Transcription
All right, my friends. Here we go with module two and strategic sport marketing. I want to preface, uh, this, uh, this lecture with, uh, with this. Um, you will you will find that with with some of the chapters I'm going to go, um, pretty in depth, um, and and and sort of mirror the book. Okay. You you saw that in the, um, the the first module, right? With the special nature of marketing, I wanted to get I felt like it was important to give you that base understanding. But with this strategic sport marketing, um, the the book goes into I mean, if I were to do a, um, a slide deck that essentially mirrors the book, it would be like 50 slides. Okay. And, um, I I don't I don't feel like that's necessary. Um, I absolutely want you to read the book. You have to read the the chapter and and complete the reading quiz. And, um, obviously I'm encouraging encouraging you along those lines. But this lecture is, um, takes, uh, what I feel like is the most important stuff and sort of whittles it down. Okay. In a more, uh, a more digestible format. Okay.
So here we go with strategic sport marketing. The learning outcomes. Ultimately, I want you to be able to describe the strategic process of developing a sport marketing plan. And I want you to understand how to assess the present and future market climate for a sport or an event by conducting a SWOT analysis and developing a brief marketing plan.
All right. So, we're we're I'm going to remind you, right? We've got the four Ps that we are, um, that are absolutely critical to any strategic sport marketing plan. We have to know our product. We have to know our product forwards and backwards. We have to establish the the price based on the supply and demand; we have to know our place and where that where, um, uh, the the the marketplace for this product will be and oftentimes that's integrated right that's that that that could be a, um, let's just take, um, Wrigley Field here, right, the Chicago Cubs a Chicago Cubs game a regular season game, all right, we're going to have Wrigley Field as a place; we're going to have our online marketplace for merchandise and tickets and all of that as a place. And then we're also onsite. We're going to have a Cubs store so that people who are there who are excited about being there and look around and see everybody with a hat or a jersey or whatever, they go, "Oh man, I want to be a part of this." Right? That's a place as well. All right.
So, developing a marketing plan. Um, you know, I'm infatuated with with the goat. Okay. Um, so, uh, I don't know. I'm sure none of you are as big a fan as I am where you know what this, but this, uh, Michael, um, I am pretty sure when he stepped onto, uh, the court at halftime of this basketball game to announce Jumpman sponsoring Carolina football, I am fairly certain Michael had had, uh, many drinks at that point. And so he started rambling on and he said, what did he say? He said, "For Carolina football, the ceiling is the roof." And so, um, people like people thought that was just hilarious. Like, what? The ceiling is the roof. And so what did, uh, Jumpman then do? They put ceiling roof goat, um, and that was how they marketed that and people bought the crap out of it. So, you know, him stepping out at halftime and and kind of doing a drunken speech ended up selling more merchandise.
But anyway, so identify the purpose of the sport marketing plan and the purpose must align with the mission and the vision of the organization. That goes for any brand that is involved in the marketing in sport, right? We've established marketing of sport. Okay. So, in this case, Michael is absolutely marketing Carolina football and marketing football, right? And he's also marketing through sport, the Jumpman brand. Okay? But it must align with the mission, the vision. Now to put the strategic in strategic marketing, we have what's called a SWOT analysis which is commonly done as a part of that. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal, organizational, right? Opportunities and threats are external environmental. We're going to talk about each of those.
So when we look at it and we think just broadly in terms of sport marketing and strategic sport marketing, we think about the potential internal or organizational strengths and weaknesses. On the left are the strengths, on the right are the weaknesses, right? And for each of those, right, we if you look back and forth, you can see product attributes, product limitations, financial capacity, financial restrictions, management experience, management issues or problems, community support or lack thereof, brand image that's positive or negative, diminished, existing technology. Maybe we have aging infrastructure and technological shortcomings. We have a good location or a bad location. We have good facilities or bad facilities. We have processes and procedures that are effective or inefficient. We have a history and tradition or lack of history or tradition. And then we have fan or participant loyalty or fan or participant apathy, right? And so, and now look, that's just a that's just a slice, right? We can go on and on and on with these. And so you have to you have to have a strategy in place.
