Sporting Events & Fan Souvenirs in Poland

We were lucky enough to have one of the most fun product categories, sporting events and fan souvenirs. We got a head start on our research when the group went to the Crackovia hockey game the day after we got to Krakow. Our first observation was that the jerseys of the players featured the name of their biggest sponsor rather than the team name. This is very different from America, where sponsors are all ways featured small on a sleeve or elsewhere.

Our second observation at the hockey game was that the fans were very united in their cheers. This surprised us because our first observation of Polish people was that they were very individualistic.

The fans are very proud, but we noticed that they typically only support one sport in the club. The Crackovia club has a number of other sports such as soccer and volleyball. Soccer is by far the most popular in the club, and we thought that in order to improve attendance to hockey games the Crackovia club should do a better job of publicizing their hockey games to the super fans of their other teams such as soccer.

We scoured both cities for jerseys and fan souvenirs, but we had trouble finding the products. We concluded that in order to find apparel, your best bet is to go to the stadium and purchase fan souvenirs during a game. While we didn’t find many differences between American sporting events and Polish sporting events, our experience in ethnographic research has been priceless.

Over the past two weeks in Poland, the members of Eagle Atletkya’s senses have been shocked by new experiences. From seeing devastating historical monuments to hearing a totally foreign language everyday, our class has been stimulating their senses in many new and different ways.

In order to save money, our class either took public transportation or walked to most places. After walking on the beautiful, but uneven, cobblestone for many days, the members of Eagle Atletkya are worn out.

Being in cities completely unfamiliar to us, we were bound to get lost a few times and the language barrier didn’t help us find our way either. Knowing the Polish language would have been beneficial for getting directions.

We started our adventure in Krakow where we saw many beautifully preserved buildings from the 1800’s.

Poland celebrates Christmas much longer than we do in the United States, so we were able to still enjoy Christmas decorations the entire time we have been here.

On Sunday January 6th our class participated in the Epiphany celebrations by attending a Catholic mass. We went to mass in a beautiful cathedral in Krakow’s main square. For many people going to a Catholic mass was a completely new experience. They sang many beautiful songs and wafted incense throughout the cathedral.

Catholic Cathedral

In order to get a better understanding of the historic culture in Poland, our class toured Auschwitz. All of us have learned about World War II in history classes, but it almost doesn’t seem real until you actually are standing where millions of people were killed and enslaved.

Memorial at Birkenau

Warsaw has many monuments through out the city. On our city tour, we learned the meaning behind most of them. The members Eagle Atletkya’s favorite monument stood for the people of Poland’s uprising against the Nazi’s.

Monument of the Polish’s peoples uprising against the Nazi’s

Along the way our class tried many different kinds of Polish foods like sausage, perogies and roasted chicken. Although we all wanted to immerse ourselves as much as possible in the Polish culture, at the malls we went to for ethnographic research the only options we had were American fast-food restaurants like Mcdonald’s and Pizza Hut.

roasted chicken

Everybody in our class has learned so much along the way, and we can’t wait to share these new findings with our loved ones back home in the US.

Advertising and Social Media in Poland

Today we got the inside look into what advertising and social media is like here in Poland. Warsaw is a major advertising hub; so to get the information directly from the source we went DraftFCB, an ad agency nearby. There we broke into three groups. We, Eagle Atletyka, were fortunate enough to have at least one group member in each section, so we got to hear from all of the different perspectives.

 

One of the groups focused on the differences between America and Poland advertisements themselves. We learned that American advertisements are much more intimate than Polish advertisements and that Polish advertisements are much more focused on the functional benefits of a product.

The second group talked more about the history of Polish advertising, starting from before World War II up until today’s advertising strategies. Lastly, the third group had more of an informal question and answer conversation with questions ranging from methods of advertising to entertainment such as television shows. One of the most interesting pieces of information that most of the groups talked about was how easy it was to get into advertising. Not many people major in advertising, so agencies don’t often require high levels of education relating specifically to the subject.

 

After a short break at a mall for lunch we went to University of Warsaw for a combined seminar with a Polish professor and a group of Polish students. We learned early that the students we relatively disinterested in social media when we separated into mixed groups of 4 or 5. While many students had social media profiles like Facebook, they did not seem very engaged. It was very interesting to hear about different social media here in Poland and their different approach to sites such as Facebook.

