From Adweek
Review by Kara Beckley in SRM 435 (section 1)
NBC sports took a new approach to attracting audiences to a not-so popular sport. The English Premier League has given rights to NBC for three years to broadcast and promote Fútbol. NBC is mainly watched by United States citizens, in which do not have soccer as a high sport on their list of passions. The Television Company teamed up with an ad agency out of New York, The Brooklyn Brothers. Guy Barnett is the creative director for the agency and is given much of the credit for the five minute YouTube Web film staring Jason Sudeikis.
They use Sudeikis as a newly transferred coach of English Fútbol from American Football. He is seen coaching the Tottenham Hotspur team, in an amusing and inexperienced light. The film was segmented around a sit down interview with the Coach and how he is doing with the new transition and also includes what are clips from a press conference. The goal of the film was written out by the agency but ended up becoming a improvised act by Sudeikis. The Hotspur team was able to actually be in the film while they recorded for 10 hours on two days.
The use of something extremely amusing to the audience you are trying to capture is a huge a critical piece of gold. The more serious an ad gets, the less interesting it is with the generations today, causing a lack of attention. By having humor in the mix with promotion, makes so many different audiences want to understand what is going on. It’s brilliant, and in the case of the Brooklyn Brothers and NBC Sports, it worked tremendously well. Not only did the video have seen it, also. It was shown through short clips on NBC stating “It’s Football, Just not as we know it.” Adding the humor makes the viewer intrigued to find the film on YouTube and take in the entire picture. By doing this, it adds a spark to target audiences to watch the English Premier Leagues or even just give them a slight knowledge that a largely known company such as NBC is covering it. For marketers to have the chance to show viewers of NBC shorts of the Web Film is highly successful for the reason of each viewer gaining interest and wanting to find out more about the soccer league and simple watch the amusement itself. The media aspect was very well considered with this approach. The technology era is huge and incorporating YouTube, along with a Facebook app to help understand Fútbol increases convenience for newly gained audiences.
This article is relevant to the class because it markets a new product to a new audience in an almost effortless way. Sport marketing can be done through all various types of sports. Many ways are effective and some are not. This relates to the class in a way that shows a good marketing strategy to the technological era and gives the class a good idea of success through promotion. It is a little bit different than the typical advertisements on billboards or in magazines, and makes it unique and very practical for the future in the industry.
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Review by Brett Ireland in SRM 435 (section 1)
NBC Sports has come up with a new way to promote professional football (Fútbol) to Americans. They have taken a new approach involving comedy that they hope will draw more American fans to the game of soccer. The created a five minute video starring Jason Sudeikis as the new Head coach of the Tottenham Fútbol team, having have had no experience in the “other football.” Through mostly improvisation, Ted Lasso (Sudeikis) faces challenges of the differences between football and fútbol. In a comedic manner, Lasso learns how there is only slide tackling as opposes to tackling in football, hands are only to be used by the goalie in the goalie box, and the rule of off-sides is very challenging to comprehend. T
The video is only five minutes in length and was originally released in short segments on television. The campaign includes a Facebook application and the video has also received millions of views on Youtube. NBC created their own audience by creating a comedic video that could appeal to wider margin of people other than current fans of Fútbol. They were not only reaching out to American soccer fans, but sports fans in general and trying to promote that while it is a different sport, it is still very entertaining. It also attracted anyone who is a fan of Saturday Night Live (SNL) and of the actor Jason Sudeikis. This campaign has showed great success because it has had so many people watch it. The main purpose of this was to make Americans more aware of and interested in professional Fútbol, and it did just that.This article is relevant to Sport Marketing and Sales because it shows an example of a successful campaign in promoting professional Fútbol. I feel this article does a great job of introducing an innovative way to promote to different demographics. In order to run a successful sport marketing campaign, it is important to know your audience as well as what interests them. This promotion shows several things that we will learn throughout the semester including marketing plans for generating revenue and consumer behavior (the state of professional Fútbol in the United States).
From Ad Age
Review by Erika Grimm in SRM 435 (section 1)
In today’s world, there are over 36.6 Million Fantasy Sport Players between the United States and Canada alone. These users contribute to a 1.1 Billion dollar industry. Meaning, there are people in this world whose sole job is to research and reach out to this specific target market. The article named “Fantasy Football Players Are A Dream Demographic - - If You Can Get Their Attention” written by Sonya Chudgar gives the exact demographic of who these players are.
