Last Friday I had the chance to attend the 2011 Ivy Sports Symposium, which every year offers an impressive array of speakers, informative panel discussions and wonderful networking opportunities. If you haven’t already, search for the Twitter hashtag #ISS2011 to see some of the updates that were shared during the event. During the breaks between sessions, I tried to grab a couple of video interviews to share with you this week, along with a larger event recap post coming soon.

My final interview was with Brandi Connolly, Director of Sports and Experiential at hawkeye. Brandi and I talked about experiential marketing and how it can be a valuable component in a brand’s overall sports marketing and sponsorship strategy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQwQli-LgrM

You can connect with Brandi on Twitter at @brandiconnolly or by email at bconnolly@hawkeyeww.com.

(Please pardon the slightly unusual shape of the video box – I took the video vertically on my iPhone. I’ll stick to landscape for future clips!)

Last Friday I had the chance to attend the 2011 Ivy Sports Symposium, which every year offers an impressive array of speakers, informative panel discussions and wonderful networking opportunities. If you haven’t already, search for the Twitter hashtag #ISS2011 to see some of the updates that were shared during the event.

During the breaks between sessions, I tried to grab a couple of video interviews to share with you this week, along with a larger event recap post coming soon. First up is my interview with Len Perna, President of Turnkey Sports & Entertainment. Len discusses some of the different products Turnkey has put together and how valuable market research can be in the sports industry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuU5jngQHNU

You can learn more about Turnkey on Twitter at @TurnkeySports or by visiting the Turnkey Facebook page.

(Please pardon the slightly unusual shape of the video box – I took the video vertically on my iPhone. I’ll stick to landscape for future clips!)

The NBA is clearly going through a rough period because of the lockout, and with every passing day, more damage is being done between the league and its fans. However, even when an organization has to deal with something as stressful and problematic as a work stoppage, teams must continue to communicate to their fans, keeping them abreast of the situation and offering up as much damage control as possible.

I’m signed up for several team email lists, and I have to say, I’ve been most impressed by the Lakers messages over the past few weeks. Here are a few snippets to show how they’ve stayed in touch with their fans in an honest and direct manner. Each of these messages was “signed” from Tim Harris, Senior Vice President, Operations/CMO.

September 23:

We appreciate your continued patience as the NBA and the NBA Players Association negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. Since no such agreement has been reached at this time, the league has postponed player training camps and cancelled preseason games scheduled through October 15th.

Please know that you are a vital part of the Lakers, and we value your support.

We want to assure you that the league’s efforts are focused on reaching an agreement that benefits all parties involved. The NBA’s goal is to secure a sustainable business model that enables all 30 teams to compete for a championship, fairly compensates players, and ensures a world-class experience for our fans.

We recognize that without our fans, there would be no NBA. Your passion for the game is what motivates us, and we do not take your support for granted. The league will continue to work toward a new collective bargaining agreement so that we can get back to enjoying the excitement of NBA basketball.

Thank you again for your support and your continued loyalty to the Lakers.

October 4:

We appreciate your patience as the NBA and the NBA Players Association negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. Since an agreement has not been reached at this time, the league has canceled all preseason games.

The league will continue to work toward a new collective bargaining agreement so that we can get back to enjoying the excitement of NBA basketball.

Lakers fans are the passion that drives the team and we appreciate your support and your continued loyalty to the Lakers.

October 12:

We’re sorry to share that the NBA and the NBA Players Association have yet to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. Unfortunately this means the league has had to cancel all regular season games scheduled through November 14th.

Rest assured both sides are working hard to get a deal done so that we can get back to what we all want most, the excitement of NBA basketball. In the meantime, we’ll continue to keep you informed with updates as they become available.

We share your frustration and sincerely appreciate both your support and continued loyalty to the Lakers.

There’s really no way to sugar coat the labor situation that the NBA is going through, so I think the Lakers’ sincere approach and expression of gratitude is a very effective way to communicate to their fans as the lockout moves along. Sending out bad news can be quite challenging from a marketing and PR perspective, but its much better to take this approach than to ignore the situation and not say anything.

Earlier this week, I received an email from Yelp.com (pictured below). If you’re not familiar with the site, it is a great resource to share and look at reviews for local businesses, and they are also getting into the local deals business, so don’t be surprised to see special offers from sports teams through their service. This particular email was focused on promoting local sports bars where you can go watch your favorite teams play.

When I saw the email, I immediately noticed it because the subject line was “Get Yer New York Sports Here!” – for those of you outside the NY metro area that don’t recognize it, that’s the slogan for SportsNet NY (SNY). You can watch one of their newest commercials, and you’ll hear the phrase at the very end. They use it at the end of almost every TV and radio spot they create.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vDKyKQCYrU

So, what do you think of Yelp’s decision to send an email marketing message that prominently features the slogan of a local sports media outlet? I tried to see if the phrase was trademarked, and my cursory searches did not reveal any results. If the phrase is not trademarked, then it’s probably a great tactic. Of course, if it is trademarked and I just couldn’t find it, using the phrace might not even be legal. Should SNY be angry at Yelp? On one hand, Yelp is benefiting from SNY’s work, but on the other hand, it might help SNY my reminding the reader to watch their programming.

I’m pretty torn on this approach, so I’d love to know what you all think.

I was riding on a subway in New York last night and saw an advertisement that caught my interest. Take a look at the picture below…

If you are from the New York area, you might see this ad and “recognize” the font being used for the word “YES.” If it doesn’t look familiar to you, take a look at this logo:

Now, I know that they’re not exactly the same (e.g. there is a diagonal slant in the tips of the “E” in the YES Network logo that’s not in the Nestea ad), but you have to admit there’s a definite resemblance. The question I have is, was this font choice intentional? Considering the advertisement is running in a New York subway and the popularity of the Yankees and the YES Network in this area, this could be a strategic decision by Nestea or their advertising agency, especially if this is only a local campaign (the argument doens’t hold as much weight if this is part of a national campaign).

It costs a lot of money to use a team’s logo, but designing an advertisement in a way that can still trigger an association in the mind of the reader without including any actual team marks could be a cost-effective option. In many situations, a particular font or word choice can be enough to trigger that association. I’m not saying that’s what Nestea was going for here, but the font choice was definitely enough to make me think of the YES Network, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Today’s post is from guest blogger Brian Gainor, founder of Partnership Activation, a leading resource in sports business that showcases sports marketing and sponsorship trends, best practices, and creative activation tactics. Brian has also been featured as a guest writer for Darren Rovell’s CNBC SportsBiz column.

Sports leagues and organizations are turning to Facebook to offer fans more content, access, and interactivity than ever before. As sports entities begin to fully understand the value of social media, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become critical channels in the marketing mix to promote messaging, drive participation and interest, and engage fans on a 24/7, 365 basis.

Teams can no longer rely on Wall posts, photos, and shareable videos to drive consumers to frequently visit their Facebook pages and stay for awhile. As a result, it’s important that teams identify and share best practices in the social media space both internally and externally.

Here are 50 creative ways that teams are engaging fans on Facebook outside the traditional elements:

1. Fans Map – FC Barcelona (Find FC Barcelona fans across the world)

2. Real Madrid Avatars – Real Madrid (Fans can create their own virtual avatar)

3. Arsenal “Like the Players” – Arsenal FC (Fans can easily like all the players on the team)

4. Spread the Word - Manchester United (Fans can easily invite their friends to join the Manchester United Facebook Page

5. Fountain Tire Shootout – Vancouver Canucks (Fans can play a virtual hockey game to win prizes and coupon vouchers)

6. 3-Point Play – Boston Celtics (Fans can compete in an interactive stats-related game to earn points)

7. Summer Salute – Team Lowe’s Racing (Fans can post a military salute or message to troops overseas)

8. Polls / Quizzes – NASCAR (Fans can test their NASCAR IQ via a number of quizzes and polls)

9. NBA Ball of Fame – NBA (Fans can click on basketballs to relive famous moments from the NBA Finals)

10. NBA Turnstile - NBA (Fans can “check-in” to NBA games on Facebook to chat with fans, win tickets and merchandise, and earn badges)

11. Support Your Team on Facebook! – NFL (Fans can scroll through an interactive tab to see where their favorite team ranks in popularity and intensity amongst all teams and within conference/division).

12. Shopping – Liverpool FC (Fans can quickly scroll through ultimate shopping ideas and can get easy access to the team’s mobile application)

13. JetBlue FaceOff – Boston Bruins (Fans can access game information, play games, win prizes, and more)

14. Mavs Spirit Photo Upload – Dallas Mavericks (Fans can submit their best photo wearing Mavericks gear for the chance to have it featured on the team’s Facebook page)

15. Fan Zone - New England Patriots (Fans can interact with polls, listen to live broadcasts, post comments, share virtual gifts, play trivia, and more)

16. Share Your Story – San Francisco 49ers (Fans can share why they are a Faithful Fan for the chance to be featured on 2011 season tickets or in a team commercial)

17. Tickets & Promotions – Philadelphia 76ers (Fans can closely follow current ticket specials and promotions using a tab integrated into the team Facebook page)

18. A Date with SFC – Seattle Sounders (Fans can watch video dating profiles of different players on Seattle Sounders FC and partake in a date auction via Ebay.

19. Guess the Kit – Tottenham Hotspur (Fans have to correctly guess what the team’s new kit (uniform) will look like)

20. Broadcast Schedule – Portland Timbers (Fans can easily see which networks will be carrying the team’s upcoming soccer matches)

21. Locker Room – Los Angeles Lakers (Fans can take a virtual tour of the Lakers locker room)

22. Flickr - Milwaukee Bucks (Fans can scroll through photos of the Bucks’ gameday experience posted on their Official Flickr page)

23. U-Stream – Golden State Warriors (Fans can watch a live webcast with a Warriors player each day during Training Camp

24. Trailblazers.tv – Portland Trail Blazers (Fans can watch exclusive interviews, shows, highlights, pre- and post-game shows, and more)

25. AC Milan Jersey – A.C. Milan (Fans can create their own virtual A.C. Milan Jersey (with a custom name and number) and share it on their Facebook wall)

26. Fantasy Manager – A.C. Milan (Fans can create and manage a virtual team of players and compete against friends for the chance to win team prizes)

27. Ice Dancers – Florida Panthers (Fans could vote on their favorite Ice Dancers in a bracket competition that gave away a free cruise!)

28. Stars Text Alerts – Dallas Stars (Fans can easily sign up to receive basic text alerts or student rush text alerts)

29. Leafs on YouTube – Toronto Maple Leafs (Fans can watch a series of YouTube clips directly within a tab on the team’s Facebook page

30. Photo Pick-Up – Phoenix Suns (Fans can have their picture taken by Suns personnel at a game and retrieve it for free on the team’s Facebook page)

31. Match of the Week – Sporting KC (Fans can receive in-depth information about a premier MLS game each week)

32. Meet the Team – Denver Nuggets (Fans can vote for their favorite players on the Nuggets by “liking” them on the interactive Facebook tab)

33. Letter to Fans – Buffalo Sabres (Fans can read a letter sent from the team’s owner Terrence M. Pegula thanking them for their support)

34. Which Cap Are You Like? – Washington Capitals (Fans can take a quiz to see what Washington Capitals player they are the most like and win an autographed jersey)

35. Foursquare – Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Fans can view the team’s Foursquare profile and access tips and insights on whose checked-in at Raymond James Stadium)

36. Draft Party Sweepstakes – Charlotte Bobcats (Fans can sign up on Facebook to win a VIP experience at the Bobcats Draft Party courtesy of Donatos Pizza)

37. Fan Forum – Dallas Cowboys (Fans can participate in an interactive forum where they can participate in a live discussion board)

38. Showcase – Sacramento Kings (Fans can scroll through to see all of the Kings’ hottest merchandise in their online team store up close)

39. Host UpClose Contest – Indianapolis Colts (Fans can upload a video of themselves hosting a sports segment for the chance to fly to Indianapolis and host a segment on Colts UpClose)

40. Scarf Yourself! – New York Red Bulls (Fans can add an official New York Red Bulls scarf to their profile picture and feature it on the team Facebook page)

41. Support – Atlanta Falcons (Fans can post questions/ideas/problems that they have and a Falcons customer representative addresses them for all fans to see on a live discussion board)

42. Give Your All – All Blacks (Fans can watch a series of vignettes where the All Blacks players talk about giving everything they’ve got when they enter the pitch)

43. Fan of the Week – Chicago Bears (Fans can submit a message/photo detailing why they are the biggest fan for the chance to be featured online)

44. A’s Kids Club – Oakland A’s (Fans can sign up for an Oakland A’s Kids Club Membership directly through the team’s Facebook page)

45. WTA Extra – WTA (Fans can easily scroll through high-res images of the top WTA players and also see information about their world ranking and Twitter feed)

46. Giving – Tampa Bay Rays (Fans can read about the Rays Baseball Foundation and make a donation)

47. Fanographies – Cleveland Browns (Fans can submit their Browns story for the chance to win 2011 season tickets)

48. Bulldog Club – University of Georgia Athletics (Fans can read about the Bulldog Club, make donations, invest in educational opportunities, and more)

49. Charity – PGA (Fans can read about the PGA’s new partnership with Darius Rucker and download a song which benefits PGA Tour Charities, Inc.)

50. UStream Live – Colorado Avalanche (Fans can watch broadcasts throughout the season and sign up to receive email alerts every time they take place)

I know I write about email marketing a lot, but it is an important way of communicating with your fans. Even with the constant increase in social media usage, email marketing is still the most effective way to reach your customer base with targeted messaging. One way to make those messages stand out even more is to use personalization.

When I mention personalization, most people think about using the customer’s name, such as starting your email with “Dear Russell” or including the customer’s name in the subject line. Both of these can be effective options for increasing open and click-thru rates. However, sometimes the best way to personalize is to use other information you know about the individual receiving the email.

Take a look at this example from the NHL (viewed from my Gmail account):

The important think to note here is the subject line – ‘Vote for “THE CAPTAIN’S GUARANTEE” as the greatest Stanley Cup Playoffs moment in history.’ From my NHL.com preferences, they know that I am a New York Rangers fan, and Mark Messier’s famous guarantee from the 1994 playoffs was an incredible moment for all Rangers fans. This subject line resonates with me in a very personal way, increasing the likelihood that I’m going to open the email and vote for this moment. I’m sure that Bruins, Canadiens and Penguins fans received a very different subject line to encourage them to vote the historic moment that they care most about.

Think of it this way – imagine you are a Rangers fan. Which email would you want to open?

- Subject 1: Vote for “THE CAPTAIN’S GUARANTEE” as the greatest Stanley Cup Playoffs moment in history
- Subject 2: Russell, vote for the greatest Stanley Cup Playoffs moment in history

In this case, personalizing with my name would seem flat. There’s nothing about adding my name that makes me more interested in opening the email and voting. On the other hand, referencing a historic moment that brings back wonderful memories as a Rangers fans drives much more interest in opening this email. In general, I believe that name-based personalization is a much better approach for customer service related communications, while interest-based personalization can have more impact on sales and marketing communications.

Over the past few weeks, the Arizona State Sun Devils athletic department has been releasing videos and teasers about a big announcement they had planned for April 12, 2011.  Before we actually review what happened, we should start by taking a look at what they did to create anticipation and excitement among their fans and alumni:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYYgGHrTd8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKbYekB_TSE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U13DaBHLzkY

Clearly, something big was coming, but no official announcements were made until April 12, so fans had to wait. I love how the videos covered the full history of their athletic program, successfully mixing nostalgia and historic moments to more recent highlights and successes. This allowed the videos to resonate with a wide age range of fans, which is very important when you have alumni from age 22 to 102.

When the time came, we finally learned that the Sun Devils were undergoing a complete rebranding, transitioning away from the traditional “Sparky” logo to a new pitchfork-based logo and updating their official colors and fonts. Here is the official “Time to Fear the Fork” video that went along with the announcement:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQxHr4xplzE

Behind the scenes, Nike was working with Arizona State for over a year on the rebranding process, which involved changes to all the colors and marks across all sports at the school.  The logo itself was the most significant change, but the introduction of black as an important color for the school’s brand was also very important. For more on Nike’s role in the process, check out this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhnfE10B7YQ

Here is an official statement on the new brand from the school’s weekly “Devil’s Insider” email newsletter:

“The rebranding of Sun Devil Athletics includes adding two colors to the athletics color palette: copper, for its prominence in Arizona history, and black, a long-anticipated return to the Sun Devil attitude. This fall will not be the first time our Arizona State football squads have worn black helmets, as we previously wore black helmets in the 1950s.  We now have a custom athletic font exclusive to Sun Devil Athletics. The font, called Sun Devil Bold, incorporates unique characteristics intended to represent my horns or my pitchfork. Speaking of pitchforks, the official logo of Sun Devil Athletics is now the pitchfork… This exclusive and contemporary mark will be used consistently across all of our Sun Devil teams. Anytime someone sees this logo, they will instantly recognize it as Sun Devil Athletics.”