Tomorrow we will be going on a walking tour of the Jewish ghetto and then meeting our pen pals from Lazarski University. With our trip quickly coming to an end we are working hard to make sure we get the most out of every experience.

A Night and Day in Warsaw

Sunday night and today were very busy days. We had two very good experiences and they were very vital in terms of our understanding of both Polish people in general, and in terms of consumerism.

Last night, we had dinner with 6 students and former students of Warsaw University, which happens to be located only a few blocks away from our hotel in the Old Town. This was not initially supposed to be part of our trip, but these students got into contact with us through a facebook group. We went out to a restaurant with them and enjoyed conversation that was meant to entertain, but also inform as well.

One of the first things our group talked about with some of these students was the cost of college or as they say, university. In Poland, the government pays for public universities. Students only pay for housing and books usually. If they pay anything at all, it usually totals around 2,500-3,000 U.S. dollars. When we told the students how much we pay, not only at private schools, but at our public schools as well, they almost fell over. They were unbelieving that people paid that much in America for schooling. This made us laugh as well, but we also were pretty jealous of them.

Another thing we talked about was why people appeared to be so “unfriendly” here in Poland. For example, not smiling if we smiled at them or not seeming to want to help us. What they explained to us was that people who had grown up with communism had nothing to be happy about. They were constantly worrying and so they weren’t concerned on being friendly towards others let alone foreigners. This response definitely made us think more about the hardships the Polish people had gone through and how lucky we are in America to have a free land.

The last main topic we would like to talk about is the amount of time it would take to finish a degree here. Usually in the U.S. it takes 4 years for undergrad and then another 2-3 years to finish a Master’s program. In Poland, students are able to finish an undergrad and master’s degree combo in only 5 years. This can be beneficial because it is a lot of work that can be condescended so the government can get people employed as soon as possible. Also, it helps the government so they don’t have to pay for more years of schooling. Overall, we had a great night with the students and we learned a lot from them and we are sure they learned just as much from us.

The other experience we had today was going to the mall in Warsaw called the Złote Tarasy. It was a great experience because we were able to compare it to the two malls we were in at Krakow. Compared to the other two malls, this mall seemed to be a combination of both of those.

One of the reasons it was like Galeria Krakowska was because of the stores it had. There were a lot of stores and there were a wide variety of them. It was also extremely busy like the Galeria was. The reason it reminded us of Bonarka was because of the types of people there. Bonarka was not very busy and there were a lot of people just browsing through shops not necessarily needing something, but just looking to see if anything caught their eye. This is why it was a combination of the two malls.

One of the differences the Złote Tarasy had between the other two was the architecture. It was the most amazing looking mall with a dome like structure that almost looked like glass waves.  This was quite a unique structure unlike something we had ever seen before. We were impressed by it. Also another difference was the amount of school-aged children. We didn’t expect to see so many kids in the mall on a weekday, but they were all about with backpacks and even some uniforms. Our guess was that there was a school nearby where the kids could come to the mall for lunch, but that is only our guess.

Overall, we have really enjoyed Warsaw so far. It is quite different from Krakow, but both have been amazing places to stay. We can’t wait for the next couple of days!

 

Comparing Warsaw

The instantly recognizable differences between Krakow and Warsaw are the size, population and style. Our group, accompanied by a Polish tour guide, took a five-hour walking tour of the city of Warsaw. The city took much longer to tour than Krakow. Warsaw is approximately 200 square miles and is home to just over 1.7 million citizens.

During the day, it was much easier to witness this larger population. Warsaw has a visible younger population, and people traveled in much larger groups than in Krakow. Many families were out in the town square exploring the city and enjoying a Warsaw holiday—The Day of Giving. This charitable holiday was created to collect funds for a charity, which is selected annually. This year the collected donations will be contributed to two organizations benefiting children and elderly citizens.

Luckily, our group was able to witness town holidays in both Warsaw and Krakow. In Krakow, Orszak Trzech Kroli (The Epiphany) was a day-long celebration and included a parade and gathering in Old Town city square. The two cities’ celebrations were much different, but both occasions enticed a great portion of the populations.