Then we look at the potential external or environmental opportunities and threats. And it's the same thing, right? For external opportunities on the left, right? A developing or emerging market, right? Social movements or trends, new markets, potential sponsors or partners, economic growth, advances in technology, political and or legal changes that are helping us or industry trends that are helping us, right? Those are all potential opportunities. But then if we go on the other side, we've got for every potential opportunity, there's also a potential threat. We've got the threat of other competitors, right? Sport isn't is the he in the entertainment business. So you just think of somewhere like Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world and all the competitors that the Rams and the Chargers and the Sparks and the LAFC and Angel City and and uh the Clippers and the Lakers and that they all and the Dodgers and the Angels that they all have to, uh, compete, right? And so that is a potential threat. Environmental issues. So environmental issues, that could be natural disaster type things. That could be, um, in in LA, hey, we're talking LA, right? That could be pollution. That could be all kinds. It could be traffic. It could be all kinds of different things. Changes in community values, right? It could be that, um, hey, uh, at at one point, uh, the Dodgers are at the height of their community support right right now, but there was a time where the community did not support the Dodgers as much. Okay. There could be labor supplier transportation disputes that are that are involved. Okay. I think about like when I was a part of opening the building for the Carolina Hurricanes. I was working for the Carolina Hurricanes. I was in the ticket office. I worked in the box office and I was there on opening night and we got people in the building fine. We didn't have a hitch in terms of tickets. I mean, there were problems, but we overcame them, right? But guess where the problem came? They did not establish a transportation system. They did not I'd say they because I wasn't a part of this, but, um, in working with the the state and local municipalities, they did not come up with a good traffic plan. And so it was a nightmare getting in and out. They fixed the issue, but in people's minds, it was, uh, I I talked to people two years later who were like, "Oh, no. I would never go to a hockey game out there. I've heard it's like the I've heard it's like a traffic nightmare." That was on night one. After that, it was fixed. It was not a traffic jam. There were no traffic jams. They fixed it entirely after the first night. The the perception was there. The threat had already happened. Obviously, we also have economic conditions whether it's, um, uh, you know, recession recession or whether it's inflation or what it might be. And then of course political or legal uncertainty can absolutely impact our, um, our event, our our opportunity, um, whatever it might be.
Now market projection market projection is a huge element and I have this picture of the snowboard not because, um, uh, not to to necessarily reflect that we're going to great heights with our market projection but just for you to think about it. Okay. So, when I was your age, when I was, um, actually younger than you, when I was in my teens, um, snowboarding was just really getting started, right? And by the time I was in my early 20s by the time I was in my early 20s and I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, spending a year as a snowboard bum, snowboarding had exploded. And the so the market projection for snowboarding like went through the roof, right, during that time period. Um, you just think about a sport like pickleball, right? It's at, um, its growth has been at an all-time high. It has been, um, in in terms of sports like no one has ever seen the growth in a sport like we've seen for for pickleball, right? But ultimately that's going to level off. It leveled off for snowboarding. It will level off for pickleball. It will hit a plateau at some point and then through the cycle. So there is a program cycle or a business cycle that whatever however you want to call it, right? A cycle where projections ultimately end up leveling out. Okay? And so that is why we continue to try and project and why it can be harder and harder and harder. And we will have a market research and analytics where we where we'll get into this more as we move along.
You also have to establish goals and objectives for any strategic sport marketing plan. Right? And so we have a number of potential possibilities here that any sport marketing or or any organization might have as a goal or objective related to sport. And so I'm not going to I'm obviously not going to read all of those to you. You can you can read them just as easily yourself. Okay? But understand that these are the types of things that we might have as a goal or objective. All right? And, um, we might have more than one as a part of it once we establish. So if we go back once we establish, uh, or not go back sorry if we once we if we think back I didn't mean go back I meant think back if we think back to that LA to that last slide where we think about the potential goals and objectives right we ultimately from a marketing perspective we want them to be smart okay we want them to be specific measurable achievable relevant and timely. But the problem is that's easier said than done when it comes to return on investment with marketing. And you might ask yourself, you might ask me, okay, why Greenwood? Well, the why is because it is incredibly difficult to track. All right, you've read already in your book. You've you've read related, um, well hopefully you've read the chapter two where, um, where the authors of the book talk about strategic smart marketing and talk about CRM, um, which, uh, um, which ultimately are designed to try and track everything they possibly can about a consumer or a customer, right? Um, but it's inherently difficult, right?
So, let's just think about Oracle Park, right? So, my son and his friends, he's got four of his friends are at Oracle Park this weekend for a game for a Giants game, right? So, he's there at Oracle Park and there are sponsors that have paid, um, a lot of money, good money to be sponsors of the Giants. Okay. How are they how on earth are they ever going to be able to know their return on their investment relative to my single max, my 15-year-old son? Will he buy Oracle products? Will he become an employee at Oracle? Will will think about that slide. Think about that slide from LA from last the last lecture, right, of all of the different sponsors that are there. Is he going to buy Well, we can track whether or not he buys Coca-Cola there in the stands, but are we ever going to be able to track whether or not when he's faced with the decision of Coca-Cola or Pepsi throughout his life, is he always going to choose Coke because he was there at a Giants game? You see what I'm saying? It's very very difficult to be smart with marketing objectives and so we have to try to be as smart as we possibly can and we're going to talk more about that as we move along.