Putting aside that I’m a bit biased when it comes to Arizona State (I went there for my MBA and worked in the athletic department), I think this is a great move for them. While Sparky has a long history at the school, it wasn’t the greatest logo to build the brand around. They wanted to have a strong, intense brand, but at the same time, Sparky was also their mascot and was very family friendly, which created a conflicting message in their brand. Now, they can continue to use Sparky in the mascot role, where he’s always been a great fit, but their athletic program can be better marketed under the new colors and pitchfork logo. This change should contribute to improvements in merchandise sales, brand awareness,  ticket sales and hopefully alumni contributions.

The decision to rebrand any sports organization is very complicated, as the decision makers need to balance the affinity that their fans have to the current brand against the long-term value of what the new brand could represent. It seems like the Sun Devils really used their time productively not only to decide on what the new brand will be, but in how to create excitement about it and communicate the changes to their fans.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Amy Skiles, SVP of Business Development for Phoenix Design Works.

Branding the building is a process that usually comes after you’ve branded the team, but actually it presents the first point of engagement with your brand for many of the consumers in your various fan bases.  If indeed, you do plan to allocate resources to utilize your facilities in your branding efforts, it just means that you need to allow a little additional time to go through your primary identity process first, and then proceed to apply your branding program to your buildings or arenas.

But it will be well worth the extra effort, and for those of you who already have your core branding program locked down, you’re one step ahead when it comes to branding your building.

Facilities branding also known as outdoor, display, on site, and campus branding, usually consists of banners, video displays, or manipulation of display and construction materials.  Usually there is a hierarchy of usage that dictates the chosen execution.  For example, Banners usually have a promotional or seasonal theme that indicates that they will go up and come down within a certain time frame, while actual manipulation of metal, wood or stone materials would be reserved for a longer lasting purpose, such as delivery of your core logo branding.

Branding for your building can be thought of as the place where your logo meets your ad – it would be a waste of precious marketing resources to produce banners, billboards of any sort of facilities branding program with one and not the other.

Building branding, no pun intended, really is an area that is unique unto itself.  On the one hand, building branding requires more finesse than other lesser, or at least, smaller brand applications, in it’s visibility, and on the other hand, it becomes the largest ad you will ever do –  Eight foot tall type is simply more commanding than eight point tall type.

Although scale is the most obvious and dominant consideration of a branding program for your building, it’s not the only one.  Time would be other major factor – You have to imagine ahead of time what it will be like for your fans to see your branding and promotional campaign over and over when it is, quite literally, the size of the building.  That’s why there is never a substitute for the development of a proper strategy and a savvy deployment of your branding campaign on this level .  If your messaging is “trendy”, or cavalier, your audience will tire of it quickly, and so will you.  You can actually damage your brand perception in the marketplace, in fact, your marketplace, and spend a lot of money doing it.

Which brings us to our next point – While we are all enjoying the digital revolution in our branding applications,  (We are, aren’t we?) a mistake here is harder to get rid of than replacing the web page.  So if you want to avoid really, really big typos, proof, proof and proof again.

Regarding the point of building branding being the place where your logo meets your ad, this is the part of the process of developing your program where you’ll want to allocate the most time and effort to create your new campaign.

When you’re developing your strategy, you’ll want to consider exactly what you want to communicate to your audience – Is it season tickets going on sale?  An anniversary?  Or the return of your marquee event?  Whichever the case may be, this is the time and place for you to think it through.  And in the process of doing so, you will hopefully come to the realization that you need a big idea.

It’s only fair – A Big Idea for a Big Execution.  The benefits of delivering your messaging within the context of a larger, more provocative concept are many.  For starters, a larger concept can deliver your messaging here and now, but also have the legs to deliver additional messaging further down the road.  Also, a bigger idea will underscore your brand recognition in other media like print, broadcast and the web.  Further, you have to consider the way people think, and the way they interact with your brand.

There is nothing terribly sexy about “Tickets Now 9.99″, but under the heading of “Dare to Bring the Thunder”, “It’s Showtime”, or “Minor Entertainment”, it almost seems as if you’re doing me a favor by letting me buy a ticket… “9.99″ is a product benefit.  ”Major Entertainment” is a brand promise.

If you have an existing campaign in place in other media, then your concerns are what we’ve covered so far, in terms of time and space, as well as to what degree the campaign is dominant or subordinate to your identity. But if you really want to have some fun, launching your campaign on a scale the size of your arena is one of the most exciting things you can do, and provides absolutely tremendous potential return for your brand as well.

There is nothing that is as exciting, or provides as much brand potential, as the combined launch of a new identity and a new campaign in your own arena –  Otherwise known as “Branding the Building”.

To learn more about branding your building and other services that Phoenix Design Works offers, visit www.phoenixdesignworks.com.

In today’s Sports Business Daily, there was an interesting article about a 2K Sports ad for their tennis video game Top Spin 4 featuring Serena Williams that was supposedly rejected for being too sexy. The ad has ended up on YouTube anyway, so before we discuss further, you can see it for yourself:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2yolyf2kVQ

The decision on whether or not to use a commercial like this comes down to a conflict between two opposing forces. On one hand, you have the fundamental (albeit cliche) idea that “sex sells,” and on the other hand, you have the debate as to what is and isn’t in good taste. Serena Williams is widely recognized as having tremendous sex appeal, which combined with her tremendous on-the-court success has made her into an iconic figure in sports, fashion and pop culture. So the idea of using a sexy image of her seems like a logical option. But does the combination of revealing outfits, poses and grunting turn sex appeal into something trashy? This is where 2K Sports must have ultimately felt this particular spot went too far.

Now I have three other questions to ponder, and I’d love your thoughts…

1. Would this ad have led to more sales for Top Spin 4 than a more conservative advertising approach?
2. Would running this commercial have adversely affected the brand of 2K Sports? Or for Serena herself?
3. Are ads like this a good or bad thing for women’s tennis overall?

I’m still going back and forth on these myself. I think you can make a good argument that this approach would have sold more copies of this particular game, but that short-term spike may not worth the risk of longer-term brand devaluation.

As for women’s tennis, the idea of using sex appeal to promote women’s sports actually came up at the Women in Sports panel at the Global Sports Forum two weeks ago. Even these distinguished panelists seemed unsure about what’s best in situations like this. Some felt that anything that increases the level of media exposure for women’s sports would be a positive thing in the long-term, whereas others were more concerned about maintaining a positive image. If they can’t decide what the best approach is, it’s not surprising that these decisions are so tough.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and just like any other holiday, this special occasion can be used as part of a marketing campaign to sell tickets and merchandise. Here are a few examples of Valentine’s Day themed promotions taking place this year that I was able to find. You can see that the offers each have their own unique details, including items like jewelry, dinners, flowers, merchandise and personal delivery.

Phoenix Coyotes (Thanks to the Phoenix Business Journal blog for writing about this one)

Milwaukee Bucks

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Philadelphia Flyers

Houston Astros

Texas Rangers

St. Louis Cardinals

Houston Rockets (Branded as an “UnValentine’s Special” – also running a Valentine’s Day Clutch Gram promotion)

Cleveland Indians

By now, everyone has seen most of the ads from Sunday’s game, either during the broadcast or online (if you haven’t, the best place to go is the AdBlitz page on YouTube – go there now!). Everyone has their own opinions as to which were the best and the worst, so I feel its only logical that I contribute some of my thoughts on the subject.

To me, for a Super Bowl Ad to be a real winner, it needs to:

1. Connect with the consumer in an entertaining or impactful manner
2. Resonate in a way that positively connects to the brand
3. Create a lasting impression that leads to additional brand value over time

It seems like many ads are so focused on #1, that #2 and #3 are overlooked.  Based on these three ideas along with my general thoughts, I’m categorizing many of the ads into one of four buckets: Winners, Losers, Mixed Bag and “Old Faithfuls”:

Winners:

• Audi: A long spot, which can be dangerous, but I felt it was entertaining and held my attention as I wanted to see what they were building up to. The final message of choosing “new luxury” definitely resonates with Audi’s marketing strategy, which is the biggest reason I felt that this was a winner.
• Best Buy: Had a fun mix of celebrities combined with an easy to understand message (technology getting outdated so fast). This fits perfectly with the launch of their “buy-back” program and the ad was unique and funny enough to be memorable.
• Sealy: This was the most “risque” ad of the night, which ends up making it one of the most memorable. A different approach for a large-scale mattress advertisement, but one that I think ends up resonating at least on some level with the viewers.
• HomeAway.com: Just funny enough with the “test baby” and very connected to the message is very clear. It is a bold move for a company that doesn’t typically spend on television to have a Super Bowl ad, but it can be a great way to make a quick impact. I believe this is the 2nd time HomeAway.com has done this, and I think it works for them.
• CareerBuilder and Teleflora: I’m grouping these together because both were simple, funny, had a clear brand connection, and used humor to resonate with the viewer. Sometimes a simple, straightforward approach is best.

Losers:

• Stella Artois: Long ad, very slow-developing and I didn’t feel like it did anything to be memorable or distinguish Stella Artois. It’s always nice to have a celebrity involved, but I don’t see how that added much value in this case. In addition, consumers tend to expect humor from their Super Bowl beer commercials. While Stella clearly has a different value proposition than Budweiser, I don’t think this was the right channel for them.
• Groupon: The entire Tibet-themed build-up seemed too disconnected, almost to the point of being uncomfortable. Then to tie it back to discounted Tibetan food just felt wrong. For a new entrant like Groupon that has what for most consumers is still a new business model, I thought they could have used the time to sell their concept better.
• Chatter.com (SalesForce): In general, it’s a bit surprising to see a B2B ad in the Super Bowl mix (let alone two from the same company), but I don’t think most folks understood what the point of these ads even was. Sometimes that can be good, if there’s enough reason to go online and learn more, but in this case, I don’t feel there was enough to make people do that.

Mixed Bag:

• Motorola: Their 60 second spot had great visuals and an effective, easy-to-follow plot line that featured a tablet device. My problem is that it too so long to learn that it was a Motorola Xoom tablet that I wouldn’t be surprised if most people thought the device being shown was a iPad. Does the “surprise” that it’s not an iPad leave more or less of an impact? I’m not sure, but I’m leaning towards no.
• Volkswagen: I know that the common perception is that VW’s “Darth Vader” might have been the most positively-received ad of the night, but I don’t see the connection to the brand. You can install a remote starter to any car (side note: wouldn’t be surprised if this ad generates a spike in sales for remote starters), and the ad itself felt different than most other VW campaigns, so I’m unsure if there will be a lasting impact.
• Bridgestone: This is another ad that people found to be quite funny, since most of us can relate to the accidental “reply-all” email. The problem is that viewers can connect so much to the humor that we didn’t end up connecting to the brand. There were only a couple of brief clips showing car tires during tight turns, with most of the time focused on the crazy guy grabbing computers and cell phones. Without the three-second Bridgestone tag at the end, I would have had no idea what type of product, let alone company, was being promoted.
• BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Mini, Chevy, Chrysler, Suzuki, Cars.com, Carmax: This seemed to be a very car-heavy year for Super Bowl ads, which unfortunately has the effect of making them all blend together. I think most of these ads were generally pretty good (among these, the Chrysler “Detroit” and Chevy “Glee” ads stood out most), but because of the clutter, I’m unsure about what impact they ended up having.

“Old Faithfuls”:

• Budweiser, Snickers, E-Trade, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Doritos, Go Daddy: Nothing too surprising with these brands, which all seemed to go with their usual approaches (humor, talking babies, user-generated content, and “see the unrated version online”). I almost feel like these brands are so entrenched as part of the Super Bowl experience, the only impact left would be if any of them decided not to advertise. This is the approach Coors took, which probably made Bud’s advertising more effective.
• Movie trailers: Blockbuster movies continued to have a big presence in the commercials. For a product like this, where the films aren’t being released for several months and large scale ad campaigns are most likely on the way, I still wonder about the impact that a single Super Bowl ad can have for a film.

I know there were many more ads than this, but these were the ones that most clearly stood out as being part of these categories and its hard to review all of them. Most others were generally pretty good, with a mixed level of brand effectiveness. If there was anything else that really stood out to you, please share your comments below.

One final thought – in the days leading up to the game, I felt there was some buzz related to how this year’s advertisements would have a deeper social media connection as a way to engage viewers beyond the ad itself. Other than several videos being “leaked” online ahead of time, I didn’t notice any significant social media promotion or utilization in this year’s ads. Considering the cost and the different approaches of television (mass advertising) vs. social media (individual engagement), maybe the advertisers didn’t see much additional value in it, although that is still surprising to me.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Emily Huddell from Turnkey Sports and Entertainment.

In November 2010, Turnkey invited representatives from all 138 teams in MLB, MLS, the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL to participate in an email-based survey regarding database management in the sports industry.  CRM, ticketing systems, and list purchasing were the study’s primary topics; however, additional aspects of database management and segmented marketing were also addressed.

Respondent Profile:

• 55 individuals completed the entire survey; an additional 15 finished some of the questions but did not proceed through the entire questionnaire.
• All of the “Big 5” leagues were well-represented in the study results. MLB teams led the pack, accounting for 29% of all respondents, while the NFL (26%) and NHL (21%) followed close behind.  The remainder of respondents hailed from the NBA (16%) and MLS (10%).
• 84% of respondents identified themselves as being involved with CRM at their respective organizations, and 80% reported involvement in ticketing.
• Most respondents’ jobs were classified within their organization’s Marketing, Ticketing, or Database Management divisions, though several respondents reported to other departments (IT, Corporate Sales, etc.).

Key Findings from the Study:

- 82% of respondents reported that CRM/database management is perceived as “extremely” or “very” valuable within their respective organizations.

• NFL respondents were more than twice as likely as respondents from MLB to identify CRM/database management as “extremely valuable”: 67% did, vs. just 28% of MLB respondents.

- CRM initiatives support literally every area of business at some teams; however, they’re utilized most frequently by the Ticket Sales, Premium Sales & Service, Marketing, and Sponsorship/Corporate Sales Departments.

- Teams who have CRM currently invest an average of $73,076* annually in CRM hardware, software, service, and consultation, and have official “Database Management” departments of fewer than five people. (*Note: this figure does not include any salaries or expenses associated with internal staff.)

- When asked what most influenced their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with a particular CRM system or database, respondents cited “flexibility”, “customization options”, “integration capabilities”, “reporting capabilities”, and “ease of use”.

- Nearly 6 of every 10 respondents identified Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the best CRM system in the industry.

• Their feelings on VARs (Value Added Resellers) weren’t as clear: 76% of respondents had no opinion regarding which VAR is the leader in the sports space.

- When asked to rate their own CRM systems on various aspects of performance and use, SalesForce.com users gave their platform the highest scores while Archtics users rated their systems lowest

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM users’ scores fell in the middle, slightly below SalesForce’s.

- Respondents cited the Philadelphia Flyers as the professional sports team with the most sophisticated CRM/database management initiatives, followed by the Dallas Cowboys, Phoenix Suns, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Seattle Mariners (all tied with the second most-votes).

- 84% of Tickets.com clients identified Ticketmaster as the best ticketing company in the industry.

- Teams don’t have preferred list vendors/sources; however, they are more than three times more likely to name Acxiom as the industry leader in appends/reverse appends than all other companies combined.

If you’d like to view the raw data associated collected via this study, please contact Emily Huddell, SVP of Client Sales & Service at Turnkey Intelligence, at emilyhuddell@turnkeyse.com or 856.685.1450.

Emily Huddell has spent the previous five years employed at Turnkey Sports & Entertainment working with all three of the company’s core products and overseeing all team sports business. She is a graduate of the UMass Sport Management MS program.

I love getting fun holiday messages from the teams I support, but I have to say that this video message from the Arizona Diamondbacks might be the best one I’ve gotten.  The video is up on the team website, was sent via email to all subscribers, and posted on the MLB YouTube account.