However, the city style in Warsaw catered to a different, more diverse celebration. Warsaw, because of its large size, has distinctly different sections of town. After visiting both old town and downtown the day of its celebration, it was clear that involvement was heavy in all sections. The group noticed greater festivities in old town, where there is more open space to interact and gather.

The old town in Warsaw is similar to that of Krakow. Open space in both squares encouraged great participation in both cities. Thus far, the people of Warsaw have not presented obvious differences in attitudes or physical appearance from those in Krakow. Although some natives can recognize a person’s hometown based on the shape of his or her face, we have not yet been able to identify the difference.

We Made it to Warsaw

After a long bus ride, and little bit of confusion, the Ad Studies class made it to the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz. It is a three-story modern art museum with a lot of historical influence. On the top floor there is a commodity items exhibit, with items like a walkman. The members of Eagle Atletyka believe Polish people probably look at items like the walkman as art because they didn’t have access to technology like that during communism. One piece that really stood out to us is called Propaganda Barricade.

Propaganda Barricade

Both sides of this piece have images about accepting peoples differences.

Once we arrived in Warsaw we dropped our bags at the hotel and took a bus tour of the city. Being the capital of Poland, it is much larger and there were many more people walking around then we saw in Krakow. There also are a lot more new buildings, including a huge soccer stadium that was built just last year. We also noticed there are a lot more billboards around Warsaw.

There are a couple different universities here, but there didn’t seem to be much night life like there is in Krakow’s main square.

The members of Eagle Atletyka can’t wait to see what Warsaw has in store for us!

The Last Day in Krakow

We leave tomorrow morning for Warsaw so now is an appropriate time to reflect on all we have learned about the consumers here in Poland. Most of our studies have not directly involved the people who are frequent users of sporting events or fan souvenirs; however, many of the things we have observed and learned about the Polish people in general can help give us insight into the people who would be using our product category. Main categories of insights that apply to the people who attend sporting events are their spending habits and individualistic tendencies.

We were surprised to learn yesterday that while Polish people typically don’t have a lot of discretionary income, they also don’t often save. This is important for our category because typically in the United States people with less discretionary income would not attend leisure activities such as sports, but would instead save their money. This is great for advertisers working in the sports product category because even though the Polish people do not have discretionary income they would still find value in attending sporting events rather than saving.

Often, in ours and other group blogs, we have mentioned that many of the Polish people seem distant or standoffish towards strangers. This led us to see the Polish people as more individualistic. We also saw this more individualistic side when we visited the Galeria, which was full of people shopping alone.

To contrast this individualistic side we saw coming out of many of the Polish people we encountered, the people at the hockey game we went to on the first Sunday in Krakow seemed very united. When the game first started, the team’s fight song played and we noticed that most of the crowd was holding up their fan souvenirs such as scarves and hats in honor of the team. It was a very interesting way to show pride in their team, and it made the crowd feel very united. We also noticed that throughout the game the crowd would often chant as a group.

We look forward to exploring a new city in order to gain even more insight into the consumers who frequent our product category. We are also excited to meet with the students of Lazarski University. It will be great to have some one on one interaction with them so we can get answers on some of our many unanswered questions straight from the source.

Beginning the search

Over the past week, we have learned a great deal about the history of Krakow and Poland in general. It is just recently that we really started to focus on our products of sporting events and souvenirs. In our ongoing process to research this things, we have had many breakthroughs as well as some struggles.

We have had some great finds so far in our early search. Last Sunday, our group attended a hockey game. This was a game between local club Cracovia and the visitors from Katowice. The first thing that shocked us was the price of tickets; 10 zloty for adults ($3.30 USD) 5 zloty for students ($1.60 USD) and 1 zloty for women ($0.30 USD). While this seems unbelievably cheap for professional hockey, we believe the city pays some subsidy to keep the team in town. Otherwise, there would be no other way to have such cheap prices. We really enjoyed the game which ended with a win for the home team. One of the aspects that we enjoyed was the whole atmosphere of the rink. The rink was surprisingly full and the fans were very much into the game. They were constantly cheering using group chants that must have originated from soccer games.  

