CHAPTER	10

Promotion mix elements

The CoActive Marketing Group, one of America’s leading marketing agencies, has helped design a variety of events, advertising campaigns, and promotions for companies such as Nike and Hiram Walker. CoActive designed a unique sales promotion for Hiram Walker to increase short-term sales of Canadian Club Classic (a 12-year-old whiskey). In this case, the promotion (called a premium) was a baseball card signed by one of four Hall of Fame players, including Willie Stargell, Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, and Brooks Robinson. With each purchase of a 750-ml bottle of Canadian Club Classic, consumers were able to collect one card from the series of cards.

In addition to the end users, Hiram Walker distributors were also involved in the sales promotion. Distributors could win a customized shelf unit to display the set of baseball cards and autographed baseballs. They could win these items for participating in the promotion and selling the idea to their retailers. The prizes motivated distributors to push cases into their retail accounts. By all accounts, the promotion was a huge success. In fact, it was so well received that a second series of cards were issued. To make the sales promotion work, personal selling was needed to secure the baseball legends. Other forms of communication were also necessary to inform the Hiram Walker distributors and consumers about the promotion.

Photo 10.1 Stadium signage – one of the first forms of promotion

Source: Shutterstock.com

CoActive has also been developing strategies for companies like Nike since 2004. For example, CoActive worked with Nike to produce and manage sports events such as the Nike World Basketball Festival as well as the Nike London 10k. For the World Basketball Festival, CoActive transformed the historic Radio City Music Hall Stage into an international exposition of athletes and entertainers.¹ With well over 1,200 teens in attendance, they transformed the stage into a basketball platform, then back into a stage worthy of rap royalty Jay-Z, all within 45 minutes. The event was so successful that they decided to implement an encore performance to send off the USA basketball teams before the London Olympics.

The goal of the Nike 10k was to kick off Nike’s Olympic celebration. CoActive set out to create a race as epic as it was personal. Garnering over 27,000 participants through promotional mediums, CoActive enabled the runners the opportunity to run the streets of London and greeted them with an array of personalized interactive experiences.² The race exposed runners to enormous technical displays that personalized the feel and environment so that each participant felt like a famous Olympic athlete.

As demonstrated in the Hiram Walker and Nike promotions, sports marketers must carefully integrate the promotion mix elements to establish successful promotions to consumers and trade. In Chapter 9, we explored the importance of communication and the basic concepts of promotional planning. This chapter examines each of the promotional mix elements in greater detail. By doing so, sports marketers will be in a better position to choose the most effective promotional elements for the construction of the promotional plan. Let us begin by looking at one of the most widely used forms of promotion – advertising.

Advertising

Advertising remains one of the most visible and important marketing tools available to sports marketers. Although significant changes are taking place in the way sports products and services are advertised, the reasons for advertising remain the same. Advertising creates and maintains brand awareness and brand loyalty. In addition, advertising builds brand image and creates a distinct identity for sports products and services. Most important, advertising directly affects consumer behavior. In other words, it causes us to attend sporting events, buy that new pair of running shoes, or watch the NCAA Women’s Basketball tournament on television.

Most of us associate the development of an advertisement with the creative process. As you might imagine, advertising is more than a catchy jingle. To develop an effective advertisement, a systematic process is employed. Some of the steps in this process are very similar to the promotional planning process discussed in Chapter 9. This is not unexpected, as advertising is just another form of communication, or promotional tool, used by sports marketers.

The advertising process is commonly referred to as designing an advertising campaign. An advertising campaign is a series of related advertisements that communicate a common message to the target audience (see Figure 10.1). The advertising campaign (similar to the promotional planning process) is initiated with decisions about the objectives and budget. Next, creative decisions, such as the ad appeal and execution, are developed. Following this, the media strategy is planned and, finally, the advertising campaign is evaluated. Let us explore each of the steps in designing an advertising campaign or the ad process in greater detail.