You can watch the video below, and if you have other fun examples, please share links in the comments.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUTJPkg_DU

Update 1: Just received another fun take on the team holiday video.  Check out www.warriorsholiday.com for a fun, interactive holiday message from the Golden State Warriors and Row 27.

Update 2: This video from San Jose Sports & Entertainment featuring the San Jose Sharks might be the funniest one yet!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OnXE0r2Wo4

A couple of weeks back, I noticed that American Express was running a hashtag-based promotion via Twitter. New York sports fans that were tweeting with the hashtag #AmexSports had the chance to win some pretty nice prizes. I looked into this, and via the @AmericanExpress Twitter account, I was able to connect with Shari Forman, their Director of Online Communications & Social Media. Shari was nice enough to answer a few questions about their campaign:

First, can you give us a quick overview of the #AmexSports campaign?

#AmexSports is an initiative we created to drive excitement for the great access and experiences American Express provides. We launched a Twitter-exclusive campaign that included “surprising” our followers tweeting with the hashtag #AmexSports with exclusive VIP access to sporting events, team merchandise and memorabelia. Our first initiative for this campaign was around the NY Rangers Heritage Night (11/17 game), in which we surprised our followers tweeting with #AmexSports with suite access to the special event, a chance to meet the players and more. Then, on game night we continued the fun on Twitter by surprising more followers tweeting with #AmexSports with tickets to future home games, throwback jerseys and more throughout the night. Our next initiative will be around the NY Knicks Night of Greatness on December 17. We’ll start our suprises next week with access to the game.

How did you come up with the idea?

We know our Cardmembers are passionate about sports and through this campaign we were able to provide amazing access to some of the teams they love, as well as some keepsakes and memorabilia that will last much longer than the game itself. We constantly see fans tweeting about the games and their favorite players, so we wanted to tap into that passion and use it as a way to interact and engage with our Cardmembers and fellow sports fans.

I noticed that you were working with the teams at MSG (Knicks and Rangers). What did they think of the campaign?

The Rangers and Knicks have both been very supportive and have helped to drive awareness to the campaign by using their own Twitter handles (@TheNYRangers and @TheNYKnicks) to send out Tweets of support and to Retweet announcements from the @AmericanExpress handle. We have also received support from Madison Square Garden’s Twitter handle (@MSGnyc) through Retweets of our messages to their fans.

Any plans to expand to other teams and locations?

Our efforts will continue starting next week, highlighting our partnership with the Knicks and the great access American Express provides with a ticket giveaway to an upcoming Knicks event. We have seen a strong level of engagement and support of this campaign from our Twitter fans, so we are going to continue to explore other teams and events to work with in order to keep the campaign going.

What were you able to learn from this?

The fans are devoted and very excited at the prospect of being able to sample the great access that American Express provides, which is what made this campaign so successful. It is important to focus on initiatives that our Cardmembers are passionate about and for this social campaign, it was important to choose a team and event that our Cardmembers and fans were already chatting about through their social networks.

Thanks again to Shari Forman from American Express for answering my questions. I hope this gives all of you some ideas on how to develop and run similar campaigns for your organization!

We are at the tail end of the busiest retail shopping period of the year! Your customers and fans are spending money left and right. How has your team gotten into the buying frenzy? I’ve included several email marketing examples that I have seen this year. You can see that teams and leagues are leveraging this shopping weekend to move tickets and merchandise (granted, merchandise offers seem to be more common). Tactics range from simple discounts to holiday packages to free shipping.

Black Friday – Atlanta Thrashers:

Holiday Savings – Oakland Raiders / The Raider Image:

Cyber Monday – Orlando Magic:

Black Friday – MLS Shop:

Black Friday – Nashville Predators:

Cyber Monday – Buffalo Sabres:

Cyber Monday – NHL Shop:

Cyber Monday – New York Yankees (most MLB teams will have the same offer via MLBAM):

Cyber Monday – Philadelphia Flyers

Cyber Monday – Colorado Avalanche:

Cyber Monday – Arizona State Sun Devils:

I received an email today from one of the teams that I follow with a special ticket offer. I always open these emails to see what types of discounts and packages teams create for their fans, but this one was a bit different than normal.  Instead of promoting a home game, which helps sell your own ticket inventory, this was a discount offer for tickets to a road game. And it’s not like the opponent is playing right around the corner – the other team plays about 2,000 miles away.

The content of the email went something like this (team names removed for anonymity):

Special Offer for LOCAL-TEAM Fans

Stay warm this winter by heading south for LOCAL-TEAM action!

OPPOSING-TEAM is offering YOU the opportunity to purchase discounted tickets to cheer on your team in OPPOSING-TEAM-STATE.

- DATE OPTION 1
- DATE OPTION 2

Don’t miss this HOT deal! Click here to purchase.

So why run a special offer like this? Let’s look at it from the both team’s perspectives:

LOCAL-TEAM

• In a way, the team is passing on a potentially valuable opportunity to any of their fans that reside in the OPPOSING-TEAM’s state or who might be traveling that way in the future. I think the first situation is the best audience for this offer, so this type email should probably be geo-targeted to just those fans in that state. For local fans that do not travel to road games, this email offers little value and could generate opt-outs.
• Also, we don’t know how many tickets the LOCAL-TEAM still has to sell to their own home games. If they are regularly sending their own sales emails, this road game offer can add to “email noise,” making it less likely that a customer will notice a future email offer that does interest them.
• Finally, sending this email can be a nice act of goodwill towards the OPPOSING-TEAM, if that team is having trouble selling tickets. You would assume that they would be willing to return the favor if the LOCAL-TEAM needs assistance as well.

OPPOSING-TEAM

• Generally, a team wants to market to their own fans as much as possible and continue to build their own customer base. Maybe additional resources need to be dedicated to local fan development or local media.
• The decision to openly market to the opposing team’s fan base represents a significant trade-off. Do you potentially sacrifice the game environment for your current fans and customers in order to sell a few more tickets? For teams in certain smaller markets, you can definitely make the argument that marketing to this audience is essential to reaching sales targets.
• If your fans realize that the team is marketing to the opposition, could there be backlash? This happened to the Washington Nationals when they sold large quantities of tickets to this year’s home opener to groups of Phillies fans.

I believe there can be value to this particular approach, but both teams need to weigh the relative value and decide if the benefits outweigh the risks.

One of the most fundamental aspects of selling tickets is identifying the people that are most likely to purchase (the “Glengarry” leads, for those Glengarry Glen Ross fans out there). You want your sales staff to have the best leads possible in order to increase the chance that they will be able to close sales. This seems pretty straightforward, but making sure you have the best leads is not as simple as it seems.  In many situations, your list of current and former customers isn’t large enough to reach your sales goals, and purchased lead lists can be a mixed bag in terms of quality, accuracy and relevance. So what does it take for an individual to be a top sales prospect?

To make this easy to remember, I’m taking a page from “bond ratings.” If you’re familiar with finance, you probably know that AAA is the highest rating that a bond can have. Well, in order to identify the best leads, you also want to shoot for an “AAA” rating. In our case, the three A’s you need to focus on are:

1. AFFINITY
2. ABILITY
3. ACTION

Let’s break this down one “A” at a time:

Affinity: This is the most fundamental element of the three A’s – clearly, your best sales prospects tend to be consumers that are already fans of your team. The degree of their affinity usually correlates with their purchase behavior. Putting aside the other A’s for a moment, the more affinity you have for a team, the more you tend to spend on tickets, either in quantity, quality or both. A more casual fan with only moderate affinity can still be a customer, but their purchases will be smaller or less frequent.

Ability: Being a fan doesn’t mean you are going to buy tickets. Unfortunately, for many die-hard fans, tickets are simply too expensive to purchase, at least with any regularity.  So having the ability to buy, meaning the prospect has the financial resources to afford tickets, is critical to identifying top leads. You can also think of this “A” in terms of “affluence,” especially when selling high-value items such as club seats and premium season tickets.

Action: This third “A” is often overlooked, but is still quite critical in identifying the best leads. Action is all about prospects that have shown a willingness to purchase your product, or a comparable product.  For example, you could have a very affluent individual that has been a fan of team X for his entire life. However, he prefers to watch his team on his 80″ super-HD TV in his “private theater” room.  In this case, he’s missing the third A since he’s never shown an interest in the act of attending a game in-person. In addition, action does not limit you to your own previous customers. Any related purchasing action (concert tickets, merchandise, etc.) can improve their quality as a prospect.

The other nice thing about this “model” is that it breaks down into components very well. We know the best prospects fit into all three categories, but you don’t always have the luxury of knowing about all three A’s.  As a rule, three A’s are better than two A’s, which are better than just one A. For example, you might know that someone is a fan and has purchased tickets, but you don’t know what they can truly afford. Or your organization might be able purchase a lead list of high-income individuals who spend money on entertainment, but you don’t know if they are fans of your team.  You should always strive to have information on all three A’s, but when that’s not possible, you can try to manage with two of the three. In these scenarios, your conversion rate will be lower, but with more quantity and time, you can still achieve your sales goals.

By the way, technically there is a 4th “A” that I haven’t mentioned, but it should go without saying – AREA.  You should always focus on the  most logical geographic area, usually a 50 to 75 mile radius around your stadium location. It is not worth the time and financial resources to extend your sales efforts beyond this area, as the likelihood of sales drops dramatically. I’ve written a bit about this before when reviewing a team’s direct mail campaign.

In future posts, I will go into more detail on each of the three A’s and show you ways to obtain the information you need to identify and qualify your best sales prospects.

Guarantees are a common part of sports lore. Being a NY/NJ guy, my mind immediately thinks of Joe Namath guaranteeing victory in Super Bowl III and making it happen, or Mark Messier guaranteeing a win before game six of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2004 and then scoring a hat trick to clinch the game.  Other athletes have made similar bold predictions without the same level of success… we’ll be nice and not highlight those failed guarantees here.

Besides the athletes, sometimes members of a team’s management will step forward to make a guarantee. It’s this situation that I want to look at a bit more, especially with some recent examples. Take a look at these:

• The 2008 Arizona Rattlers (AFL) guarantee that their team will make the playoffs, or else their season ticket holders can get a full refund. The Rattlers, who were 4-12 the year before, did make the playoffs, losing in the 1st round (Deseret News, May 2009)
• Along a similar line, the 2010-11 St. Louis Blues are guaranteeing that they will make the playoffs, otherwise their season ticket holders in certain locations will only have to pay for 1/2 the cost of their season tickets (stltoday.com, September 2010)
• Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, in a “passionate” letter to the team’s season ticket holders, guarantees that his team will win an NBA championship before LeBron James will (see previous post on this topic)
• San Francisco 49ers team president Jed York, in a text message to ESPN, guarantees that his team will win the NFC West this year, after an 0-5 start to the season (sfgate.com, October 2010)

The first two examples are purely a sales and marketing tactic. Both teams were coming off of disappointing seasons where their fans could easily start turning away from the organization. This approach can be very effective, but also very dangerous. Generally a team’s sales and marketing efforts want to do all they can to sell the team without being dependent on the win/loss record, but this type of offer makes that impossible. The Rattlers’ offer was the most risky since it would apply to the full season ticket costs for all season ticket holders – that’s a lot of revenue.  The Blues offer can actually be successful even if the team does not make the playoffs, if they can show that at least 1/2 of those customers wouldn’t have purchased season tickets without that promotion (difficult, but not impossible to do).

Now what about the other two examples? In these cases, the reason behind the guarantee is not as clear cut. It’s very likely that over the past few years, many Cleveland Cavaliers season ticket holders became fans and customers just because of LeBron and his impact on the team. Now that Gilbert had just lost his marquee player, he needed a way to keep that connection alive between the fans and the organization. To me, this letter was his attempt to keep that connection alive on the brand and organizational level, rather than through an individual player.

As for the 49ers’ guarantee, I feel like his guarantee can be seen as a rallying cry among both fans AND team employees. Starting the season 0-5  is disappointing for fans, but it can also be very disheartening for people working within the organizations, both on the business and football side. In that setting, you need to find a way to motivate the people around you, and making such a confident, bold statement can have that effect. It can breed confidence and enthusiasm, which can lead to better results.

In each of the last three examples (Blues, Cavaliers and 49ers), it’s too early to know if the guarantee is a good idea.  In all of these situations, if the team doesn’t perform up to expectations, all the excitement created by the guarantee can melt away. Depending on the situation, it may or may not be worth the risk.

Let’s start the week off with another video blog post.  I sat down for a few minutes to talk about mobile devices (Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Android, etc) and their role in sports, highlighting some current examples and important issues in how teams can and do leverage these devices. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbQrgfKKTHI

On Monday night, I had the chance to attend a preview showing of Lombardi, the new broadway play about the life of the great Packers coach Vince Lombardi. First off, the play was excellent across the board.  I thought all of the actors did an incredible job, especially Dan Lauria and his portrayal of Lombardi himself. The script did an excellent job is showcasing the dynamics between Lombardi, his family and his players. Finally, the show was in a quaint theater and performed “in the round” so there isn’t a bad seat in the house. Any sports fan, especially a football fan, would enjoy seeing this show.

Now that I’ve hopefully peaked your interest in the show, I also want to commend the show’s marketing department for a clever way of promoting the show via social media channels.  As everyone exited the show, ushers were handing out small “business cards” – check out the images on the right.

As you can see from the back of the card, the show has covered their social media bases.  All attendees are encourage to write their own review at NYTimes.com, become a fan of the show on Facebook, follow the show on Twitter, watch videos on YouTube and even check in on FourSquare.  Finally, there is a special offer link at the bottom to share with friends if they want to purchase discount tickets (please feel free to use the link to purchase your own tickets). I thought this was a great marketing tactic for the show to use. Word of mouth is a very important marketing channel for both sports and theater, so having a uniform presence on these social media outlets and making customers aware of all of them with simple, direct messaging should be quite effective for spreading the word.

Side Note: I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Joe Favorito. Joe is the author of the Sports Marketing and PR blog over at joefavorito.com, and he was an associate producer for Lombardi (I was excited when I saw him listed in the Playbill). Great work Joe!

The sports business folks down in Philadelphia have been coming up with some creative marketing campaigns lately (and hopefully if anyone from that area is reading this, they’re going to come to our Philadelphia Networking Event on Thursday night – details and RSVP here!).

Take a look at these two recent Philly team promotions:

Philadelphia Flyers – “We Saved You A Seat”

The Flyers have put together a special $200 package that includes two lower level tickets and two actual seats from the Spectrum (the team’s old venue, which will be torn down this year).

First off, I like the “We Saved You A Seat” title – very clever messaging that fits both halves of the offer. Secondly, the teams recognized they have a unique opportunity with the closing of the Spectrum, so rather than selling them separately, they can positively impact two revenue streams by packaging them together.  For any long-time Flyers fan, this offer has a lot value to it.

Philadelphia 76ers – “See Your Name on a Billboard”

Any customer that purchases a 10 game pack for this season can have their name appear on the Sixers’ LED billboards.  This in itself doesn’t provide a lot of incentive to purchase, but there is a “cool” factor that can help push a potential buyer into taking the plunge. In addition, they make sure that anyone who take part in this promotion receives a picture of “their billboard” through the Sixers’ Facebook page, which then makes the photo easy to share and create some viral marketing noise. Finally, this campaign can actually make the team’s billboards more effective. Fans driving past will see the names of actual buyers, which can in turn make the idea of buying a 10 game package more realistic to them.

What do you think of these campaigns?

Time for another video blog post. This time, I decided to look through my mail for some inspiration and discuss how other industry direct mail marketing tactics could potentially be applied to sports. Please share your own ideas in the comments!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyeFNdwlDXo

Earlier this week, I celebrated one of those larger, round-numbered birthdays (hint – I’m officially “old” now). As expected, I received a few email birthday wishes from the various team and league newsletters that I’ve opted to receive, which is always a nice touch. A birthday email program is easy to operate and can create a very nice touchpoint between your company and the customer at minimal cost.

Some birthday emails are just that – a simple happy birthday message with no added value. These can deliver a quick smile, but probably get discarded with a fast click of the delete button. In my opinion, sending an email without some form of a “call-to-action” is a lost opportunity. If you get your fans or customers to open the email, there should be some available action to further engage the fan. This doesn’t always need to be a sale-related action either. How about creating a “Happy Birthday” video that they can click and watch. You can even get fancy and integrate their name into the video message, a popular trend with e-marketing initiatives.