Also today, we had a lecture from Professor Ada from the Universytet Ekonomicznych here in Krakow. She was able to give us a little more information about how people get involved in professional sports in Poland, but also in Europe in general. It is much different than in the United States. In Poland, you go to an academy for sports when you are very young. This is mostly for soccer, but a few other sports do this as well. If they see that you have talent, then they continue to develop you and eventually you can become a professional. This is unlike the U.S. where you would first go to college. Here, there are not athletics affiliated with colleges like we do.

Beside actually attending the events, we have had some trouble finding sports souvenirs. There doesn’t seem to be many shops dedicated to just sports, especially ones for local teams. We found a Nike and Adidas store in both big malls we went to, but they only had a few team jerseys for soccer clubs only and none of which were actually located in Poland. We are continually on the lookout for more souvenirs however, and hopefully will find more in Warsaw. Also, there seems to be little, if any advertising for sporting events. Our pen pal from Warsaw tells us that basketball, hockey and volleyball are the most popular winter sports, but we haven’t seen or heard anything for basketball and volleyball. There seems to be very little communication about sporting events. We are still in the process of figuring out how everyone knows when to purchase tickets.

 

Matthew

Bonarka City Center

Today our team explored Bonarka City Center, which was recently expanded to include 270 stores. This suburban shopping center and its shoppers provided a much different experience than Galeria—the mall our group visited yesterday afternoon. Differences ranged from: age, shopping habits, party sizes and store options.

As previously mentioned, yesterday’s experience included fast-paced shoppers and an individualistic shopping style. This popular style may be due to the large amount of shoppers at Galeria, the age of visitors—most shoppers were between the ages of 20 and 30—and the connected train station. Many travelers were quickly skimming the mall for convenience products, with their luggage in hand.

Bonarka City Center had much fewer people. Its shoppers were browsing for shopping goods at a leisurely pace. This pace can be attributed to the lower number of shoppers in the center; shoppers felt more comfortable lingering through the mall, because they didn’t feel rushed by large crowds. Shoppers at Bonarka ranged from 20 to 65 years old and were in larger groups, making shopping a social experience.

This mall also offered a more child-friendly environment and extensive store options, which targeted more age groups. Our group observed multiple pairs or groups of people, who varied in age. For example, a mother with her college-aged daughter and parents with their small children were shopping together. It was easy to identify who were browsing for consumers other than themselves, such as children, spouses or friends. Often shoppers were in stores targeting demographics much different than their own.

Because of the laid-back atmosphere, the trip to Bonarka was personally more enjoyable than the afternoon spent at Galeria. The consumers seemed happier and the speed of shopping much more relaxed.

Galeria Krakowska

After 5 days of exploring Krakow, the members of Eagle Atletyka have begun an ethnographic investigation of Poland. We started our exploration at the Galeria Krakowska, a three story upscale mall. There were many stores at the Galeria Krakowska that are also popular in the United States, like H&M and Nike. On the other hand, there are many Polish stores like Bartek, equivalent to Payless, and Aggi a clothing store. 

Some shoppers were on a mission to find the perfect pair of heels, while others were mingling and hanging out. The majority of the products at the Galeria Krakowska are shopping products, but Carrefour and Rossmann carry convenience products. Usually the only specialty products sold in malls are laptops, and we found some in the store Saturn.

The people looking at shopping products in stores like New Yorker and Nike were about 20-40 years old, and they were usually by themselves or with one other person. The one specialty product that we did see in the mall were laptops in the electronic store, Saturn. We observed two women about 25 years old comparing and contrasting the attributes of different laptops, specifically Mac laptops. The few people we saw over the age of 50 were shopping for convenience products. 

The fall of communism in Poland was only 20 years ago. After having 30 years of communist consumer behavior engrained in them, people over the age 50 seem to find looking for shopping products at a mall a hassle. Under communism Poland did not have shopping malls. Just stand alone stores with very few, if any, options for different products. It seemed the older people only went to the Carrefour and Rossmann in the Galeria Krakowska because the location is convenient for them. 

The members of Eagle Atletyka will be continuing our ethnographic investigation tomorrow at a suburban mall called Bonarka.

Savana Dale