Figure 10.1 Designing an advertising campaign

Advertising objectives

The first step in any advertising campaign is to examine the broader promotional objectives and marketing goals. The overall objectives of the advertising campaign should, of course, be consistent with the strategic direction of the sports organization. The specific objectives and budgeting techniques for advertising are much the same as those discussed in Chapter 9. Namely, advertising is designed to inform, persuade, remind, and cause consumers in the target market to take action.³ In addition to these broad objectives, advertising objectives are sometimes categorized as either direct or indirect.

The purpose of direct objectives in advertising is to elicit a behavioral response from the target audience. In sports marketing, this behavioral response may be in the form of purchasing tickets to a game, buying sporting goods that were advertised on the Internet, or even volunteering at a local event. Sometimes, an advertisement asks consumers to make multiple behavioral responses – for instance, Danica Patrick is used as a spokesperson to urge people to visit GoDaddy.com and has starred in multiple Super Bowl commercials in which the viewers must visit GoDaddy.com to view the end of the commercials.

Web 10.1 Cobra Golf using direct objective

Source: COBRA Golf

Direct advertising objectives can be further categorized into two distinct types: advertising to end users and sales promotion advertising. However, both direct response objectives are designed to induce action.

Advertising by sports organizations to end users

In this case, the objectives of advertising are not to enhance the perceived image of the event, the team, or the league, but rather to generate immediate response. With this type of objective, the sports marketer is attempting to build immediate sales. As such, the specific objective of advertising to end users is usually stated in terms of increasing sales volume.

Sales promotion advertising

It is common for contests, sweepstakes, coupons, and other forms of sales promotions to be advertised via any number of media. As such, the objectives of direct response advertisements are to have consumers participate in the contests and sweepstakes or redeem coupons. Objectives, therefore, are measured in terms of the level of participation in the sales promotion.

Web 10.2 Sales promotion advertised on the Web

Source: Upper Deck

Indirect objectives are based on establishing prebehavioral (i.e., prior to action) responses to advertising; that is, accomplishing goals, such as increasing awareness, enhancing image, improving attitudes, or educating consumers. These indirect objectives should, in turn, lead to more direct behavioral responses. Consider the ad for Bank of America promoting the fact that they are the “Official Bank of Major League Baseball.” The ad goes on to describe “The story of baseball is an important part of our American culture and our country’s passion for it exemplifies our collective and enduring optimistic spirit and sense of community.” The objective of this advertisement is solely to enhance the image of Bank of America through its connection with baseball, the American pastime. Ultimately, the advertisement’s sponsor hopes these indirect objectives will lead to the behavior response of securing new customers and reminding existing customers to purchase more products and services from Bank of America.

Indirect objectives, such as image enhancement, are always present to some extent in advertising. Sports leagues, such as the NFL, use indirect advertising (Play 60 – national youth health and fitness campaign) to generate awareness of the NFL and its engagement in the community. In addition, these leagues often work with individual teams to further enhance behavioral objectives such as the handful of teams who participated in Major League Baseball’s Dog Day Games. At these special events, ticketholders and their best friend sit in a designated section and can take part in activities such as a pregame parade, a costume contest, special treats, and more. Even better, many ballparks donate a portion of these ticket proceeds to local animal charities.

Advertising budgeting

As with advertising objectives, budgeting methods for an ad campaign are largely the same as those for other forms of promotion. For example, techniques such as competitive parity, objective and task, and percentage of sales are again relevant to advertising. Whatever the methods used, it is important to remember that advertising budgeting should ideally stem from the objectives the advertising is attempting to achieve. However, other factors, such as monies available, competitive activity, and how the sports organization views the effectiveness of advertising, should be kept in mind.

Creative decisions

After the objectives and the budget have been established, the creative process becomes the focus of the advertising campaign or creative decisions. The creative process has been defined as generating the ideas and the concept of the advertisement. Advertising and sports marketing agencies hire individuals who possess a great deal of creativity, but even the most innovative people use a systematic process to harness their creativity.