Other emails I received had promo codes for either a ticket or merchandise offer, as a way to “treat myself” on my birthday. This can be a very effective tactic, providing value to the customer and incremental sales to the organization. However, if you take this approach, you really need to position the offer well so that it comes across more as a gift than a sales pitch. Make sure the discount is substantial enough to matter (5 to 10% off doesn’t feel like much of a gift to me), and start with the “Happy Birthday” message before you encourage them to make a purchase.

Finally, you can take the approach that ESPN did and provide a low-cost, free gift. The email they sent offered a free ringtone download of the ESPN SportsCenter jingle. With this approach, I’m not spending a dollar, I can get something of value (ringtones normally cost $1-2) and if I really am a fan of ESPN (which I am), this is a pretty cool little treat. Plus, ESPN gets extra exposure every time someone downloads and starts using their free ringtone. Companies can try this tactic with ringtones, highlight videos, screensavers, iPhone or Blackberry apps and more.

When I checked my mailbox yesterday, I saw that I had received a direct mail piece from a professional sports team, advertising their 2010 ticket packages. There were some very nice aspects to this mailing, and unfortunately, two problems that could have been avoided. The name of the team has been removed to protect the innocent.

First, here is what I liked:

• Nice-sized, quad-fold piece, but not too bulky (keeps printing/mailing costs reasonable)
• Full color with attention grabbing photos
• Two calls to action right on the outside: “Free Poster Inside!” and a text-to-win free season tickets contest (great opt-in offer)
• Highlights the website right on the front and shows multiple low-price ticket options (important for a bulk mailer when you’re probably dealing with mixed-quality leads)
• Inside page shows feature lists for general seating, luxury seating, group seating and their free fan club (another nice opt-in)
• A good quality, decent-sized poster of a top, young player with the team’s schedule when the mailer is completely unfolded

Now, here are the two big problems with the mailer:

1.  As good a job as the piece did in featuring the website and opt-in programs, the phone number for the ticket office was only printed once, on the inside, and not in particularly large print. Most significant sports tickets purchases still take place over the phone with your sales staff, so this needs to be featured much more prominently. In fact, I would have included the phone number and website on the bottom of the poster itself to increase the chance for multiple views.

2.  The biggest problem with this piece is… I live over 1,000 miles away from where this team plays! Now, this is a bit misleading, as I did sign up for this team’s email club (I’m signed up for a LOT of teams’ emails so I can see what strategies teams use). However, this is the only team from outside my local market that sent me a mailer, probably because its very ineffective to spend money on direct mail for anyone outside your local radius. Now, if I had been a member of the email club AND previously purchased tickets, it would be a different story. Then I might look like an out-of-market fan who still comes back for games. But I have never purchased a ticket from this team, so there really is no reason to send this to me.

From other examples I’ve seen, almost 40% of fans that join an email newsletter or online fan-club live outside of that team’s local market. It’s a great way for fans to stay connected to their team when they have to travel or move. Because of that, teams need to be more selective on how they use these programs to try and sell tickets. It’s much easier to sell a jersey to fans who live thousands of miles away than it is to sell them season tickets!

I hope you all enjoy my first video blog post. I will mix these in occasionally with our traditional text posts for a quick change-of-pace. Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1apHmY7NkM

Today’s post is courtesy of Brian Gainor, Founding Editor of PartnershipActivation.com. This article was featured in the July 2010 Partnership Activation monthly newsletter. I highly encourage everyone to sign up for it – always a great source of sponsorship news and marketing best practices.

Are You Providing Truly Exclusive Experiences for Fans?

Miller Lite and the Tampa Bay Rays recently teamed up to execute a “Ray for a Day” promotion that truly offered one (1) lucky winner the ultimate Rays game day experience. Miller Lite called on agent Drew Rosenhaus to host the winner, Andrew Marante, and represent him in negotiations with Rays SVP Mark Fernandez, President Matt Silverman, and GM Andrew Friedman that officially made him a “Ray for a Day”.

Following the negotiations and official press conference, Marante was presented with a collection of prizes, which included a one-year supply of Miller Lite, a one-day rookie salary, an authentic, customized Rays jersey and hat, (4) pre-game field passes to watch batting practice, (4) game tickets in Row 1 – directly behind the Rays dugout, an on-field meet & greet with Rays Manager Joe Maddon, a box of authentic Miller Lite-branded Rawlings baseballs, a Miller Lite/Rays neon sign, a Miller Lite beer fridge, a commemorative press release issued by the Rays, and the opportunity to throw out the first pitch prior to the game.

The promotion, managed by GMR Marketing from ideation to execution, was picked up by a host of media outlets and the Rays organization featured a (1) minute clip of the press conference on the jumbotron during pre-game warm-ups and at the bottom of the 4th inning.

Miller Lite leveraged relationships with several retail partners (Publix, Total Wine and More, Buffalo Wild Wings, Winn-Dixie, ABC Liquor, Hess, and Beef O’Brady’s) to execute the Ray for a Day sweepstakes, which tasked consumers ages 21+ with filling out entry forms between May 1– June 6 for a chance to win.

Editor’s Note: This type of ultimate fan experience provides the best level of exposure and activation for a team sponsor. This particular program was able to combine point-of-sale messaging, customer data collection, prime in-venue activation and media exposure, not to mention providing this lucky Rays fan the experience of his life. Great job between the team, agency and sponsor in executing all of the elements involved in this promotion.  ~RS

Rather than just presenting my individual opinion on Dan Gilbert’s letter to Cavaliers fans (I’m actually quite torn on it), I decided to go to some of the sports business and PR professionals on Twitter for their take. Here’s what they had to say on the subject:

From SternalPR: I get why Gilbert wrote the letter, but you can defend your city and instill confidence in a more tactful way & avoid silly promises

From ChrisFreet: Agree or disagree with Dan Gilbert’s open letter, there is no disagreeing with his honesty. It’s interesting that some media are bashing Gilbert. Media want honesty, not PR spun letter, yet they are still hammering him

From KyleJudah: A little petulant move but so was Lebron’s. Cavs fans I know seem to use it as a rallying point, so got the job done. Very ballsy.

From MarcusAHall: Whether or not you agree with his comments is one thing but I commend him for taking a stance and making a statement.

From PUBLISIDE: Gilbert should have slept on the language. Even if he was still that angry in the a.m., he may have rethought and crafted the letter with less venom. He will likely regret the tone for fans’ sake.

From mmahoney13: Gilbert’s passion was the right tone for partners and season ticket holders but he went a little over the top with cowardly.

From MarcIsenberg: Way to take the high road, Dan Gilbert. Abe Lincoln waited 48 hrs before sending because he didn’t want to write emotionally.

From Aharris101: I understand Gilbert was upset, but still think he should have handle it more in a professional way….he should’ve slept through

From AmandaRykoff: If I didn’t know that letter from Dan Gilbert was real, I’d think it was a joke. Of epic proportions.

From IsaacBearg: Cavs fans were pissed and I imagine wanted their owner to show he knows how they feel… it was a bit much but I don’t mind it

I’ll continue to update this with additional tweets as they come in. In the meantime, please share your own take on the letter in the comments!

Have you heard about Burgergate? Phil Mickelson has apparently been frequenting 5 Guys Burgers and Fries quite often recently, and the former In-N-Out diehard has now switched his allegiance. The skepticism comes with the knowledge that he owns the right to a Southern California 5 Guys franchise, causing one to wonder whether this sudden fascination with the burger joint is more about his wallet than his gullet. Either way, we know Phil likes his hamburgers.

So that got me thinking about other partnerships that would make perfect sense:

• LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers) – King’s Dominion amusement parks
• Darnell McDonald (Boston Red Sox) - McDonald’s
• Bryan Namoff (DC United) – Goo Gone (Get it? Name. Off.)
• Nick Hennessey (Buffalo Bills) - Hennessy Cognac

Why don’t more athletes take advantage of these kinds of endorsements? They are better fits than one of your local MLB players shilling for a furniture warehouse or jewelry store. The key to a good celebrity/athlete endorsement is a realistic association between the two. For the brand/company, hiring an athlete to endorse their product or service creates a stronger awareness. People are more likely to pay attention to a TV commercial if one of their favorite players are talking, than they would be if the owner of the company was the star.

I think we can all remember Rod Tidwell shilling for Waterbed Warehouse in ‘Jerry Maguire.’  Not exactly the perfect match of celebrity to product/service. The key is to find a link between the two that is natural, either because the player truly patronizes that place of business – Chad Ocho Cinco and McDonald’s is a good example because he eats there all the time and constantly tweets about it – or because there is some other link such as similar names, where they are from, or an off-the-field incident (like Mickelson being photographed at Krispy Kreme). The link needs to be real and obvious enough that consumers can make the connection in just a few moments. Otherwise, the endorsement comes across as insincere and will not reach its full potential.

The allure of hiring a celebrity endorser can be strong, but before reaching out to the star player make sure of two things:

1. The association makes sense – Do people have to read the copy or listen to the whole commercial for them to understand why the athlete is endorsing the product? If so, it may not be a good fit.
2. The athlete can be trusted – We have numerous examples of athletes that have embarrassed the companies that they endorse. The largest and most recent is Tiger, but even mom-and-pop stores need to do their due diligence before they sign an endorser. Nike could sit back and weather the storm, but smaller companies might not be able to. So before they sign on the dotted line, a (thorough) background check might not be a bad idea.

What athlete endorsement did you think was the best fit? Was it a locally relevant one or an ad we saw on the national stage?

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Jenny Schmitt. It originally appeared on her website, CloudSpark.com.

We’ve been telling visual stories for nearly our entire careers. Why? Visual matters because most people are visual learners or can better recall a visual cue than a written one. When YouTube came around 5 years ago, a whole new opportunity came up to tell that story directly to an audience – no media required. We’ve been on board every since.

Now wait, if someone tells you they can make a viral video for you, stop there. You (or your agency) can’t make a video viral, you can make it great. Only your audience, your customers, your fans, can take it viral. No matter, even if you think you have a tough product or service, there is always a visual story.

We’re sharing this new branded YouTube page from The Coca-Cola Company. It’s a soon-to-be-classic example (created by Sapient Nitro – deep talent over there) of just where video can take a customer. Coca-Cola a global leader in the refreshment category has taken the World Cup ritual (the on-field celebrations) and asked fans to share their own celebrations if they were playing on the field. Here’s why we think Coca-Cola succeeds:

1. It lets people (the fans) participate directly: send in video, artwork, photography (branded or not)
2. The content is seemingly new, refreshed, all the time and it’s easy to share
3. Coca-Cola can tie-in the campaign with actual events (note the videos with the branded banner)
4. The music is universally appealing, borrowing beats, harmonies from different cultures
5. For a global brand, the World Cup is a near-perfect opportunity to showcase its near-universal appeal

What videos do you think stand out as examples of a great visual story? What would you add?

Jenny-Rebecca Schmitt is a veteran public relations and marketing professional, trainer and sought-after public speaker. Her 15-year marketing and communications career includes experience in the fields of sports marketing, nonprofit marketing, healthcare communications, and public relations, including work at the collegiate, amateur, Olympic and professional level of sports. You can follow her on Twitter as @cloudspark or visit her website at www.cloudspark.com.

Geolocation is definitely a hot topic in social media, and as such, is starting to make its ways into the sports marketing landscape. The idea that you can proactively target and communicate with people based on their exact or relative location is a very appealing thought. Right now, all sports organizations practice based forms of geo-targeting in their marketing campaigns. This can take several shape, such as:

• Delivering web advertisements only to visitors from within your DMA (designated market area)
• Sending direct mail pieces to certain towns and zip codes within your DMA
• Purchasing prospect lists based on a combination of zip and area code
• Placing billboards and running grassroots events locally

All of these measures are taken to another level when you break down your existing customer base to find out what zip codes you have the most success in and focus these campaigns to the areas with the best fan penetration.

VaynerMedia and the New Jersey Nets have taken the idea of geo-targeting in another direction with geolocation through social media. This live, interactive form of geo-targeting has some great potential for teams and leagues to interact with local fan segments in ways that can drive fan affinity and revenue. Take a look at the case study to see what they did with their recent promotion through Gowalla.

The guys at the Row Show also discussed this case study live with Sam Taggart from VaynerMedia. Check our their discussion below.

Let’s take a look at two sports-related commercials that I saw for the first time yesterday and couldn’t be on more opposite ends of the sports advertising spectrum:

#1 – Tiger / Earl Woods and Nike Golf

At this point, I think everyone has seen this ad, and the reaction is all over the place from what I can tell. On the negative side, I’ve heard:

• Too soon for Tiger to be in any commercial
• Inappropriate to use his father’s voice, and a bit creepy
• Nike shouldn’t emphasize their relationship with Tiger right now
• Tiger still come off as unemotional just staring at the camera

On the positive side, I’ve heard:

• It’s the right way to re-introduce him to the market
• Creative way to acknowledge the scandal and start moving forward
• Honest, emotional and connects with the viewers
• Strong move to show Nike’s dedication and support of Tiger

Personally, I think this will end up being an effective approach, especially if Tiger can keep up his strong showing this weekend. Nike is so dependent on Tiger’s success for the health and growth of their golf line that they needed to do something in conjunction with his return, and if they tried to overlook the scandal to make a more traditional Tiger ad, it would have been a massive failure. Now the important question is, what did you think of the ad? Leave your opinion in the comments!

#2 – David Wright / “The Situation” and Vitamin Water

I don’t really have too much to say about this one, but I thought it was a particularly funny way to combine an athlete with a reality show/pop culture figure like “The Situation.” Vitamin Water continues to do well with their creative ad campaigns, and this is a perfect fit with their brand.

Normally I don’t like to just directly publish press releases that I receive (I’m on several lists now), but this one caught my attention, and I think you will all find it quite interesting. It came from Robert Passikoff, Founder and President of Brand Keys, Inc.

“After years in the #2 spot, Major League Baseball is now tied with the National Football League with the “most loyal fans,” according to the 15th annual 2010 Brand Keys Sports Loyalty Index,® a survey which helps professional sports teams increase broadcast, ticket and merchandise revenues by providing loyalty rankings and fan diagnostics in their home and national markets.

2010 League Rankings

1. NFL/MLB
2. NBA
3. NHL

“The Sports Loyalty Engagement Index gives an apples-to-apples comparison of the intensity with which fans support professional sport leagues and their home team vs. the corresponding values for the fans of other teams in the market,” said Robert Passikoff, president of New York-based Brand Keys, Inc. a leading brand and customer loyalty consultancy.

“These insights allow leagues and teams to identify areas that need strategic reinforcement. Done correctly, an increase in broadcast viewership, merchandise purchase, and ticket revenue will follow, and happier fans. Everybody loves a winner, but it’s important to note that win/loss ratios do not entirely govern fan loyalty,” noted Brand Keys’ Passikoff.

Fan loyalty is driven in four ways:

• Pure Entertainment – How well a team does, but more importantly, how exciting is their play?
• Authenticity – How well they play as a team. New stadia can help on this driver. Oftentimes, so can a new Manager.
• Fan Bonding – Are players respected and admired?
• History and Tradition – Is the game and the team part of a fan’s and a community’s rituals, institutions and beliefs?

The top-5 teams in each league in terms of fan loyalty for 2010:

Top Gainers: Teams with the largest growth in fan loyalty include the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA (both up five positions), the New Orleans Saints (+6) and the Minnesota Vikings (+5) in the NFL, and the Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins in MLB, both up 4 positions. In the National Hockey League no team moved up more than one position, although many moved down as many as 4 rankings. A list of the bottom-5 teams with lowest fan loyalty in each league can be found at www.brandkeys.com/awards/sports.cfm

Methodology:  The Brand Keys Sports Fan Loyalty Index is an outgrowth of Brand Keys’ specialization in measuring customer loyalty that began with work for the National Football League in the mid-90’s. Interviews are conducted by telephone and in-person (to account for cell phone-only fans) includes 150+ local fans for each professional sports team in the four major leagues. Participants self- select a preference for a particular league and then indicate an allegiance to the local team being evaluated. The methodology identifies the four drivers of fan loyalty and rates each team on each of the drivers. The respondents are also asked to rate the sports leagues that they’re interested in on an overall basis.

“Since overall league and team rankings correlate very highly with TV viewership and sales of licensed merchandise, rankings can be influenced depending upon how loyalty drivers are addressed and managed,” said Passikoff. “It’s critical that marketers do accurate scouting regarding the strategic game they intend to play with their fans because today, when it comes to loyalty, there are no free-agent fans!”

