possible benefits to training Jiu Jitsu. Rank each benefits importance to you. Variable Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely important important important important important Building character 9% (15) 19% (31) 26% (42) 25% (41) 18% (30) Learning patience 9% (14) 15% (24) 22% (36) 33% (54) 19% (31) Improving health 1% (2) 1% (2) 13% (22) 26% (43) 55% (90) Developing self discipline 4% (6) 10% (16) 20% (33) 26% (43) 38% (61) Maintaining a positive attitude 4% (7) 8% (12) 22% (37) 31% (51) 32% (52) Increasing self confidence 3% (5) 6% (9) 12% (20) 25% (41) 51% (84) Learning humility 6% (10) 4% (6) 26% (42) 26% (43) 36% (58) Creating a strong work ethic 13% (21) 15% (25) 33% (54) 22% (35) 15% (24) Releasing stress 1% (2) 6% (9) 14% (24) 27% (44) 49% (80) Rank each characteristic s importance when you chose your current instructor. Qualifications 2% (3) 4% (7) 14% (23) 28% (46) 49% (80) Friendliness 0% (0) 4% (6) 20% (32) 35% (58) 39% (63) Depth of knowledge 0% (1) 2% (3) 11% (18) 34% (56) 50% (81) Reputation 17% (28) 20% (33) 25% (42) 22% (36) 12% (20) Table 4. Academy s Characteristics Rank each characteristics importance when you chose your current Jiu Jitsu academy. Variable Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely important important important important important Flexible payment 36% (59) 23% (37) 25% (40) 8% (13) 6% (10) School appearance 39% (63) 25% (40) 25% (40) 9% (14) 1% (2) Reasonable membership fees 18% (29) 19% (31) 28% (46) 18% (30) 14% (23) Adequate space 16% (26) 18% (29) 26% (42) 29% (47) 9% (15) Cleanliness 10% (16) 15% (24) 25% (41) 30% (49) 18% (29) Advanced and Beginner classes 18% (29) 19% (31) 28% (47) 18% (29) 14% (23) Reasonable refund policy 43% (70) 23% (38) 20% (32) 5% (8) 7% (11) Self defense classes 19% (31) 19% (30) 25% (41) 16% (26) 19% (31) Discussion The results of the survey of Jiu Jitsu players follow closely with other surveys of

10 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May other participants in other martial arts. For example, the results highlight the importance of higher self-esteem (e.g., Finkenberg, 1990, Richman, & Rehberg, 1986, & Trulson, 1986). Other studies also show similarities, including self confidence (Duthie, Hope, & Barker, 1978) and physical ability (Fuller, 1998) and (Konzak, & Boudreau, 1984). The purpose of this study was to get a better understanding of who learns Jiu Jitsu and why in order to develop better marketing plans to increase both customer base as well as customer retention. It was unexpected that Jiu Jitsu students have such little interest in an academy s environment. My opinion is that students assume all academies are basically the same in terms of their interiors but different in terms of instructors and lesson plans. For this reason, the instructor s qualifications and depth of knowledge are extremely important to students when choosing which academy to attend. Implications The research that was conducted focused on a very limited geographical area. We were fortunate that almost 20% of our participants were foreigners, but all of the results were combined and accounted for as one single group. We are unable to see if there is a difference between Korean and non-korean students of Jiu Jitsu in Korea. The longevity of a student could also affect a participant s answers. There is a good chance that someone training for multiple years has altered their mindset for learning Jiu Jitsu compared to a student who has been training for only a few months. Another important line of research would be discovering the relationship between students with higher belts and their motivations to train versus students at the start of their training, for example with less than one year of training. Conclusion An academy s marketing plan should be developed on the physical and emotional benefits of Jiu Jitsu and not the environment of the academy itself. Future customers are not

11 Journal of Marketing and Management, 4 (1), 31-44, May going to join a Jiu Jitsu academy based on the environment; they will join based on the quality of instruction and what they see as the personal benefits of training. It is important that an academy remembers why students join in the first place and build lesson plans accordingly. If an academy is to successfully compete against not only other martial arts schools but also other sports, it needs to create marketing plans and retention programs that highlight the characteristics future and current students actually consider important. About the Author I am an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the International Business Department. I have been living in Korea for over ten years. I have been actively participating in the martial art Jiu Jitsu since References Black Belt. World s Leading Arts Resource. (Feb, 2013). Retrieved from Columbus, P. & Rice, D. (1991). Psychological research on the martial arts: An addendum to Fuller s review. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 64(2) Daniels, K. & Thornton, E. (1990). An analysis of the relationship between hostility and training in the martial arts. Journal of Sports Sciences, 8(2) Duthie, R., Hope, L., & Barker, D. (1978) Selected personality traits of martial artists as measured by the adjective checklist. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 45(1) Eschenfelder, M., & Li, M. (2007). Economic of sport (2 nd ed.). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology Inc. Finkenberg, M. (1990). Effect of participation in taekwondo on college women's self-concept. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71( 3)

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