To begin the creative process, most advertising agencies prepare a creative brief. The purpose of any creative brief is to understand clients’ communication objectives so the creative process will be maximized. The creative brief is a tool used to guide the creative process toward a solution that will serve the interests of the client and their customers. When used properly, the creative brief can be thought of as a marketing-oriented approach to the design of an advertising campaign. Table 10.1 shows a sample of the creative brief.

The three outcomes of the creative process are (1) identifying benefits of the sports product, (2) designing the advertising appeal – what to say, and (3) developing the advertising execution – how to say it. Each of these three elements in the creative decision process is discussed.

Identifying benefits

Designing a distinctive advertising campaign involves identifying the key benefits of the sports product. We have briefly discussed the importance of understanding benefits in the context of segmenting consumer markets. As defined in Chapter 7, benefits describe why consumers purchase a product or service or what problem the product solves for the consumer. For advertising purposes, describing the benefits or reasons why consumers should buy the sports product is a must. Marketing research is used to understand the benefits desired or perceived by consumers who might use or purchase the sports product.

Table 10.1 The creative brief and the client’s role in it

“The Creative Brief And The Client’s Role In It”

Every advertising agency has its own take on the “creative brief,” that most sacred of sacred ad documents. And I’ve written passionately about how agencies might approach writing an inspiring creative brief in my “Ideas Come From Inspiration, Not Information. Just Ask Lincoln” post on the Ideasicle Blog.

But this isn’t an article about writing a brief (that’s the agency’s job). It’s about the client’s role in getting to a great creative brief. Because without your understanding and appreciation of a few important things, the brief has no chance of being brief or inspirational.

The Audience For The Creative Brief Is Not You

This is a critical one. The audience for the creative brief is the creative team. The writer and art director working on coming up with the communications ideas, or in my case the four Ideasicle Experts working on a project virtually. Think of the creative brief as an ad targeted to creative people with the call-to-action being to come up with an idea. As such, there may be some swear words in it, some informal language, and hopefully some passion. While you may see that kind of language as frivolous or even insulting to the seriousness of your business, it’s the kind of language creative people pay attention to.

Everything Can’t Matter

Philosopher Blaise Pascal once said, “I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” He wrote that in 1657 in his “LettresProvinciales.” And it’s a great lesson in creative brief writing. No creative brief should ever be more than one page. Ever. And if it is, then your agency isn’t done yet. Send it back. In fact, I would argue that the creative process begins with the focusing energy inherent in a great creative brief. If the brief is 10 pages long the creative team will hardly be inspired and may not read any of it. A great brief takes time. Time to sort through the input you’ve carefully provided, time to think through what insights matter most, time to craft the writing of the brief to eliminate all redundancies and be sure that, top to bottom, the brief tells a story. So, if you briefed the agency with a PowerPoint deck, reams of consumer data, and piles of sell-sheets on the product, only to see the agency come back with a one-page brief, don’t think they didn’t listen. They did. Part of an agency’s value is when the account person and brand planner helps you say “no” to what doesn’t matter, and “yes” to what does. It’s then your job to approve those decisions (or not), move forward as a team, and then for you to sell those decisions into the organization before anyone sees the resulting creative.

The Brief Is A Starting Point, Not The Answer

This notion cuts to the heart of the brief’s purpose, which is to inspire a great idea out of the creative team. That resulting creative idea is “the answer.” So it’s important that we do not ask the brief to be more than what it is. The “single most important thought” (or some such similar phrasing found in most briefs), does not need to be headline quality. It merely needs to be smart, it needs to be the culmination of the rest of the brief, and it needs to be singular. The creative teams will then tell us how to say it, or be it, or whatever. But the brief is a means to an end, not an end. In fact, try this trick. If an agency wants you to approve a creative brief and you’re uncomfortable with it, simply ask the account person, “Are you confident that this brief will inspire a solution to our problem?” You will get a beat or two of silence on the other end, but, by putting it back on your account lead, you are sure to get a savage commitment to keep the creatives on track, if the answer is “yes.”