So from a target markets perspective here are the questions that we ask ourselves. What customer need is the organization meeting? Okay, so let's just think about this picture. This this advertisement over on the side here, right? We don't think women should be stuck with a man's basketball shoe. Nike is trying to capitalize here with this advertisement on women's shoes and the specificity of women's shoes. Right. We're in a time in our, uh, in our history where women's basketball has never been more popular. So obviously they want to capitalize on that, right. So what c what what what customer need is the organization meeting when we think about target markets here how are customers currently meeting these needs. So these women here what are they currently buying in terms of basketball shoes if anything okay what can the organization offer to meet those needs. So in this instance, they're saying, "Hey, we've got your women's basketball shoe." Okay, here it is. All right. And then from so from this, right, we as marketers, we have to think about is there interest from this target market. We have to go out there and figure out whether or not women are really interested in basketball shoes. Are there underserved markets? Are certain women, um, uh, not being, um, recruited to wear basketball shoes, right? And can they offer new benefits to existing customers? Are there women who are buying basketball shoes already who might want a better shoe? Make sense? That's all how that's how we're addressing the target markets. Did from a marketing strategy. And we're going to get into more of these as we move along, okay? But the marketing strategy is composed of four different areas: market penetration, market development, product development, and then diversification.
So if we just think about from, uh, uh, if we just think about the loss, so what was significant about 2019, right? So that's when the, uh, so the Las Vegas Raiders came into being in 2020, right? And so you just think about the Las Vegas, uh, Raiders in terms of market penetration. So Vegas is obviously Sin City has a lot going on, right? And so from a market standpoint, you look at it and you go, "Okay, well, there's casinos, there's hotels, there's resorts, there's all kinds of shows and entertainment and all kinds of things going on. Can we penetrate this market? What other competition is involved there or is involved here?" Okay, we have the Vegas Golden Knights. We have, uh, at the time there was, um, and and there still is not the Las Vegas A's are not yet there, right? So, the Raiders were the essentially the second professional sport franchise in the area, right? So, there's an easier way to penetrate. I was just floored with how my mother-in-law lives there in the greater Las Vegas area. I was floored with how quickly they were able to penetrate the market even before they had played a game. Okay, market development. Now once you penetrate, you got to figure out how to continue to develop it. And so how you continue to develop it, one of the ways is by being getting deeply ingrained in the community. Those who've taken my community relations class, you know how important that is. Establishing your footprint, establishing yourself as an organization that is going to do good for the area that is going to be a stalwart business and brand that people in the area can be proud of. And then you got to develop the product, right? And so from a sport standpoint, we've already talked about and reflected on how difficult that can be because sport is unique in that we don't know we we don't know the outcome, right? There's a lot that we cannot control, right? And so we try to build around personalities. Um, when the Las Vegas Raiders first got there, that was that they had some really unfortunate things happen. There was a guy there was there there I don't want to like I don't want to dwell on it or anything like that but you know there were things that happened that, um, with Raiders personalities that were really negative and that ultimately contributed negatively to developing that product and they're still trying to work through that right they haven't had a whole lot of success, um, in Las Vegas yet and so they have to try to do better there and then from a diversification standpoint. Once you establish yourself and you develop products, you got to realize that, hey, we can't just continue with the status quo. A great example for of that is the city connect concept that we've seen in, um, not as much in football but in, um, so poor example here for the Raiders but, um, with, uh, Major League Baseball and with the National Basketball Association their City Connect, um, uh, merchandising is all about that diversification right cuz so because they're like oh wow wow. You mean we can create new logos and we can create new things that new customers might be more drawn towards, right? So that's where that diversification comes in. Okay.
Now we're going to focus on promotional activity. So remember the four Ps. The final one is that promotion, right? And so let's think about a let's let's think about a promotional activity that involves an activation. So, if we look over here on the right, on the top right, we've got Levi Stadium and the ribbon cutting ceremony. This was over 10 years ago when they first, uh, did the ribbon cutting, right? And so, Levi's obviously want they were paying a lot of money for naming rights for the stadium. And so, they wanted obviously they wanted to be a part of that. And so, um, if you were one of the people that was tasked with managing this ribbon cutting ceremony, these are the steps that you would have to go through in thinking about all of these different things for this one activation. And activation, we're going to talk about it more, is simply bringing a brand, um, bringing a brand to life through a sponsorship activation. So, the ribbon cutting ceremony for Levi Stadium is what's called experiential marketing, uh, sponsorship activation, a corporate partnership to bring Levi Stadium and the San Francisco 49ers to life and lift up those two brands together, right, through a live experiential marketing, uh, activation. Make sense? And so these are the implementation steps that you would utilize to be able to make sure that you are on the right page and or you are successful in doing that. Okay.