Last week, Pro Football Talk reported that the Buffalo Bills were taking some heat from fans for a season ticket renewal flyer that featured their punter Brian Moorman kicking from his own endzone (you can see the picture here on Deadspin). Well since that story, I’ve seen two excellent marketing and community relations campaigns that the Bills have come out with, so let’s take a moment to highlight the good stuff.

First is the Jim Kelly Football Camp Scholarship Sweepstakes. I love to see items like this where organizations provide an opportunity for people to take part in unique experiences, especially for younger fans. This is one of the reasons I really love what the Arizona Diamondbacks do every year with their season ticket scholarship program. It doesn’t take much effort on the organization’s part to extend these types of offers, and the value they provide those who participate is immeasurable.

The other campaign currently running is their “Bills All-Time Draft Picks and Draft Day Challenge” contest and micro-site. You can check out the site at http://www.channel1media.com/billsdraft/. This is a great way to build excitement about the team in the month leading up to the  NFL draft. There is a nice montage video of past draft picks that does a good job building on the nostalgia of past Bills superstars, and the site lets fans rank the team’s 10 best draft picks. This look back then transitions nicely to the question of what future Bills star they will select with their first pick this year, which fans are encouraged to try and predict. Both elements of the site offer prizes tied to the team’s past and future draft picks. In addition the site also offers valuable sponsorship inventory, with the All-Time Picks presented by Bud Light and the Draft Day Challenge presented by M&T Bank.

Nice work by the Buffalo Bills on both campaigns.

I wanted to share three emails that I recently received from a couple of professional sports franchises (I’m signed up for several team newsletters, so I can follow trends and best practices in email marketing).

Email 1 from the Houston Texans (right):

While a large percentage of male football fans consider cheerleaders to be a valuable part of the football experience, I imagine most of them have little use for a cheerleader tryouts email. Now I’m sure that some people on the list may have forwarded this to friends or family that might be interested, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a larger than normal number of people unsubscribed from the Texans’ newsletter because this just wasn’t relevant to them.

If you have a niche message like this that you want to share, you either need to find a more narrow, appropriate segment of your list to communicate with (which you could identify through a regular survey of your email newsletter members or via other web-based data collection methods), or you include this message as part of a larger newsletter that provides value to all readers.

Email 2 from the Los Angeles Lakers (below):

The subject line for this email was “Lakers Fans: Ready to “TOSS” Your Reading Glasses? Turn to the Assil Eye Institute” – and that was the only reference to the Lakers in this message (other than the use of yellow and purple text). Email marketing is a very important way in which a team can drive value for their sponsors, and with a team like the Lakers that have an easy time selling both tickets and sponsorship, this is one way they can easily generate additional revenue. However, they’re doing it at the expense of their email database, because even more so than the Texans’ email, this message could end up driving more unsubscribes than click-thrus. Plus, without more integration with the Lakers brand, the partner isn’t getting nearly as much value as they could be. Let’s take a look at a more effective example from the New York Yankees and H&R Block:

This is a much better approach to a corporate partner email. There is prominent co-branding so you never forget that this came from the Yankees, which connects their brand with H&R Block. There is a relevant connection to both the team and the sponsor product through the call to action (in this case, a contest). Finally, the partner gets the benefit of reaching Yankees fans in a way that both provides the fans value and limits the chance for opt-outs.

Your email database is an incredibly valuable tool in any team’s consumer and corporate marketing efforts. While the easy solution in situations may be to simply “blast the list,” this approach has damaging implications and will rarely generate more value that either a more targeted or strategic approach.

The most general principal of sports marketing on the team side is finding a way to promote and sell your brand without being dependent on winning, since the on-field results are outside of your control. It seems like along those lines, Canada may have made a mistake with their “Own the Podium” program. I had this thought while reading a recent ESPN.com article about Canada conceding the Olympic medal race.

To provide a quick background, the “Own the Podium” program was an effort by Canada to commit more money to their Olympic athletes that have the best chance of winning medals, with the overall goal of taking home the most medals of any competing nation. Canada currently sits in 5th place with just ten medals, 15 behind current leader, the United States. Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t have committed the money towards their athletes to help them try and succeed in their respective sports. I applaud their efforts to provide extra support to their athletes leading up to and during their host Olympics. However, I think they mis-branded their efforts, and because they are going to fall short in the overall medal count, the program now appears to have failed.

By publicly branding their efforts to “Own the Podium” with a goal of winning the most medals of any country, they created a perception that anything less than perfection would be failure. Canada finished third in the medal count four years ago, and before that, they never finished higher than fourth, so this was quite a goal to set. They could have made the same financial commitment to their athletes with a goal of being in the top 3 (which fits with the general theme of the top 3 athletes receiving medals), and this still would have been a huge (and still achievable) accomplishment. They also could have branded their program with something more related to being the host country than with specific results, something like “The Pride of Canada”. This focuses the rallying cry around supporting the local athletes, not just on their results. By conceding that they will not reach their goal, Canadian athletes and fans alike could easily look back to the 2010 Vancouver Games and think about their nation’s failure instead of pride in their country for hosting the Games and in their athletes for their efforts. Not only that, by making this public concession now, they’ve potentially overshadowed any additional medals that Canadian athletes win during the remainder of the Games.

Of course, the other side of this would be if they did achieve their goal, the Canadian Olympic Committee would look absolutely brilliant. In general, tying any branding or marketing platform to the on-field results is a high risk/high reward proposition, and when you’re dealing with a global stage like the Olympics, I don’t think it was worth the risk.

The folks over at The Goldklang Group have been running a marketing campaign called “Be Your Own Fan” across the four professional baseball organizations that they represent. To support that initiative, they’ve created a great website called “Be Your Own Fan TV” (byoftv.com). Every two weeks, they release a new video that provides an inside look at a different element of sports business. So far, they’ve produced seven videos that cover topics such as reporting, television production, public relations, baseball operations and more.

I’ve included two of their recent videos here to give you all a preview. They do an excellent job in creating both entertaining and informative content. You can visit their website, byoftv.com, to view additional episodes.

Quick post for you all on this Monday morning, but it’s an important one. I wanted to share with you a letter that I recently received from the salesperson who sold me my car:

Dear Russell,

Hello!  I hope you do not mind my staying in touch with you!  It has been about six months since you purchased your new vehicle and I just want you to know I am here, at your service.

I hope you will give me a call any time you, your family or your friends have any automotive needs or questions.  I am here to help.  Remember, my commitment is to be of service to you.

Sincerely,
– HIS NAME HERE –
– HIS COMPANY –
– HIS PHONE & EMAIL –

There’s nothing fancy here, no sales pitches or angles. Just a simple message to say hello and see if there’s anything I need. Yes, there is a subtle reference to potential referrals, but that’s an important part of sales, and most of the time, people do need a little prodding before they’d refer a personal contact.

To me, a letter like this is a critical component on maintaining a valuable relationship with your customers, and this can easily be applied by sales and service staff for any sports organization. You don’t always need a reason to reach out to your season ticket holders. Sometimes just saying hello is enough to make them feel valued and important. It’s also a great way to casually remind them about your product, and that alone can lead to incremental sales and increased customer lifetime value at practically no cost to you.

Last spring, I wrote about an interesting promotion that Coke Zero was running in conjunction with NCAA Basketball called “Taste the Madness.” The idea was simple – fans were encouraged to submit their craziest fan videos supporting their school, and the best video would become part of a Coke Zero advertisement before the championship game.

This year, instead of another “video” contest, they are tapping into fan creativity in a different way. Every viewer has their own ideas on how they can improve their fan experience, but outside of their own circle of friends, they don’t have a large platform to share their ideas. Coke Zero is using this concept to create a “Department of Fannovation” campaign where people can share their ideas on a large scale through the website http://www.cokezero.com/ncaa (you can also click here to watch a video on how the contest works).

The top 64 ideas will get entered into a “Brain Bracket” just like the traditional NCAA basketball bracket. Fan votes will determine the winner in each match-up until one idea is the crowned champion and receives the top prize of $10,000 and a trip to the 2011 NCAA Final Four. There will also be prizes for making the bracket itself and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen and Final Four levels.

For Coca-Cola, the goal is to connect the idea of innovation back to the Coke Zero brand and the way they “innovated” a new diet beverage that still mirrors the traditional Coke flavor. Doing this through a platform like the NCAA tournament, which has a very passionate and interactive fan base, has the potential to make a deeper brand impact among this particular consumer audience (and we know that sports fans are more likely to be brand-loyal consumers).

One of the things I love about minor league sports is that they have so much freedom to try different things, and ultimately, all their promotions revolve around creating a fun atmosphere for their customers. They realize that they have a very wide spectrum of customers, from the local die-hard baseball fans to families looking for affordable entertainment. For many, minor league sports are the only alternative for those that want to attend live sporting events, but cannot afford the prices that come with tickets to major league games.

Here is a great example that I just stumbled upon from the Trenton Thunder, one of the local minor league teams here in New Jersey. They decided well before the season starts that they want to have something special to offer on any given day of the week, so why not let everyone know about it now and get their fans excited about what days they want to come to the ballpark. Their plans breaks down as such:

• Kids Eat Free Mondays – great for bring families out to the game
• $1 Dog Tuesdays – A favorite marketing tactic for any cost-conscious buyers
• Wacky Wednesdays – Theme nights designed for those that want more than just baseball entertainment when they come to a game
• Thirsty Thursdays – Beer specials and fireworks, who doesn’t enjoy that?
• Family Fun Fridays – Giveaways and fireworks, again geared toward family consumers, but without any discounting involved
• Fireworks Spectacular Saturdays – Another way to generate excitement for the less baseball-obsessive customers (who would come to games anyway)
• Kids Rule Sundays – Giveaways, youth entertainers, opportunity for kids to run the bases, and a free ticket incentive for Kids Club members (which can boost sales of their $15 kids membership club

This is an excellent mix of tactics that should help the team reach a wide customer base beyond the team’s core fan base. In addition, all of these promotions can be successful individually , but without a schedule, it is much more challenging for the team to try and promote each separate event or offer. By taking this approach, the Thunder can really plan our their marketing efforts for the season knowing that each of these offers occurs on a consistent schedule.

Yes, this post has to do with Tiger Woods, but not in the same manner as most of the other stories circulating out on the Internet. I want to quickly address the unique opportunity that Tiger’s absence is creating in the business landscape for golf. Beyond the basic idea that other golfers will have a better chance of winning and building up their own brand, this is an incredible chance for equipment manufacturers that are NOT endorsed by Tiger to step up and gain market share.

For example, I saw this Phil Mickelson/Callaway commercial twice this weekend (click here to view the video).

I believe one time I saw it during a Sunday NFL game, which is an expensive time slot. Now I don’t remember seeing many Callaway commercials over the past few months, so hopefully this is an example of Callaway realizing that Nike is vulnerable right now. By committing more money to their advertising spend, I believe that this will be their best chance to steal market share from Nike. This same approach can be taken from any other golf club, ball or apparel manufacturer.

Hopefully all of these non-Tiger-endorsed golf companies are reevaluating their media spend budget and schedule right now. How many opportunities like this will they get to make a big dent in their competition?

Yesterday I received an email from the Arizona State Athletic Department, announcing that all students would be given free admission for the next three home games. That got me to thinking about what other teams were offering to their fans this holiday seasons.

In Miami: You get to take your pick, the Panthers (up to 7 games, a puck and free parking), the Marlins (one ticket to each home series in 2010) and the Heat (too complicated to even get into here).

In Cleveland: The Cavaliers have a holiday ticket plan that includes two Cavaliers games and a Lake Erie Monsters game (hockey) with the choice of either the Harlem Globetrotters, Disney on Ice or a Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament game. The Plan can cost as little as $79 and you get a FREE Cavs basketball. Not too shabby for anyone within shooting distance of Lake Erie.

In Atlanta: The Falcons’ Holiday Package includes two tickets to the Buffalo Bills game on December 27 (who wouldn’t want to see the Bills play? I would!!) and a $50 gift certificate to hhgregg.com (an online appliance and electronics store). Package of two tickets starts at $98.

In Los Angeles: Chivas USA is offering tickets to four games for as low as $45. The interesting thing about this one is that they are offering tickets to games that traditionally sell well. Games include the home opener versus the Colorado Rapids and match-ups with in-town rivals the LA Galaxy, the Chicago Fire (with popular Hispanic player Cuauhtemoc Blanco) and defending MLS Champions Real Salt Lake.

In Denver: The Colorado Avalanche’s Holiday Pack includes four games (one the day after Christmas, two in January and one in March), an autographed puck and a team flag. Prices start at $89, and the pack also comes with playoff ticket priority.

These are just a few of the offerings available out there right now. If your favorite team or city isn’t listed, I can almost guarantee you that your team has some kind of holiday promotion available. Even if you’re team doesn’t play until the spring, there’s still a good chance that they are offering some kind of deal. And if you work for a team and you aren’t offering a special holiday package, use the ideas above as examples and get to work! Happy Holidays!

I saw a great story the other day about a failed promotion by the NBADL Utah Flash. Back in September, team owner Brandt Anderson had talked about hosting a game of 1-on-1 between Michael Jordan and Byron Russell at halftime of a Utah Flash game. The match would be flashback to their famous confrontation at the end of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, where Jordan hit the series-clinching shot over Russell. Anderson was going to offer $100,000 that the winner could donate to a charity of their choosing, and Russell was on board. However, Jordan declined the challenge so that seemed to be the end of it…at least temporarily.

Anderson ultimately decided to continue with this event.  He still promoted that the 1-on-1 match would occur at halftime of Monday’s game and there were “Jordan sightings” around town that day. This led to over 7,500 fans attending that night’s game, expecting to see this halftime match, but instead they ended up seeing Russell take on a Jordan lookalike. The crowd was outraged, and the team experienced a very vocal backlash. Anderson now regrets his decision to move forward with this stunt, and is trying to repair the damage with refunds and free tickets to future Flash games.

So what do we learn from an incident like this?

• Viral and word-of-mouth marketing is very powerful! Anderson had all the makings of a great viral campaign, even “leaking” a video of “Jordan” eating at a local restaurant. However, his campaign came with a very specific expectation that he could not meet. If you build up that much buzz, you have to deliver on customer expectations.
• Teams need to be more transparent when using publicity stunts to sell tickets. For example, last year the Philadelphia Phantoms hosted a game where David Akers and Andy Reid were going to do the ceremonial puck drop and sign autographs. However, through the language of the press release and marketing materials, it was pretty clear that instead of the Eagles’ player and coach, it was going to be a fake Akers and Reid in attendance. The team ended up with the desired effect of generating buzz, but they also managed the fans’ expectations and still had a successful promotion with a boost in attendance.
• When customer expectations are not met, immediate action must be taken to try and resolve the problem. Anderson is doing just that through his immediate apology and offer of refunds and free tickets. The only question will be whether fans feel that this service recovery is enough to compensate them for their failed promise. There may be some lingering skepticism for casual fans that were in attendance to purchase tickets to a future game.

By now, we’ve all heard the updates on the Tiger Woods saga… possibly ad-nauseum. For me, this was the moment I realized I no longer want to hear about the private lives of athletes. Don’t get me wrong, I check People.com occasionally, but I also spend half my day on ESPN.com. Also, I understand the millions of dollars in endorsements that can be wiped out by a US Weekly-worthy single transgression and it’s definitely news-worthy if there is a major criminal offense that has been committed.

But my question is this: is sports better or worse off in this era of 24/7 news cycles?

On one hand, you don’t have to hear about the “shot heard ’round the world” from a newspaper article. You don’t have to imagine Babe Ruth calling his shot and moments later hitting a homerun to that same spot. You don’t have to wonder for 12 hours who won Ali-Frasier II (or III or IV).

What’s left to wonder these days? How many dunks will make the sports show’s Top 10? Why the Monday Night Football highlights weren’t the lead story last night? Whether soccer will get a mention on SportsCenter?

Are we better off for knowing all the intimate details of how Latrell Sprewell choked his coach? For hearing Allen Iverson complain about practice? For having the sports highlight shows seem more like police blotters? Or for reading about Tiger’s philandering?

Does this extra knowledge actually add to our game-watching experience? Some people could argue that knowing more about the players helps us to identify with them. It helps us feel closer to our favorite players and therefore be more interested in buying game tickets and merchandise.