Really Want To Inspire Your Agency? Give Them Some Problems

Most agency people are creative. Not just the creative department, but the account people and the brand planners, too. They are all problem solvers and enjoy the challenge of a juicy marketing problem. Input from the client that starts with “How do we…?” instead of “Here’s what I want” will bring out out the best in your agency team. It’s a little further up stream than you might be comfortable with, but try it once in a while. Give your agency a whopper and see what they do for you. Because doing so will prove to them that you trust them, you respect their talent, and you truly consider them partners and not vendors. Too many clients dictate too much to their agencies. It’s like going to a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and telling them you want a plain hamburger and fries. If you’re unsure about challenging your agency with your problems, you may be with the wrong agency.

In the end, your role is to inform the agency as best you can, and then allow the agency to do its thing. That does not mean you step away and blindly trust them. Quite the contrary. It means you are involved every step of the way, but with a careful eye towards a shared goal: a short, powerful, inspiring creative brief that will yield untold genius for your business.

Source: W. Burns, “The Creative Brief and the Client’s Role In It” Forbes (2012). Forbes – Reprinted with permission of Forbes Media LLC © 2014.

Advertising appeals

Understanding benefits and developing advertising appeals go hand in hand. Once the desired benefits are uncovered, the advertising appeal is developed around these benefits. In short, the advertising appeal recounts why the consumer wants to purchase the sports product. The major advertising appeals used in sports marketing include health, emotion, fear, sex, and pleasure.

Health appeals are becoming prevalent in advertising, as the value placed on health continues to increase in the United States. Advertisements and the infomercial craze associated with the fitness industry capitalize on this growing concern of Americans. One important consideration when using health appeals in advertisements is the demographic profile of the target audience. According to IBISWorld, the strongest growth in health club membership is in the 55+ age range. Over the long term, population growth and demographic changes will significantly influence the industry.⁴ The mature market (people aged 55 and older) grew nearly 40 percent between 2000 and 2010. This aging population will likely maintain a more active lifestyle that focuses on physical appearance and weight. At year’s end, 2013, IBISWorld estimated health club memberships to be in excess of 52 million across the United States. About 25.0 percent of these members will be older than 55, which totals a 562.0 percent increase since 1987.⁵

Rising health care costs will provide added incentives for insurers to promote preventative practices that utilize fitness participation. The aging of the baby boomer generation and the coming of age of their offspring, the echo boomers, have broadened the market for the health industry. The demographics of the audience and the health benefits desired from fitness centers should be carefully studied in the advertising process.⁶

A number of emotional appeals, such as fear, humor, sex, pleasure, and the drama associated with athletic competition, are also used in sports marketing promotions. One of the unique aspects of sports marketing is the emotional attachment that consumers develop for the sports product. As discussed in Chapter 5, many fans have high levels of involvement and identification with their favorite athletes and teams.⁷ Some fans may even view themselves as part of the team. Recognizing this strong emotional component, many advertisers of sports use emotional appeals. The infamous “Thrill of victory and agony of defeat” message used for decades for ABC’s Wide World of Sports opening captures the essence of an emotional appeal. Emotional appeals that allow fans to relive the team’s greatest moments and performances of past years are often used to encourage future attendance.

One specific type of emotional appeal is a fear appeal. Fear appeals are messages designed to communicate what negative consequences may occur if the sports product or service is not used or is used improperly. Scare tactics are usually inappropriate for sports products and services, but in some product categories moderate amounts of fear in a message can be effective. Consider, for example, messages concerning exercise equipment or health club membership. Many promotional campaigns are built around consumers’ fears of being physically unfit and aging. Even athletic promoters use moderate fear appeals by telling consumers that tickets will be sold out quickly and that they should not wait to purchase their seats. Effective sports marketers identify their sports products as solutions to the common fears of consumers. For example, manufacturers of bike and skateboard helmets are quick to cite the plethora of head injuries that result without the use of proper headgear.

