Examination of Healthy Life Center members' brand perception of sports products

Healthy Life Centers are important because they are organizations that aim to support people's physical and mental health, and provide various sports activities, health services and consultancy services. Since they were developed under the leadership of the Ministry of Health in Turkey, they have an important place in protecting human health. It is thought that brand perception can be effective in the applications of Healthy Life Centers due to the fact that it includes consumers' knowledge, beliefs and feelings about brand rights due to its structure. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the brand perceptions of members of Healthy Life Centers in Turkey towards sports products and the effects of these perceptions on purchasing decisions. The general screening model, one of the quantitative research approaches, was used in the research. The sample of the research consisted of 523 healthy life center members in the province of Gaziantep. The Brand Perception Survey in Sports Products developed by Tozoğlu (2009) was used as the data collection tool. As a result of the analyses, it was determined that there was no statistically significant difference in the brand perception of sports products according to the variables of gender, age, education level, time of using branded products in sports, recommending the brand used to others and giving importance to price when buying branded products. However, it has been determined that there is a statistically significant difference in the brand perception of sports products according to the variables of monthly income, social class that one feels one belongs to, number of sports done weekly (days), purpose of doing sports, finding the brand important in sports products, having information about the sports brand used and using imitation products in the brand used in sports. For future research, it is recommended that semi-structured interviews be conducted with individuals using branded products and individuals using imitation products, in order to reveal in depth the reasons for individuals using brands in sports products.