But what we end up with is subtraction by addition. By knowing all of this additional, real-time information, we lose the ability to idolize these players without a nagging feeling that someday it will be their name on the front page of the paper tomorrow. How do fathers look their sons in the eye and say “there is a man you can emulate” when they aren’t truly sure if that player is clean. The athlete could be taking performance-enhancing drugs, driving drunk, carrying around illegally concealed weapons, or cheating on their wives – and sooner or later we’ll know about it.

What I do know are the attributes that draw me to sports: the competition, passion, athleticism and skill that athletes display on their chosen field. They don’t have to be perfect husbands, drivers, or moral-compasses to thrill fans.

For now, besides the athlete’s pocketbook, the coprorate sponsors are the biggest losers. Marketing executives have to be shivering in their shoes when they sign contracts from here on out. Tiger was untouchable. Other than his infamous swearing on the course, he was the closest thing we had to ‘clean.’ This incident will go to show companies that no endorsement is safe. All of them have inherent risks because their products are endorsed by humans, and humans make mistakes.

I for one will long for the days when we knew a little less about our sports stars, so that we could enjoy them a little more.

The New Jersey Nets are currently suffering through a historically bad start to their season. Seventeen games, seventeen losses and a fired head coach is a tough stretch to say the least. While the goal of the business side of the franchise is to generate a profit regardless of the product on the court, there is no doubt that this type of situation can be very damaging to the organization. In particular, the Nets have several factors they must overcome:

1. A very poor product on the court, arguably the worst in the league
2. Operating in a very crowded market with many sports and entertainment alternatives
3. A weak mass transit system that doesn’t let them tap into the New York audience
4. The fact that the team is moving to a new building in a new city in the near future
5. A complete shift in management as Bruce Ratner sells the team to Mikhail Prokhorov

With these hurdles standing in their way, what can the Nets do to keep the business moving forward while the team performance does not cooperate?  Here are a few ideas, some of which the team has already implemented.

• Market basketball and the NBA without focusing on the Nets – The team has already done this with one of their earlier ticket package incentives that gave buyers reversible jerseys featuring players on the other teams. They can take this further by openly promoting the best opponents that are coming in to town over the coming weeks.
• Focus on specific games instead of the entire season – If you think about trying to sell all of the remaining games, it can be quite an overwhelming tasks. So focus on specific games and opponents that give you the best chance to succeed and concentrate your sales efforts on those dates.
• Discounted pricing – While cutting prices doesn’t fix the underlying problems, it does open the product up to a wider audience. Since the team isn’t a draw, the buying decision for consumers comes down to what form of entertainment they want to see. In order to compete with options like going to the movies, the price need to be comparable. This approach can also be achieved through special “family packs” that combine tickets with food and merchandise for a fixed low price.
• Connect with season ticket holders – The worst potential impact of the team performance is the eventual loss of season ticket holders. Every effort needs to be made to maintain relationships with these customers through this tough time, as they are still the biggest source of ticket revenue. Give them additional free tickets to share with friends, reward them for referrals and let them take part in game experiences so that they still get the most value and enjoyment out of their season tickets.

If you were in charge of sales and marketing for the Nets, what would you do right now?

As time goes on, there is more and more content buried deep in the archives of this blog, so every now and then, I like to reach into “the vault” and revisit an old post. This article was originally published exactly one year ago and discusses how to leverage the holiday season to boost sales.

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By now we have all realized that the current economy has put a damper on ticket sales. People that bought premium inventory may have downgraded to cheaper seats, and some of the regular ticket buyers aren’t buying at all. However, with the winter holidays (and Black Friday) right around the corner, there is a definite opportunity to pick up some revenue momentum.

Even though many families have cut back on their discretionary spending, there is a good chance that they’ve still put aside money for the holidays. People are still going to buy gifts for dad, the kids, family, and friends. The challenge is to communicate to your customers the idea of buying tickets and merchandise for their holiday gifts. It doesn’t matter whether your sport is in season or not. Make sure your fans know that the best gift they can give is the gift of sports. Here is a great commercial from the NHL that relays this message (with a nice touch of humor):

There was another one from NFL Shop I really liked, but I cannot seem to find it online anywhere. It is also important to integrate the holiday elements into your email marketing, like the example seen here from the Orlando Magic.

Here are a few examples of teams that have put together holiday packages to really take advantage of this seasonal selling opportunity:

• MLB: Arizona Diamondbacks Holiday 6-Packs
• NBA: Indiana Pacers Holiday Pack (complete with a Holiday eCard)
• NHL: Philadelphia Flyers Santa Sacks (includes tickets, merchandise, and more!)
• NCAA: Xavier Men’s Basketball Holiday Ticket Pack

I think the most effective holiday products will be packages that combine a physical gift (merchandise or collectibles) along with tickets. Any sports fan would love to receive that type of present. Teams need to make sure they are position to offer some type of holiday package to take advantage of the gift-giving season. It may be the one time this year when people are willing to spend money! And on that note, don’t forget to put together a Black Friday offer either, whether its a in-arena/in-store offer or simply an email-based promotion. People are going to spend money on Black Friday – make sure that they have a good option to spend it on your team!

At this point, everyone should understand how important it is to integrate social sharing links into any web-based campaign. These links provide an easy mechanism for fans to share the message with others and hopefully create a viral-like distribution for the campaign.

While I completely agree with this approach, I just saw an interesting report from Marketing Sherpa on the most common ways that people share links with friends and family. Take a look at the chart below:

The primary link sharing method of choice is clearly still email.  This is about 3.5x the number of percentage of people that share links via social media. Unfortunately I do not have a chart that shows the results of this question over time, but I’m sure that the social media percentage has increased as Twitter and Facebook grow in popularity.  In spite of this, for the time being email is still the king of link sharing. So don’t forget to include an “Email to a Friend” link with the rest of your sharing options and encourage your fans to email your links to others – they will probably be more likely to respond.

Marquette University has taken a very creative approach to selling their season ticket and mini-plans that goes beyond a straight sales pitch. They worked with Row27 Studios to creating a new website that combines team-generated and user-generated content with both a contest and ticket sales information to create an interactive fan experience.  You can visit the site at www.marquetteminiplans.com.

The website displays a 3D rotation of different videos, including game actions clips, interviews with the team (some of which are VERY funny), and placeholders for user-generated videos. Some of the videos are grayed out and will be activated over time, giving fans reason to keep visiting the site. Everything is tied together through a contest, which you can learn about through the links at the bottom of the site. There are prizes based on accumulating points, and you can gain points by creating an account, uploading videos, finding a hidden video, sharing with friends via email or social networking (Twitter and Facebook), and purchasing a ticket package.

I’m not a Marquette fan (I’m actually an alumnus of a rival Big East school), but I’ve already visited the site multiple times to see the different types of videos that they’ve created. I’m sure that the school’s fans will really respond to this promotion. I love the interactive elements and how they encourage and reward the site visitors to share the link with others. This is a great alternative to a typical online ticket sales or marketing campaign.

As time goes on, there is more and more content buried deep in the archives of this blog, so every now and then, I like to reach into “the vault” and revisit an old post.

Today, I’m sharing a post I wrote last year on making marching bands part of the professional sports experience. The reason I thought back to this post was because of last night’s ESPN30 for 30 documentary on the old Baltimore Colts marching band called “The Band That Wouldn’t Die.” The film did an excellent job talking about the Colts’ late night move from Baltimore to Indianapolis, and how the team’s marching band continued to play on for over a decade until finally the Ravens brought football back to Baltimore.

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I will admit right up front that I am biased, since I was part of the marching and pep bands while in college, but having a live marching band and pep band at college sporting events is a valuable part of the game-day experience. This includes pregame shows (think of the tuba player dotting the “i” in the Ohio State pregame), halftime shows (some southern schools have very elaborate and impressive performances), and timeout performances during both football and basketball games. I am a firm believer that a live band can generate as much if not more enthusiasm from the fans than any canned music can.

On that note, I wanted to mention two professional teams that make use of a live band, the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Ravens. Here are a couple of clips (note – the audio quality is not that great, since these are fan recordings):

The 2nd episode of The Business of Sports Live will start tonight at 7:30pm EST (4:30pm EST). My guest is Erica Boeke from GoGameFace.com and co-author of the book “Gameface: The Kick-Ass Guide for Women Who Love Pro Sports.” You can watch the stream below, or you can click here to visit the The Business of Sports Live Ustream channel to participate in the live chat and send in your questions! You can also send me your questions now or during the chat by replying to me on Twitter.

In the past few days, I’ve seen a couple of great promotions from schools in the Pac-10 that I’d like to share:

Arizona State – You Are ASU: The Sun Devils created a couple of life-sized ASU trading card cutouts that can be found in prime locations around the Tempe area.  They’re encouraging fans to get their picture taken in the card cutout and send a Twitpic to their official Twitter account (@SparkyArizonaSt), and the picture that shows “the most Sun Devil Pride” will win free lower level tickets.  Great way to combine offline and online marketing.

Cal – SFGate.com Takeover: If you visited the San Francisco Chronicle website (sfgate.com/sports) in the past couple of days, you would have seen the entire site done up with full Cal spirit, from background imagery to advertisements and content. Since this is one of the most popular sites for sports content in the Bay Area, this is a great tactic to make a strong, concentrated impact.  Here’s a picture of what the site looked like during the takeover (thanks to @CalAthletics sending this along).

Arizona – Free Wildcats Ringtone: This offer is prominently displayed on the Arizona Wildcats athletics home page, encouraging fans to show their school spirit and download the official Wildcats ringtone. While getting the ringtone distributed among the school’s fans is great, the more valuable part of this promotion is the data collection opportunity that it provides.

Washington – Go Purple. Be Gold: The Huskies website starts you off with a nice new video, produced by row27 Studios. Last year wasn’t a great season for Washington, so the video appropriately focuses on hard work, practice and improvement, and ends with a call-to-action promoting their new 4-game plan.

New Tier B-Line: Multiple Pac-10 schools, including Stanford and Washington State, are offering a desktop product from New Tier Communications called the “B-Line.” It’s a new version of their desktop communicator that lets the schools push content out directly to the users’ computers, such as news alerts, video and special ticket offers.

Sunday was my birthday, and as such, I received a few sports-related birthday emails from the different team and league email lists that I’m subscribed to.  Here are a couple of examples from NASCAR, NBA, NFL and Comcast-Spectacor (Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers):

It seems like such a basic concept, but there are many sports organizations that have my birthday information in their database but did not send any type of communication. It can be as simple as a basic “Happy Birthday” email from my favorite team, helping to create a deeper connection, or maybe a special offer on team merchandise or tickets. In fact, if your team has ticket inventory available, how about taking a trick from Disney World, which actually offers free park admission on your birthday. Even though you’re giving one ticket away, the additional tickets for anyone coming with the birthday guest will drive incremental sales, and the person receiving the free ticket is likely to buy more in the future.

Birthdays offer a great once-per-year opportunity to connect with and reward your fans. The programs are easy to put in place and definitely yield positive results.

In sports, it’s very easy to learn who is buying your tickets through the information collected via the ticketing system.  However, it’s not as easy to learn who is actually showing up to use the tickets. Beyond the ticket buyers, the people in the seats definitely include the following groups:

• Family and friends of full and partial season ticket holders
• Season ticket share partners who aren’t listed as an account holder
• People who bought tickets through a ticket broker or other secondary market option (StubHub, Craigslist, scalpers, etc.)
• Employees who received tickets as a reward or part of a company outing
• Current or potential clients being treated to a game

With all of these “non-customers” receiving and using these tickets, it’s important for teams to constantly be thinking of ways to collect information on these individuals and try to turn them into direct paying customers.  Here are some ideas on how you can collect this valuable data during your events.

• Use a drivers license scanner for anyone picking up tickets at the will-call window.
• Have enter-to-win raffle tables at different areas throughout the concourse.
• Run a text-to-win trivia contest on the big screen that sends a follow-up text message encouraging them to opt-in to your email and/or mobile marketing program.
• Make sure that any in-arena surveys being performed also collect names, phone numbers and emails at the end of the survey.
• Put computer kiosks in premium seating or high traffic areas that offer an incentive for completing a brief survey or entry form.
• Have a table to promote the team’s email newsletter or text messaging club, with a computer or forms that let people opt-in right at the table.
• Walk around to the suites, club boxes and premium lounges with a premium raffle item (signed jersey, free suite tickets, etc) and collect entries.  These individual could potentially be high-value ticket buyers or lead you to other potential companies that could be suite or club box leads.
• Make sure that any sales tables also have a business card drop for people interested in receiving more information.

Through these different methods, you will collect a great deal of information about your fans and potential new customers, building up your consumer database and making it easier for the marketing and sales departments to drive new ticket revenue.

Billboards are a common part of the marketing mix for most sports organizations. You’ll see them promoting season tickets, partial plans, special packages and even single-game tickets.  They tend to be a little brand focused, since they are going after people while they’re driving (not the most ideal time to buy something), but they almost include an easy-to-remember URL or phone number.  Hopefully, if you pass by the billboard enough times, you’ll decide to call and inquire about those tickets.

Up until recently, the biggest technological development in billboards has been digital billboards, which can be updated regularly and sometimes feature a rotation of different advertisers. From a sports perspective, these can be valuable because they can always show the most current promotion or the next game’s opponent. However, down in Kentucky, there’s been another “advancement”  in billboard technology – the singing billboard!

There are nine different singing billboards throughout Kentucky, each featuring one line of the University of Kentucky fight song.  If you pass by one of these special billboards, you can tune your radio to a specific station (either 1630AM or 1640 AM, depending on your location) and hear the U of K fight song.  Also, fans that submit pictures of all nine billboards will have a chance to win free tickets and other prizes.  Finally, the school has tied this campaign into a special website at www.ukfightsong.com, which includes audio, video clips, information on the contest and social networking integration with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

I think this is a fun, innovative approach to what is generally viewed as a traditional marketing element.  They’ve found a way to tun the static message of a billboard into an engaging, interactive experience.

Facebook is far and away the largest social networking community in existence, and as such, it is a prime location for sports organizations to communicate with their fans.  Most do this through fan pages, which are profiles that can be created on behalf of a company, team, website, product, celebrity or anything really.

Back in February, two of the top fifteen fan pages belonged to athletes, Michael Phelps at #7 (now over 2.5 million fans) and Cristiano Ronaldo at #12 (later shutdown for being “unofficial”).  When I tweeted yesterday asking for suggestions on teams that use Facebook well, one reply suggested the official Pittsburgh Penguins fan page, which has over 100,000 fans.  EA Sports has recently made a push into using Facebook Fan pages as well, creating pages for their different products such as Madden NFL 2010.  Even though it seems like Facebook is “old news,” the potential is still tremendous because they have over 200 million active users, of which over 50% log in at least once per day.  That audience size is simply too big to overlook.

So why are we talking about Facebook today?  Because we wanted to let you all know that The Business of Sports also has an official Facebook page. By becoming a fan on Facebook, you can see all of our latest sports business news and updates as part of your Facebook news feed. If you are on Facebook regularly (and from the statistics, about 50% of you probably are), this will give you a quick and easy connection to the blog. And once you become a fan of The Business of Sports Facebook page, you can invite any of your current Facebook friends to our page so they can keep up with the latest sports business news as well. The Facebook page also allows you to communicate with other fans of the site and maybe even connect with individuals that you met at one of our networking events. Finally, if you have suggestions on ways we can improve the page, please let us know by posting your ideas on our wall.  Thanks, and we’ll see you all on Facebook!

I just had the chance to sit it on a panel discussing database marketing and demographic profiling in relation to premium sales.  Ron Contorno, who is the President of Full House Entertainment Database Marketing, talked about some of the things he’s learned through research and analysis that indicates how to best target premium sales prospects, so I’d like to share some of his insights here:

• Of all suite owners, almost 40% come from just 10 specific industry types and 50% come from just 20 industry types (industry type is defined by a specific SIC/industry code).  The top two types were banks/bank holding companies and attorneys/legal services.  Other members of the top ten were media (often through trade deals), insurance, finance, contractors, management consulting, accounting, real estate, and telecommunications. (Note: this information comes from a joint study between ALSD, Ohio University, Turnkey and Full House that was done in 1997).
• While things have definitely shifted a bit since 1997, there are still several counter-cyclical and “recession-proof” industries that are valuable targets.  Some examples of these segments are collection agencies, credit counseling, education providers, discount chains, fast food, auto repair, alcohol distributors, attorneys, home repair and apartment-related companies.
• There are also premium targets on the consumer side that can be easily identified.  Some examples of these consumer targets include airplane owners, luxury car owners, certain publication subscribers (WSJ, Fortune, Financial Times and Golf Digest to name a few), high income/net worth consumers (both local and recent movers to the area) and consumers with a high discretionary spending index. All of this consumer data can be easily obtainable to match against your existing customer database or as new target lists.

