Sports Marketing on Digital

Media

Accompanying slides at: http://www.slideshare.net/sushnato/digital

2013

Presented By:

Sushnato Dutta

Sports Marketing on Digital

http://www.slideshare.net/sushnato/digital-marketing-sushnato

2013

Presented By:

Sushnato Dutta

sushnato

Introduction to Sports Marketing

Sports Marketing is a variation of marketing aimed to use sport, its image and its players for the

goods (sports or others) and a company. It is a service in which the element promoted can be a

physical product or a brand name. It concerns both products, services and organizations. The

goal is to provide the client with strategies to promote the sport or to promote something other

than sport through sports. Sports Marketing is the set of principles and marketing strategies that

are applied to the field of sports. According to Matthew Shank, Sports Marketing is: "The

specific application of the principles and applied to the sporting goods marketing process and

marketing of non-sports products through association with the sport."

There is another definition of sports marketing. In this different point of view, the Sports

Marketing is the marketing of the offer. It is a management tool of sports consumption, products

and related services. Sports Marketing is a tool of management of sports organizations and / or

professional sports.

Sport now became an "industry" and its structure as well as consumption opportunities that

generates can legitimate a marketing approach. Sport is really considered as a profitable and

sustainable marketing source. Moreover, by positive values (memberships, recognition,

teamwork, stress, perseverance, tolerance, fair play, loyalty, health, solidarity ...) that sport

conveys, it can quickly become a very good corporate communication vector.

Sports Marketing is divided into three sectors. The first one is the advertising of sport and sports

associations (the Olympics for example). In this case, the promotion is directly related to sports.

The second one concerns the use of sporting events, sporting teams and individual athletes to

promote various products. In that case, the products can but do not have to be directly related to

sports. The third one is the promotion of sport to the public in order to increase participation.

1. One example of sport marketing: The 2014 World Equestrian Games

This event is one of the biggest competition in the equestrian world and gather the best riders

worldwide in all disciplines. It happens every four years, like the Olympic Games and this year it

will stand in Normandy, France.

The goal of this event is to promote horse riding and to promote the event, too. Especially in

France, horse riding is the third most practiced sport. Hence a strong pressure from French

organizers and the International Equestrian Federation (FEI). The strategy had to take into

account both the product (the equestrian event) and the service provided to different customers

(visitors, sponsors, riders, owners,etc).

To achieve this goal, organizers first created a full website to give all necessary information

about the place, the riders, the disciplines, the organization, the program and news about the

event. People concerned can register to the newsletter or keep up with the news thanks to the

RSS mode directly on the website. The website is fully organized and well designed. It allows to

promote the event and the competition place, divided in four sites.

The price strategy has been planned according to visitors' status: particular, student,

equestrian member, company or work council. Especially the members of the equestrian league

could buy their tickets two mouths before the opening of the official ticketing. The event also

offers different passes according to the disciplines the visitor wants to see.

The strategy also takes advantage of the digital tools to target all the customers and to engage

them as much as possible. Indeed, you can find a live tweet directly on the website fed by

@normandie2014, which give some equestrian news. A Facebook page has been opened, which

do have almost 70000 fans yet. Furthermore, since horse riding is very 'visual', digital marketers

understood the importance of investing on digital tools like Instagram or Pinterest, which bring

lot of engagement, especially from women who are the most represented segment both in those

sites and in horse riding. So this two sites allow marketers to perfectly target the right customers.

Visitors can also find some photos and videos on the website and follow the competition through

the FEI TV. A dedicated 'Fan zone' is in direct access from the site and provide direct links to

social medias, games and the mascots:

In terms of promotion, a trailer has been posted on YouTube in different languages

(http://youtu.be/qQUF7wbGbRE). They also created a shop where you can find all the goodies

you want related to the Games: daily clothes, accessories, technical clothes.

Concerning the partnership associations, the event is associated and supported by a range of

sponsors, from official one to partners or ambassadors.