Another emotional appeal is sex. Sex appeals rely on the old adage that “sex sells.” Typically, marketers who use sex appeals in their messages are selling products that are sexually related, such as perfumes, jewelry, and clothing. Maria Sharapova is a global icon; she has the beauty and personality to match her talent on the tennis court. Her latest endorsement deal makes her the first athlete to be a spokesperson for legendary jewelry boutique Tiffany & Co.⁸ Siberian-born Sharapova moved from Sochi on the Black Sea coast to the U.S. when she was seven years old. In 2004, she achieved global fame by winning Wimbledon at age 17. Major titles followed at the 2006 U.S. Open and the 2008 Australian Open, turning her into one the world’s best-paid athletes. Sharapova, who backed Sochi’s bid to host the Winter Olympics, earns around $25 million a year, according to Forbes magazine. She endorses companies including Nike Inc. (NKE), Swiss luxury watch brand Tag Heuer, jeweler Tiffany & Co. (TIF), and Danone SA (BN)’s Evian water.⁹

In sports marketing, sex appeals are sometimes used, but this is always a delicate and ethical subject. Everywhere we look we find ourselves drawn to images of scantily clad attractive men and women that are supposed to inspire us to purchase products they endorse. Sex appeal can increase the effectiveness of an ad or a commercial because it draws the customer’s attention. It’s human nature to be curious about sex; however, misuse of connotations in marketing and advertising platforms can be costly.¹⁰ In a recent interview conducted on the Dan Patrick Show, Hope Solo noted that there was no linkage between sex appeal on the field and the quality of the game; however, she did acknowledge that it was an athlete’s duty to capitalize on these exploits to bring attention to the game.¹¹ Further noting that the selling of the sex symbol persona, at the end of the day, does help gain more viewership and more long-term fans.

In another example, an article produced by Sports Illustrated’s Alan Shipnuck questioned whether marketing the sex appeal of LPGA golfers was good for the game, it was noted that “exposure” was a key concern. Mikaela Parmlid, a W7 model and LPGA professional, stated that it was okay for women athletes in other sports to be attractive. (The Wilhelmina 7 – or W7 for short – golfers were signed with Wilhelmina Artist Management, a division of the famed Wilhelmina Models agency. Wilhelmina chairman Dieter Esch, quoted in a news release, stated, “We created this initiative to complete a void in the marketplace for beautiful and athletically talented female golfers.”)¹² “Women’s tennis, beach volleyball, swimming, and track – they’re just girls too and it’s effortless the way they combine their sexuality with their sports and no one gives them a hard time about it.”¹³

In other examples of sex and sport, Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard posed in a 2007 issue of Playboy; the ATP Masters tournament held in Madrid has been using female models as ball girls since 2004; and ProBeach Volleyball with its bikini-clad players relies heavily on the sex appeal of its players (both male and female) to attract fans.

Although it may be hard to argue against sex selling sport in today’s society, many think enough is enough.¹⁴ In fact, two researchers showed that women’s sports gain nothing from marketing the athletes’ looks. Mary Jo Kane and Heather Maxwell showed groups of people photos of sportswomen covering the spectrum from highly athletic to highly sexualized. Their initial findings showed that none of those images motivated men to attend games or buy tickets. Kane and Maxwell’s research suggests that selling out women to sexist stereotypes does nothing to advance the cause of women’s sports, nor does it serve the bottom line.¹⁵

Pleasure or fun appeals are designed for those target audiences that participate in sports or watch sports for fun, social interaction, or enjoyment. These advertising appeals should stress the positive relationships that can be developed among family members, friends, or business associates by attending games or participating in sports. A recent advertisement by a major credit card company captured the pleasure of a father taking his son to a baseball game. The essence of the appeal was that, although you might not be able to afford it at the time, you will never be able to replace the “priceless” moment of taking your child to his or her first ball game. Another classic example of fun appeals is the Budweiser “Whassup” ads. The campaign, featuring four buddies shouting to each other over the phone, specifically targeted young sports fans.