Ms. Chudgar describes a very specific set of demographics. “A college-educated professional, often a male, in his 30’s or 40’s with an average household income over $90,000, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.” For a professional in the marketing business, this set of facts makes them salivate as much as a perfectly cooked 16 ounce free steak would. This specific demographic group, as Sonya states, has extra income. Meaning, not only do these men have the resources to afford league fees, but they have the finances to be slightly impulsive and buy something they weren’t even sure they wanted. If a marketer can grab his attention, they have a higher percentage chance of influencing him to buy their organizations product or service.
The trouble marketers run into is that the players are not on any of the many fantasy football media channels to look for ways to spend their money. As with any media channel, advertisements are not particularly welcomed by users, creating a more difficult job for marketers. When a player goes to the, let’s say Yahoo Fantasy Football site, if the same ad is on the site for three months, the player will eventually tune it out completely, leaving a minimal chance for ad’s company to make a profit from that user. It is also true that if an ad has absolutely nothing to do fantasy football, a minimal percentage is left for potential profit opportunities.
This being said, marketers have to create advertisements that catch users eyes’. Chudgar writes, for example, about Volkswagen. VW is a vehicle name brand, having absolutely nothing to do with fantasy football, but VW signed a three year fantasy sponsorship with CBS in 2011. This car company is marketing towards Fantasy Football players by introducing something called Coaches Corner in which “Fantasy users can compete with CBS Sports personalities to see whose team does better, and the CBS personality will then heckle or praise his opponent with a custom video response embedded in a VW banner.” This is one example Ms. Chudgar addresses within the article. Marketers utilize a very specific set of demographics to make creative ads that attract users and ultimately increase that company’s profit potential. As there are approximately 36.6 Million Fantasy Sport Players in the U.S. and Canada right now and that number growing dramatically each year, I see no issue for marketers reaching this target market.
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Review by Dean Marlowe in SRM 435 (section 1)
Fantasy football leagues are a way for many football fans to interact with their favorite game along with their friends. As the article stated, fantasy football leagues have made strides over the past two decades growing from something that seemed “nerdy” or “uncool” to a raved about pastime. Before, participants in fantasy leagues were on the same level as people that also played computer games and had the online persona of a warlock. During that Dark Age for the hobby, marketing was not such a big concern because there were not a great number of people that openly participated. Now, a lot of attention is being paid to this aspect of the sport that is fiercely growing among the industries ideal population.
Focus has been pointed to this industry more and more as participation has seen an outstanding increase. A marketing research company called Ipsos has calculated a total number of 25.8 million people that are expected to engage in fantasy football leagues this year. Of this large number of people they are expected to generate $1.1 billion. This is obviously a huge market, and what sweetens the deal for companies is that many of the participants are their ideal demographic. This means that the people they want to target in the first place to buy or use their products can be easily accessed in one general area. The demographic is males who are educated with disposable incomes and an education, aged between 30 to 40 years. These people are making companies invest millions of dollars into advertisement spaces on fantasy websites.
Websites containing the leagues are not the only ones being targeted for advertisements, though. Many players willing to devote an ideal amount of time and money into their teams are going to want to find out the most breaking news regarding players to gain the edge on their fantasy rosters. News like injuries can generate a lot of traffic onto sports news websites, especially if they have the story before anyone else. Fantasy players are going to want to visit these sites as often as possible, which make them ideal advertising locations. On the flipside to this, the participants visit so often that they have become accustomed to going to the exact page that they need ignoring any ads that may pop up. In order to try and combat this problem of neglect, some companies are creating more interactive ads to try and gain more attention. For example, VW will create ads that use popular sports personalities to heckle league members and attract more attention to ad space.
There is a lot of potential in fantasy football leagues and interest keeps growing. A lot of the work for these companies has already been done, because they have their ideal clients and customers in one area. These are two feats that are sometimes a big enough struggle in marketing on their own. Now, these potential moneymakers are all lined up, but the challenge is how to interest them and catch their attention. The first companies that are able to create effective advertisements will be the ones that will see an amazing response from the growing market that is fantasy football.
The Hurricane Junior Golf Tour (HJGT) was founded in 2008 with the intention of providing junior golfers between the age of 11-18 an opportunity to play exceptional courses in a competitive environment. The tour’s vision is to provide superb hospitality and make every event a memorable one. With play open to both males and females, nearly every junior golfer is eligible to participate on the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour.
Based out of Jacksonville, FL, the HJGT administers events all across the country, with the majority of our stops in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina the HJGT is branching out to 4 new states this year, which includes Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. Golfers who participate on tour will compete in one of four age divisions: Boys 11-14, 15-18, and Girls 11-14 and 15-18.