Finally, the 2014 World Equestrian Games' marketers have made a large use of all the sport

marketing tools to promote this event, from classic to digital ones. The success of the event will

be the only piece of evidence of the effectiveness of this new type of marketing sport strategy.

Use of new digital

tools: Instagram,

Facebook, Pinterest,

Twitter Fully and live

access to

photos and

videos of the

competition

Comparison between traditional and digital sports marketing

Traditional sports marketing strategy involves developing a product corresponding to a target

market that watches a particular game. Then use the marketing mix to develop the strategy

designed to appeal to that target audience. It could be done in the following ways:

• Advertisement that has a model or actor playing that sport while showcasing the product.

• Placement of advertisement of the product in a sport publication.

• Sponsorship of teams and players.

• Placement of ads/logo’s on player’s jerseys and equipments.

• Advertisements on sideline billboards on the ground.

• Television and radio commercials of a particular sporting event. Eg. FIFA world cup,

Olympics, Cricket world Cup etc.

• TV commercials during the broadcast of the sporting event.

With the advent of technology and internet, marketing of product or service has become much

more profitable for the companies. Companies can now reach not only the fans of a particular

sport/athlete but to a wider audience at a lower cost than traditional mediums. They do so by

being present on various online platforms like social media sites like Facebook and Twitter,

mobile apps, blogs, websites etc.

Digital sports marketing include:

• Microsites and campaign websites

• Athlete and fan blogs

• Twitter

• Youtube channels with behind the scenes footage and fan generated content

• Flickr accounts to capture photos from all involved, not just accredited media.

• Forums

• Mobile friendly websites

• Location based service integration

It is not just the companies but also the sports people and their respective clubs that make use of

these platforms to engage with their fans. For example, you may see fan pages on Facebook or

Blogs of various sports personalities and their clubs. This increases the engagement between the

fans and the sports personality. Fans could post some questions or a sports personality could give

his/her updates, promote an event etc. It also creates a platform to promote any products or

services. Now if an athlete endorses a brand then it would be followed by his/her fans diligently

as they tend to be loyal to their favorite athletes and teams.

Stages of Sports Marketing

• Promotion of sport to the public in order to increase participation

– Marketing of Sports

• Advertising of sport and sports associations

– promotion is directly related to sports

• Use of sporting events, sporting teams and individual athletes to promote various

products

– products can but do not have to be directly related to sports

Creating a brand and brand awareness

As the stages discussed in the previous section, it was very important to create a brand that

people would follow and identify with. Also important was the fact that our target segment

should be able to identify with it.

Now since forming or approaching a team was not in the scope and interests of the project, we

decided to go with a simple yet engaging way of creating a team/sports interest of our own. We

decide to support the collective sports activities of Dual Country Programme (DCP) batch of

IMT Ghaziabad. The justifications, opportunities etc would be discussed in later sections.

Initially, a logo which was to be eye catching and with a meaning was designed. The logo was as

follows:

It was a retro version of writing sport. Also, the number 8 symbolised its connections to digital

media as 8 is a number which brings to mind the units of digital media storage. 8 bits make a

byte, and any subsequent units of storage are divisib

logo.

Strategy

• Opportunity:

– Enthusiasm of sports in Dual Country Programme:

As far as sports are concerned, it is always a hot topic and people took active

interest in it. Be it the in campus matches or the spo

and universities. So basically, the target segment was ripe for such an opportunity.

– Lack of platform for a concentrated effort:

Till date all the information for such activities was disseminated using a common

social media platform, whereby there was no special focus on a single topic. This

led to a crowding of information and the platform became generic.

• Idea:

– Using digital media for target market:

It was a retro version of writing sport. Also, the number 8 symbolised its connections to digital

media as 8 is a number which brings to mind the units of digital media storage. 8 bits make a

byte, and any subsequent units of storage are divisible by 8. So this is the significance of the

Enthusiasm of sports in Dual Country Programme:

As far as sports are concerned, it is always a hot topic and people took active

interest in it. Be it the in campus matches or the sports festivals of other colleges

and universities. So basically, the target segment was ripe for such an opportunity.