Advertising execution

The advertising execution should answer the appeal that the advertiser is trying to target. In other words, it is not what to say, but how to say it. Let us look at some of the more common executional formats, such as message sidedness, comparative advertisements, slice of life, scientific, and testimonials.

One executional format is whether to construct the message as one-sided versus two-sided. A one-sided message conveys only the positive benefits of a sports product or service. Most sports organizations do not want to communicate the negative features of their products or services, but this can have its advantages. Describing the negatives along with the positive can enhance the credibility of the source by making it more trustworthy. In addition, discussing the negative aspects of the sports product can ultimately lower consumers’ expectations and lead to more satisfaction. For instance, you rarely hear a coach at any level talk about how unbeatable a team or player is. Rather, the focus is on the weaknesses of the team, which reduces fan (and owner) expectations.

Comparative advertisements, another executional format, contrast one sports product with another. When doing comparative advertisements, sports advertisers stress the advantages of their sports product relative to the competition. For new sports products that possess a significant differential advantage, comparative advertisements can be especially effective. The risk involved with comparative advertisements is that consumers are exposed to your product as well as the competitor’s product.

Web 10.3 Easton stresses its competitive advantage

Source: Easton Sports

Because of the unique nature of sport, many advertisements are inherently comparative. For example, boxing advertisements touted the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. In fact, there have been many “Fight of the Century” advertisements that are strikingly similar, comparing two boxers’ strengths and weaknesses. Other sporting events, such as the made-for-television Skins Game in golf, use a similar comparative format for promoting the events. Many home teams skillfully use comparative advertisements to attract moderately involved fans interested in the success of the local team. These fans are attracted by the allure of the visiting team or one of its star athletes. For instance, many basketball advertisements promote the big-name athletes of the opposing team, rather than highlight their own stars.

Slice-of-life advertisements show a “common” athlete or consumer in a common, everyday situation in which the consumer might be using the advertised sports or non-sports product. For example, in 2013 Campbell’s Chunky Soups teamed up with Clay Matthews and his mother in an effort to promote their new line of pub-inspired soups. The advertisement focuses on promoting unique new flavors further emphasizing the slice-of-life choices between a mother and her child at any age. A slight variation of this style is the lifestyle advertisements, wherein the advertisement is intended to portray the lifestyle of the desired target audience. For example, the classic “Just Do It” campaign uses a slice-of-life format that appeals to the participant in each of us. In another slice-of-life example, Zest soap ran a very effective campaign for their product using former football star Craig William “Ironhead” Heyward as their “showering” spokesperson.

Another executional style that is also readily used in sports advertising is called scientific advertisements. Advertisers using this style feature the technological superiority of their sports product or use research or scientific studies to support their claims. For instance, many golf ball manufacturers use scientific claims to sell their product. The Srixon UR-X is touted as having the “largest core,” which means longer distance. Callaway markets the HX Tour as having “revolutionary hexagonal aerodynamics,” and Titleist markets the Titleist Professional ball, which has a core of corn syrup, water, and salts, surrounded by a rubber and plastic like covering. As Bill Morgan, Titleist’s senior vice president of golf ball research, admits, “A lot of times, chemical words or technical words are talked about in marketing and nobody really knows what they are talking about. But it sounds high tech. There is a little deception there, really.”

One of the most prevalent executional styles for sports advertising is the use of testimonials. Testimonials are statements about the sports product given by endorsers. These endorsers may be the “common” athlete, professional athletes, teams, coaches and managers, owners, or even inanimate objects, such as mascots. Table 10.2 highlights the 50 most popular celebrity sport endorsers.