Hopefully this information helps share the power that data can provide.  By focusing your efforts based on the right SIC codes, industry segments and consumer demographics, you can generate more effective premium sales campaigns for your organization.

Last week the NHL had their 2008-09 end-of-season awards ceremony at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. It was a night to celebrate a great season of hockey, with Alex Ovechkin taking home three awards and three different players from the Bruins winning individual awards.  From all accounts, the event seemed to be a great way for the NHL to cap off a successful year.  However, I want to talk about a different event that took place out there.

While the NHL was taking over Las Vegas, they partnered with PokerStars.net, a free online poker site, and the World Series of Poker for a special charity poker tournament.  The tournament (which was appropriately a “shootout” style event) featured a combination of current NHL players, celebrities and amateur poker players that won their seats through PokerStars.net.  Scott Hartnell from the Philadelphia Flyers ended up winning the event, earning $25,000 for the ASPCA.  You can read more about the event at NHL.com and PokerNews.com.

Now the NHL and the World Series of Poker might seem like an unusual pair of companies to work together.  After all, poker is viewed as a gambling activity, and most professional sports do everything they can to avoid connections to gambling. But in this case, the pairing seemed to work out well for both sides.  The NHL found a way to gain more exposure for their first Las Vegas awards show and create another unique event to add to their get-away weekend. The World Series of Poker got to add a unique hockey flair to their events for a day and tap into some of the NHL’s recent positive publicity.  Take a look at some of the pictures here, courtesy of PokerRoad.com. I particulary like the hockey rink style poker table and the hockey boards in front of the spectators.  They even brought out the Stanley Cup during that day’s WSOP tournament winner’s ceremony.

Ultimately, both “leagues” are looking to increase their public exposure.  The NHL is still viewed as a distant 4th in the “Big 4″ U.S. sports, but is arguably gaining ground.  Meanwhile, poker and the WSOP want to grow their audeince and be viewed as “sports entertainment” with their coverage on ESPN.  I think both brands benefit from an event like this, and they deserve credit for their unlikely partnership.

By now, most of you have probably seen this commercial from EA Sports, but I wanted to share it here anyway because I think it’s one of the best sports-related ads that I have seen in the past few years.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMQBVSNSaSs

All of us have (or had) our dreams of being a professional athlete, and when we watch our favorite teams, we tap into our dreams of sports glory.  EA understands this passion that we all share as fans and made it a reality in this ad by putting the fans into the moment.  They integrated all of us, old and young, male and female, into a wide spectrum of sports experiences.  They show us the most exciting moments from tennis, soccer, golf, hockey, baseball, basketball and football, connecting with us as fans, and then tie it all together at the end by showing the video game controller and their line of sports games as our way to be a part of the event.

EA is also taking this campaign (aptly titled “The Win”) online through their new beta website, http://beta.easports.com/theWin.  One by one, they are adding the different sports and associated video game titles to this site, and under each section you can watch behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and clips of epic wins displayed through their different games. You can even submit your own epic wins to EA and have the story of your great video game victory become part of the new site.

As you can tell, I think this is an excellent campaign from EA.  Their tag line has always been “It’s in the game,” and now they are doing their best to put you in the game through their advertisements and website.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Amanda M. Miller, a current Sports Business/Marketing MBA student at Arizona State and summer intern for Navigate Marketing.

While I have a long background in sports and in public relations, the marketing classes that I took this year were my first official education in that subject. It hasn’t taken long, however, to see some of the basic tenets of marketing ignored by several major league sports teams. While I won’t name names, these examples come from an NFL team, a WNBA team and an NHL team, so clearly there are people in high places that might want to return to the basics.

First mistake: targeting, or lack thereof. It can be difficult to pinpoint what a team’s target market should be, and harder still to find cost-effective ways to reach those people, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be the foundation of a marketing plan. There are numerous examples of teams that violate this principal.

In one case, a team sent part of its marketing staff to hand out promotional items in advance of their first game. Some of these items ended up being given to homeless people. Now while there might be some value in having promotional items in visible places, clearly this is not the target demographic of any team. This endeavor was a waste of time for the people involved and also a waste of promotional materials.

In another example, the task was to hand out tickets to the first game of the year for a professional team. Instead of finding an event or group that might have 1) used the tickets and then 2) been interested in coming to more than that first game, the tickets were handed out to working professionals who were heading home from a long day at work on the mass transportation system, even though research has shown that that segment is NOT the target for this particular team.

A second huge mistake is the misuse or ignorance of social networking sites. Social networking has been the largest growing tool for marketing departments. MBA interns are increasingly finding that their comfort with these sites and tools is useful in their internships. However, once the internship is over it’s important that someone within the department maintain these sites. Sometimes their misuse is due to ignorance, sometimes to apathy, and sometimes to neglect.

I’ve seen Twitter pages that direct people to non-working web site pages and Facebook pages that have not been checked in months. As anyone who reads this blog knows, Twitter and Facebook are two cost-effective ways to reach out to fans, especially if they are updated with interesting, unique and dynamic content. Idle, static pages only serve to make your brand seem idle and static.

Finally, a general lack of ingenuity with respect to a team’s web site is a common problem. I’ve seen web sites that advertise services that are no longer offered by the team and web sites that look exactly the same every time they are visited. If there is nothing new on the site at first glance, why does a team think its fans would want to visit it?

We all know how crowded the sports marketplace is. Competition is fierce for a fan’s interest. My advice to any team would be to utilize the free resources such as social networking sites to their fullest and avoid scattershot marketing. While those tickets your marketing team is handing out may seem ‘free,’ you’re using the time of your employees and interns for a pointless exercise. And time IS money, right?

Would you like to be a guest blogger for TheBusinessOfSports.com? Let us know by filling out our contact form.

Arizona State Football just released a new interactive marketing piece called the “Arizona State Football Experience.” It’s framed as a message from Coach Dennis Erickson, and the video does a great job of taking you from the practice field to the Hall of Fame at Sun Devil Stadium and up to the coach’s office, interacting with the players, Sparky and then Coach Erickson himself.  All throughout the video, your name is integrated into various parts of the footage. The “experience” is capped off by a phone call from the coach, from which you have the option to connect directly to the ASU sales office to buy your tickets.  Finally, there is an option at the end of the video to forward it on to friends, and the page features links to the major social networking sites to encourage viral distribution.

The thing I like most about this one is that the personality of the participants comes through, particularly in the elevator scene.  That part of the clip may seem somewhat silly, but to me it helped create a more genuine connection to the athlete and the football program.  Click on the image below to experience the “experience” for yourself.

These types of interactive elements have gained a lot of popularity over the past few months.  It started with Gonzaga’s women’s basketball campaign, and I’ve seen similar campaigns recently from the Miami Dolphins and the Philadelphia Flyers.  Clearly these integrated, experiential videos seem to be more effective in engaging the viewer, which should in turn help convert these viewers into buyers.

Over the past month or so, Pat Coyle has held three different Sports Marketing 2.0 summits in New York, Chicago and Palo Alto.  Some of the people in attendance, specifically at the recent summit in California, live tweeted the event, sharing some of the things they learned through their Twitter messages.

Take a minute and go to search.twitter.com and search for “#sports20″ (all of the live tweets were marked with this hashtag so they are easy to find).  You will find some short but valuable insights.  Here are a couple of examples:

• danstwitter: MIT study A fan goes to your site, contacting them within first hour is more likely 2 convert into sale. This declines 10%/hour #sports20
• danstwitter: Talking CRM. It drives what you do in Service and Sales, but have your plan in place and this helps feed those programs. #sports20

For more information on these summits and other valuable sports marketing content, visit www.sportsmarketing20.com.

This past Sunday marked the first Twitter Conference ever which focused entirely on Twitter as a business platform. The conference which was referred to as TWTRCON, was held in San Francisco and featured an amazing panel of guest speakers ranging from Guy Kawasaki of AllTop, all the way to celebrities such as M.C. Hammer. Having been fortunate enough to attend such a conference, I felt I would summarize what I learned there in order to help those readers interested in using Twitter to further their business.

The conference began with a section called “Twitter for Business 101.”  Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, spoke about the true importance of your followers. She emphasized that it is not necessary to have 10,000 followers in order to make Twitter useful for your business. Instead she explained that it is important to have quality followers, and by that she implied followers that are in a field related to yours, or followers that have a similar interest. For example if you work as the head of the softball department for Easton, a design company and manufacturer of sports equipment, then the people you want following you on Twitter should mostly be female and 22 years of age or younger. Why? Because that is your target market for softball equipment and there is little need to have followers that don’t fit into that market. Fitton exclaimed multiple times not to waste your time trying to attain some superficial number of followers unless your market is very large and unspecific.

Guy Kawasaki spoke on “How Twitter Will change Your Tomorrow.” Kawasaki, whom everybody seemed to be fond of, wanted everyone to realize the potential of Twitter. With 30 million users, you have the ability to find a lot of people in very specific niches. In general you also have the ability to connect with the world quickly and easily so it is important to be very careful of your tweets. You have to be aware of “ghost tweeters,” which are people managing Twitter accounts for you or for others you connect with.  Unlike other social media platforms, once you tweet you cannot delete.

Jeremie McPeek, Vice President of Interactive Services for the Phoenix Suns,wanted to remind the audience that it is important how you market yourself or your company through Twitter. The Suns team has many players on the roster who tweet quite frequently. Sometimes these players may tweet something that does not positively reflect the image that the Phoenix Suns want. Large companies need to be mindful of this. Remind your employees that they represent more than themselves online. McPeek who is known as SunsWebmaster on Twitter, encourages you to carefully lead your followers to your website. Attract followers by having fun with your tweets. You don’t need to be all business all the time. As an example, the representatives for different NBA twitter accounts created a competition to see which team could reel in the most followers, with the winner being awarded the “Twophy of Twitter.”

Since there were so many influential speakers and attendees at the conference, I could write forever on everything I learned. Instead now I’m going to direct you to a couple of useful platforms I was introduced to that should help you better manage your Twitter accounts. These were all new to me.

Co-Tweet is a comprehensive business platform which allows multiple people to communicate through corporate Twitter accounts and stay in sync while doing so. It helps to keep employees on the same page and organized.

HootSuite is similar to Co-Tweet in letting you manage multiple account at once, and it also tracks your success on Twitter by showing you how many people have clicked on your tweet URLs.

Interested in all the other awesome platforms and sponsors that showed off their goods at this conference? Click on the following link for more official TWTRCON info.

Vitamin Water has recently come out with a new advertising campaign, based around the argument of “Who is better – Kobe or LeBron?” I’ve seen these ads both on TV and online (ESPN.com had this campaign on their frontpage yesterday). You can view the most recent television commercial below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaO5lmXpSxI

Now, if you’re going to pick a couple of NBA players to promote your product, you really can’t go wrong with Kobe and LeBron.  However, I wonder if they planned this campaign weeks or months ago, based on the thought that the Lakers and Cavaliers would face each other in the NBA Finals.  Both teams were considered almost locks to make the finals when the playoffs started, but now some people believe that the Lakers (and maybe even the Cavaliers) could be upset in the conference finals. 

My question now is, looking at this campaign as an example, is it too risky to focus on certain players during the playoffs since their visibility will drop if their team is eliminated?  Will Vitamin Water continue to use the campaign during the finals if either team is eliminated?  Or maybe, are Kobe and LeBron such powerful icons that it doesn’t matter if one of them loses before the finals?  I have to believe that an early elimination of the Lakers or Cavaliers would have some negative impact on this campaign.  What are your thoughts?

Remember to check out TheBusinessOfSports YouTube Video Library for more sports commercials, viral videos, and other valuable content.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Brendan Wilhide, creator of the website Sportsin140.com which covers sports on Twitter and features the “Sports on Twitter” directory of confirmed athletes and teams:

The number of professional sports teams on Twitter has exploded in the last six months. New teams join each week as word of Twitter’s use as a marketing tool grows through the media and throughout the sports industry. As teams join Twitter, they discover new ways to interact with and engage their fans and their audience. In the last few months alone, Twitter users has seen their favorite teams embrace Twitter through unique contests, giveaways and promotions.

We caught up with two early adopter teams: the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream and Minor League Baseball’s Lakewood (NJ) BlueClaws and asked them how they use Twitter as a marketing tool. Both the Dream and the BlueClaws made waves on Twitter in the last few months with unique promotions and giveaways.

The WNBA regular season doesn’t start until early June but the Atlanta Dream front office is already busy. The team maintains a social networking presence on Facebook, Myspace and, as of early January, Twitter. Dream Vice President of Media Relations Tonya Alleyne says using Twitter was the last piece of the team’s online marketing puzzle. “One of the many reasons we chose to use these [social networking sites] is because of the grassroots appeal it has with our fans and more importantly our potential fans,” Alleyne says.

The promotion was simple: the Dream would give away tickets to the team’s May 27 game against the Connecticut Sun if roughly 1,000 people became fans of the team on its Facebook page in one week. When the promotion began, Alleyne says, the Dream had roughly 500 Facebook fans and the team reached its goal of 1,500 total fans in less than a week. Once the promotion ended, the front office set out to fulfill over 1,000 free ticket requests for the May 27 game and for that, the team once again turned to Facebook.

The Dream created a Facebook message blast informing fans how to redeem their ticket by filling out a special form on the team’s website. Alleyne says the team will set up a special Will Call window at the stadium box office specifically for fans redeeming tickets from the Facebook promotion and will do the best to accommodate fans that wish to purchase additional tickets.

Alleyne says the team’s ticket giveaway is just the first of many unique social networking promotions for fans this season. Last week, the team hosted its first ever “Twitterview” in which Atlanta Dream star Chamique Holdsclaw answered fan questions live on Twitter. Alleyne says the team expects to host more “Twitterviews” in the future.

“[Twitter] has given us a way to directly connect with our fans in a place where they are already comfortable,” Alleyne says. “Folks are already using these sites for their personal use and enjoyment and as an organization we want to be where our fans are,” she says.

The challenges of marketing to fans is not limited to major league franchises, something that Lakewood (NJ) BlueClaws Media and Public Relations Manager Greg Giombarresse knows well. “You always have to find new and creative ways to..reach both our fans and prospective fans or you risk falling behind,” he says. “We really made the decision [to integrate Twitter into the team's marketing efforts] in the last few months and we’ve seen Twitter grow at a rapid pace over that period.”

The BlueClaws are an affiliate of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies and play in the low-class A South Atlantic League. Giombarresse says the BlueClaws intend to use Twitter frequently this season as a way to reach their fans quickly and effectively. “It’s free and it’s simple. Our fans can go to our Twitter page and see a running log of what we’ve been releasing, what’s new and what’s coming up, with links back to our homepage for quick reference,” he says.

Even though the BlueClaws’ season is less than a month old, Giombarresse says the team has already seen the benefits of using Twitter to communicate with the fans. One successful idea was born on a rainy Monday just hours before a rain-threatened home game. The team set up a banner on its website directing fans to the team’s Twitter page, where it offered constant updates on the weather and the status of that night’s game. “We decided to capitalize on that and said that fans that printed out our Twitter page [that night] received a free all-you-can-eat bracelet for the next night’s game.” Giombarresse says over 25 people redeemed the team’s offer. “It was a big hit.”

While the BlueClaws have had success using Twitter, Giombarresse is quick to add that Twitter does not replace the need for a team website. “The one thing about Twitter that is a little scary is you don’t want to get people into the habit of going there instead of your own website,” he says. Giombarresse says the BlueClaws will host giveaways via the team’s Twitter page in addition to its official blog and Facebook page. “You have a great program with the ability to reach a lot of people very quickly, and steer them back to your own website or blog.”

Be it major league basketball, minor league baseball or any sport in between, Giombarresse thinks sports teams have only scratched the surface of using Twitter as a promotional tool. “I think the future is very bright. The far more personal nature of Twitter and other social marketing sites is certainly a welcome change that we all have to keep up with as best as we possibly can.”