Lack of platform for a concentrated effort:

Till date all the information for such activities was disseminated using a common

platform, whereby there was no special focus on a single topic. This

led to a crowding of information and the platform became generic.

Using digital media for target market:

It was a retro version of writing sport. Also, the number 8 symbolised its connections to digital

media as 8 is a number which brings to mind the units of digital media storage. 8 bits make a

le by 8. So this is the significance of the

As far as sports are concerned, it is always a hot topic and people took active

rts festivals of other colleges

and universities. So basically, the target segment was ripe for such an opportunity.

Till date all the information for such activities was disseminated using a common

platform, whereby there was no special focus on a single topic. This

led to a crowding of information and the platform became generic.

Engaging the target audience was easy as they had an almost 100% availability on

social media. Also it was cheaper, rather free of cost. It also allowed interaction

and instant feedback in the form of comments, likes, shares etc

– Invite fellow teams of DIGM to advertise with us:

To truly get a hang of sports marketing, we developed our presence through a

facebook page. Afterwards, when we reached a considerable number of likes and

were able to capture the mindshare of the target segment we decided to use our

efforts as a vehicle for advertisement like a true sports marketing firm. We

decided to partner with fellow DIGM teams for promoting their projects. A win -

win situation

• Target:

– Dual Country Programme students till date :

The DCP fraternity is spread all over the world and the netspace. It is easily

accessible on the social media platform (atleast the two current batches).

• Medium

– Facebook

Being the most popular Social Media Site, it was virtually impossible to ignore

the potency of this medium. So, all our campaigns started with a presence on Facebook.

– Blogs

It is a known fact that whenever a third party opinion is provided regarding some

kind of services, not only its credibility increases but the consumer is more drawn

towards it. So it was decided that we will pursue this mode too.

– Mobile Apps

We went one step further and decided to provide instant connectivity on the move

to increase engagement with users/fans. So the best option was to develop an App. It was

also decided that the App would be both on Android and Apple platform due to the

almost equal popularity of both the platforms in the batch (Source: Observation and

sampling of the batch)

Implementation

• Facebook page

– As agreed upon earlier, Facebook presence was made with the help of a page

whose link is given below. The page was well appreciated and warmly received.

As of today, the page has:

• 117 Likes

• 3814 Total reach

• 349 engagements

• 1682 post clicks

We also partnered with fellow DIGM team, IMT Gooodies for advertisement. We struck a deal

with them like a true sports franchise. The deal was that their team members will like our

Facebook Spor8 page.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/spor8

• Blogs:

– As part of our efforts to exploit the digital media to the fullest extent possible, we

enrolled the help of some of the prominent bloggers of our college. The idea was

to generate third party material for reference. It also helped in getting the page a

positive PR. The deal offered to them like a true professional PR activity was that

of a cold coffee each sponsored by team Spor8.

The bloggers and blogs used were

• Neha Dalal : Random Ramblings

Blog Link: http://randomramblings-nd.blogspot.in/

• Salil Srivastava : My Trysts With Life

Blog Link: http://salilsrivastava.blogspot.in/

• Sushnato Dutta : In a lighter Vein

Blog Link: http://in-a-lighter-vein.blogspot.in/

• Mobile App:

– As part of our goal of giving engagement on the go, a mobile App was developed

on the popular App development platform and it provides instant connectivity not

only to all the happenings of interest but also acts as a gateway for other

interesting student activities of IMT Ghaziabad by means of the Student’s Life

section on the main website.

QR Code for the App:

Results

The popularity of the venture is ever increasing and as promised during the presentation, the

page is now involving juniors of DCP for administration and content generation.

We hope to achieve our goal of providing a one stop sports following to the batch and also hope

that the same model might be emulated for bigger applications.

References

http://www.e-marketing.fr/Definitions-Glossaire-Marketing/Marketing-sportif-5807.htm

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_sportif

http://www.normandy2014.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_marketing