Even during the times when your team or league is in the offseason, you should continue to find ways to grow your team databases, both email and text messaging.  Here is a good example of a Seattle Seahawks email promotion that is using this weekend’s NFL Draft as a way to increase membership in their text messaging club:

The only thing this promotion is missing is a direct call-to-action in the email itself.  I know they want the person reading the email to use their cell phone to enter, but they should still give me a way to click now and get more information about the contest (beyond just the rules), show me some of the potential draft pick names (so I spell them correctly) and see pictures of the exciting prizes.  If I click on the email to learn more about the contest, I’m more likely to actually participate.  Still, the important thing is that they are using a valuable off-season event to continue to grow their fan database.

In case you haven’t heard already, the Washington Nationals made some news the other day because a couple of their players were wearing jerseys that said “Natinals” instead of “Nationals” – see the picture on Adam Dunn on the right.  While this story is a little embarrassing for the franchise and the jersey provider, there are two ways the team can respond:

1.  They can try to find someone to blame (an employee or the jersey manufacturer) and then do their best to pretend the incident never happened, or…

2.  They can embrace the mistake and use it to their advantage!

How can they do this?  Here are some simple ideas that could turn a mistake into an opportunity:

• Auction the misspelled jerseys for charity and have the team match the money raised with a donation of their own.  Because of the rarity of this incident and the public exposure, these jerseys could sell for a nice price, and the charity aspect provides wonderful PR.
• Hold a “Bad Spelling Day” promotional day, complete with other players wearing misspelled jerseys, games on the video boards and unique prizes.
• Along the lines of the NHL Winter Classic contest to find the missing Reebok logo, have a contest where fans need to identify the jersey that is missing part of the logo, a letter, etc, and then have them enter an online contest.
• Create a funny viral video with players from the Nationals participating in a spelling bee.  This video would be sure to get a lot of buzz online and shows that the team has a sense of humor.

The basic idea is to put a positive spin on mistakes when they happen.  Anything is an opportunity if you look at it in the right light!

In the past, I’ve written about ways that league’s can “own” a holiday and use it as a marketing vehicle for their sport.  On a smaller scale, teams have found ways to use different holidays that occur during the season for in-game promotions and special marketing campaigns.  Well last week, we had an unofficial holiday on April 15th – Tax Day!  While this day normally has negative connotations to it, anytime there is a major yearly event, you can find a creative way to leverage it.

I polled some of my peers to see what types of tax-related promotions they’ve seen, and here are some great examples:

• The Phoenix Suns had a H&R Block countdown to tax day on their web page as part of a sponsorship activation package.
• H&R Block sponsors the Yankees’ Numbers Game, where you add or subtract two players’ numbers together to equal another player’s number (it is played on the big screen at the stadium). After the numbers game, they show a tax tip courtesy of H&R Block.
• The Kansas City Blades of the IHL used to have a promotion in conjunction with H&R Block when they had a home game on April 15th.  Fans could make an appointment ahead of time to have their taxes done at the arena that night for free, and anyone who owed money got entered into a drawing to win a cash prize.

Clearly, H&R Block is a great company to work with, as any tax day promotions are a natural fit with sponsorship activation.  This would apply to any tax or financial services sponsor.  However, you don’t need a sponsor tie-in for this to be valuable. A “Tax Day Ticket Offer” can be effective, or a special offer for customers that apply their tax rebate to a ticket package, similar to the stimulus check promotions that teams used last year. 

Even though Tax Day has passed, it’s never to early to put these ideas away for next year, or for your next sponsorship pitch with H&R Block!

Thank you to Brian Gainor, Jim Loria, and Rob Scibetti for their help with this post!

With the rapid increase in popularity of Twitter among sports organizations, I thought this was the appropriate time to document what I refer to as “The Four C’s of Twitter.” I believe that if you follow the basic concepts I’m going to review, that you can use Twitter to  your advantage:

The Four C’s of Twitter

1.  Content: Ultimately, all communication channels are only as good as the content that you provide. Twitter is no different. Just because you are using a micro-blogging system with a 140 character limit doesn’t mean that you can’t create interesting and engaging content for your readers. Twitter users are particularly interested in content that they might not get via other traditional channels, such as insider news, early access to information, behind-the-scenes access and unique perspectives that they cannot get elsewhere.

2.  Character: By character, I mean personality. Whether the Twitter account has a specific person’s name on it or not, followers want to know that there is a real person behind the account, and the way to do that it by letting your personality shine through.  The last thing that Twitter users want is “the company line” – they can get that anywhere. If you can put a personal touch on your content, the interest level will jump dramatically.

3.  Conversation: Twitter was designed on the concept of following other people’s updates and being able to respond back and engage with your Twitter friends. Simply pushing a message down to followers without conversing with them will quickly get tuned out. Hopefully if you post something interesting, you will get a few replies back. When that happens, reply back to those people and start a dialogue.  Others will see what is happening and join the conversation. Now your followers aren’t just reading about you, they are engaging with you. Also, if someone follows your account, follow them back. Even if you’re not actively reading their posts, they’ll appreciate the reciprocity and be more interested in looking for your updates.

4.  Community: When you succeed in the first three areas, the number of people that follow you (and you in turn follow back) will quickly increase.  Before you know it, you have hundreds and thousands of people that are looking for your tweets.  And if they decide they want to look for other fans of your team/league/sport, they’ll search through your list of followers to find others they can connect with.  In essence, you’ve created an entire new community on Twitter based around your brand.  More people will start conversations about your organization, even if you don’t post anything yourself.

These concepts can be applied to any Twitter account, whether you work with a team, league, consumer product, or you just want to start your own personal account.  If you follow all four ideas, your account will quickly become a success.

Last night, Martin Brodeur set the NHL goaltending record for most career victories with 552, one more than Patrick Roy.  This was an incredible accomplishment by one of the most talented and respected athletes in NHL history. 

The NHL, recognizing the rarity of this type of record-breaking event, is doing a great job in embracing Brodeur’s accomplishment and getting fans directly involved in the celebration by launching a “digital celebration” on NHL.com, NHL Mobile, and across the Internet.  This includes:

• Extensive coverage and video from yesterday’s win, including reaction from teammates, opponents and fans
• Exclusive video retrospectives on Brodeur’s career
• A dedicated section on Shop.NHL.com called that includes new products to commemorate the record
• Asking fans to e-mail a congratulatory note or favorite memory of Brodeur to CongratsMarty@NHL.com, with the top entries displayed on www.NHL.com/brodeur and shared directly with Brodeur himself
• Encouraging fans to visit the NHL’s YouTube site (www.YouTube.com/NHL) and submit their own video or text message to Brodeur
• Encouraging fan conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #Brodeur

This is a very comprehensive “digital celebration,” finding ways to integrate both fan-generated and league-generated content across multiple platforms.  These types of strategies can be implemented by any team or league to celebrate a significant event or milestone, and they are pretty easy to manage.  Congrats Martin, and nice job by the NHL.

We have reached an exciting time in the sports calendar, with the NCAA tournament right around the corner.  I’d refer to it as March Madness, but the NCAA has that term trademarked, and I don’t want to get in any trouble!  And actually, my post today doesn’t have much to do with the actual tournament – it has to do with the opportunity that exists for any sports franchise to try and capitalize on the energy and buzz that college basketball creates this time of year. 

Here are a few ideas that your team can do to get in on the action:

• Support your local college team during a game.  This doesn’t need to be anything official (in fact, it might not be able to do anything officially because of NCAA regulations), but an in-game video message with current players that shows support for the local school that’s playing in the big dance is a very nice touch.
• Create your own type of bracket that has nothing to do with college basketball.  How about an online contest where you create a bracket that pairs up favorite players or famous events from your team’s past, and you let fans vote on these “pairings” each week (timing along with the actual tournament) until you crown a champion.  You can do this in-arena, online, or even via text message, and the promotion could help grow your email or text database.
• Put together a ticket package that relates to March “madness” without using the actual term.  I know some NHL teams are running a “March to the Playoffs” offer, which tries to tap into the general excitement on the season. 
• If there are games going on before or after an event in your arena, put together a viewing party in the arena lounge or bar that lets fans stay to enjoy the game.  Odds are, many of your fans are going out to a bar with friends to enjoy the game anyway…why not host them at your bar?

I’m sure there are many more creative ways you can use the NCAA tournament to your advantage in marketing, sales and the fan experience.  If you have any more ideas, either your own or what you’ve seen other teams do, please share them in the comments!

Yes, I know I’ve been writing a lot about Twitter lately, but in the last few weeks it has really been embraced by the mainstream sports world, and the latest entrant in the game is the worldwide leader, ESPN.  Here are some of the ways that they’ve starting using Twitter:

• Two of their most popular shows, PTI and Around the Horn, both have their own Twitter accounts now.  You can find them at twitter.com/PTIShow and twitter.com/AroundTheHorn.  Both shows have been actively promoting their Twitter accounts, and both have thousands of followers (and growing daily).  Also, both shows are using Twitter to actively solicit questions and ideas from viewers. 
• Some ESPN and ESPN-related personalities have started their own Twitter accounts, including Matthew Berry (twitter.com/TheRealTMR), Bill Plaschke (twitter.com/BillPlaschke), and Rebecca Lobo (twitter.com/rebeccalobo).  Matthew is one of their top fantasy sports columnists and he has been promoting his Twitter account through his ESPN podcast, using it to engage with his readers directly.  Bill is regular on Around the Horn, and he has been updating his account regularly; however, he doesn’t reply back to followers the way that Matthew does (although he does ask for feedback, so I’m sure he is reading the fans’ replies). Rebecca is a women’s basketball analyst, and she’s been updating her account very frequently with a lot of personal tidbits, as well as thoughts on the various games she covers.
• ESPN also has a “corporate” account at twitter.com/espn.  However, this account is just updated with the latest ESPN headline articles, and doesn’t interact at all with followers.

Finally, just the other day I found out about a unique initiative that ESPN Regional Television is doing with the Big 12 Conference.  They are using the Twitter account @Big12Network (twitter.com/Big12Network) to directly interact with fans all throughout the course of the Big 12 Conference tournament.  In addition Doug Bell, who is one of their on-air personalities, will be doing the same thing through his personal Twitter account (twitter.com/DougBellESPN).  I hope they have a lot of success with this plan, so that we might see similar efforts with future ESPN-broadcast events.

I think its great to see ESPN diving into Twitter and using it to engage their fans.  I know that ideally, they would prefer that everyone goes directly to ESPN.com to consume content, but the truth is that with how many alternate websites and social media outlets there are, companies need to be willing to go outside their own web-space and seek out their fans in other places. The fact that a company as large and powerful as ESPN recognizes this is a great sign.

The Phoenix Suns are one of the most proactive teams when it comes to using Twitter in creative ways.  Here are some  highlights of what they’ve done so far:

• They have multiple staff members all using Twitter, which allows them to be very interactive with fans and give their accounts distinct personalities while still promoting the team.  You can view a complete list of their staff Twitter accounts here on Suns.com.
• They have three players also using Twitter – @the_real_shaq, @the_real_nash, and @jrich23, and Shaq is arguably the most popular user on Twitter today.
• Recently when Shaq was out at a mall, he tweeted that the next person to come up to him and mention his “tweet” would receive free tickets to a  game.  They’ve also had Twitter trivia contests on the main Suns twitter account (@PhoenixSuns) to give away free tickets.
• They hosted a Tweet-up, where people following the Suns Twitter accounts were able to buy discounted group tickets and get access to a very unique Suns experience.  Check out this video about the event:

• They just celebrated Shaq Day – a virtual birthday for Shaq, where they encouraged other Twitter users to create Happy Birthday videos for Shaq and share the links on Twitter.  Each tweet was marked with the tag ”#shaqday” so that people could easily find them.  You can watch the video that spawned the contest here, and one winner was chosen by Shaq himself to win a special prize.  We don’t know the prize yet, but I bet that it will get a lot of follow-up exposure on Twitter.  You can see all of the participation in this virtual event by going to search.twitter.comand searching for #shaqday.
• Yesterday during the Suns/Spurs game, they participated in a “virtual chant challenge” between themselves and the San Antonio Spurs Twitter account (@SpursDotCom). Followers of the two teams were encouraged to tweet about the game and include either “#GoSuns” or “#GoSpursGo” in their messages, while the official accounts kept track of the number of chants. I believe the Spurs technically won the contest, but both sides won by generating fan conversation about their teams.

Most teams are still trying to figure out the best way to use Twitter, and the Suns are definitely leading the way.  Their ideas might not work for all teams, but their work should help teams come up with their own creative ways to reach their fans through Twitter and social media in general.

I just received an email from the Los Angeles Lakers, telling me about a contest they are running with one of their partners, Taco Bell.  I could win tickets and merchandise, meet the team on the court, and more.  Sounds like a good basis for a partner email…create a unique experience that connects back to the team brand and simultaneously generates awareness and value for your partner.  Take a look at the actual email, and think about what’s missing…

Where is the Lakers logo???  This might seem like I’m being picky, but if you are sending me an email as the Los Angeles Lakers, I want to actually see the Lakers logo, colors, jersey, or something in the body of the email.  The funny thing is, if you click on the email to visit the actual contest page, the web page has almost the exact same image on it, with the addition of a Lakers logo in the top right.  Why didn’t they use that image in the email content? 

In email marketing, there is a concept called “A-B Testing” which is based on sending out two versions of an email, with one small difference between the two.  It could be the subject line, an image, the wording of a link, or any similar items.  If they sent two versions of this email, one with and one without the Lakers logo, I would highly suspect that the one with the logo would have a significantly better clickthrough rate.  These are important things to keep in mind when building any email elements, whether the email is a sponsor-focused message or part of your own marketing mix.

Almost all teams and sports entities are trying to figure out the social media landscape.  What tools are out there?  What are people using?  Where do we need to participate, and how do we do it?  No one has all of the answers yet, and if you’re just entering this arena, it can be very overwhelming.

This is where the folks at Sports Media Challenge have stepped in to help.  They created a great resource called “Winning Fans with Social Media: A Dynamic Glossary for Tackling the Language of Social Media” (click on the link to download the PDF).  The guide reviews almost all of the common terms and concepts in social media, which can be a great help in exploring the different option available to you.  The guide has two sections, one on the basics for true novices and an intermediate section for those further along.  In addition, the guide provides “sideline tips” to go along with all of the terms and definitions.  Even if you think you know social media, you will find some useful tidbits by reading this paper.

If you have other questions about social media and sports, you can reach out to most of the Sports Media Challenge staff on Twitter (@KathleenHessert, @JakeRosen, @RyanStephens, @BrittanyLane, @mhannahp, @MatthewGarner, @LindaHutch, @JaneWeddington) or visit their website at www.SportsMediaChallenge.com.

Customer Relationship Management, commonly referred to as CRM, can be an important part of a company’s marketing strategy.  However, there are some common misconceptions about what CRM really is, which I’d like to quickly highlight:

CRM is not…

• An I.T. role- I.T. tends to be involved in CRM, particularly in the initial deployment of a CRM solution.  But CRM decisions need to be based on the core business and not technical details, and that means the people managing the systems should be directly connected to your sales and marketing staff.
• A piece of software – Yes, CRM generally involves some piece of software, but what specific piece you use doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you use it.  The important thing is to understand your business process, then evaluate tools that fit your needs and support your goals.  NEVER change your business process to fit a piece of software!
• An email list – While having a list of customer names and email addresses is nice, it’s just simply not enough.  The value of your CRM system is directly dependent on the data you put into it.  Do you have records of phone numbers, addressees, company information, previous transactions, demographics, preferences, phone calls, complaints, website visits, lifetime value, attendance, and more?  Depending on your goals, you will need some to all of this information integrated into your CRM system in order to get value out of it.
• Email marketing - Yes, most organizations tie their CRM systems into their email marketing systems, but they are not one and the same.  Email is just one channel to communicate with your customers.  CRM is about creating a complete picture of each customer and tailoring all communications to build a valuable one-to-one relationship with them. 
• A magic bullet – Just because you decide to implement a CRM solution doesn’t mean that the sales will come rolling in.  It all comes down to how you use it.  Does your sales and marketing staff buy in to the concept?  Are the managers supporting it?  Are you collecting the right information and giving the right access?  Have your tailored the system’s features to fit your business needs?  Starting and managing CRM as a part of your business is a very involved process, and deserves a lot of attention.

I am a firm believer that CRM is a key component in a successful sports business (or any business for that matter), so I hope this quick post is useful for you.  I’ve done a lot of work in this area, and will probably elaborate on many CRM-related concepts in future posts.