Why are athlete testimonials so popular among sports advertisers? The answer to this question is the ability of sports celebrities to persuade the target audience and move them toward purchase. Athletes’ persuasive power stems from their credibility and, in some cases, attractiveness. Credibility refers to the expertise and the trustworthiness of the source of the message. Expertise is the knowledge, skill, or special experience possessed by the source about the sports product. Of course, successful athletes who promote products needed to participate in their sport have demonstrable expertise. Examples of the athlete – athletic product match-up include John Wall and Candace Parker – basketball shoe contracts; Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie – golf equipment; Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – automotive industry; Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard – baseball gloves; Martina Navratilova and Juan Carlos – tennis racquets; and Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin – hockey equipment. Wall, the first pick in the National Basketball Association 2010 draft, was expected to instantly be one of the top players in the league. Already immensely popular before the draft, Wall signed an endorsement contract with Reebok and while still in college had two popular rap songs written about him. The other dimension of source credibility is trustworthiness. This refers to the honesty and believability of the athlete(s) endorser(s). Trustworthiness is an intangible characteristic that is becoming harder and harder for professional athletes to establish. Today’s consumers realize athletes with already large salaries are being paid huge sums of money for endorsements. Because of this, the athlete’s believability is often suspected. Nevertheless, even some of the highest paid athlete endorsers, such as George Foreman, Arnold Palmer, and Peyton Manning, seem to have established themselves as trustworthy sources of information while others such as Tiger Woods have tarnished their credibility and trustworthiness in the eye of the American public.

In addition to credibility, another factor that makes athletes successful endorsers is attractiveness. Although attractiveness is usually associated with physical beauty, it appears to have another, nonphysical dimension based on personality, lifestyle, and intellect. Attractiveness operates using the process of identification, which means that the target audience identifies with the source (athlete) in some fashion. Gatorade’s classic “I wanna be like Mike” campaign, featuring Michael Jordan, is a good example of the identification process. Perhaps an even better example is Nike’s “I am Tiger Woods” campaign, where kids of all races and ages were found putting themselves in the shoes of Tiger.

Table 10.2 50 most marketable active athletes

1. Neymar	26. Lindsey Vonn
2. Lionel Messi	27. Alex Morgan
3. Rory McIlroy	28. Mike Trout
4. Robert Griffin III	29. Jack Wilshere
5. Usain Bolt	30. Yani Tseng
6. Novak Djokovic	31. Manny Pacquiao
7. Lewis Hamilton	32. Saul Alvarez
8. Cristiano Ronaldo	33. Lucas Moura
9. Sloane Stephens	34. Bubba Wastson
10. Blake Griffin	35. Shaun White
11. Tiger Woods	36. Ellyse Perry
12. Sebastian Vettel	37. James Harden
13. Virat Kohli	38. Shinji Kagawa
14. LeBron James	39. Seth Jones
15. Viktoria Azarenka	40. Laura Robson
16. Maria Sharapova	41. David Rudisha
17. Alan Oliveria	42. Mark Cavendish
18. Andy Murrary	43. Stacy Lewis
19. Alex Ovechkin	44. Kim Yu-Na
20. Missy Franklin	45. Danica Patrick
21. Vincent Kompany	46. Anderson Silva
22. Carmelo Anthony	47. Dale Earnhardt Jr
23. Caroline Wozniacki	48. Gareth Bale
24. Sergio Perez	49. Robert Kubica
25. Rafael Nadal	50. Katie Walsh

Source: http://www.sportspromedia.com/notes_and_insights/the_worlds_50_most_marketable_2013.

Web 10.4 Ashworth Inc.– Fred Couples creates a powerful message for the Ashworth collection.

Source: ©2014 TaylorMade Golf Company, Inc.

Athlete trustworthiness and attractiveness can change in an instance; consider the following opinion of Tiger Woods and how this view is different today. Who will be the most successful and appealing athlete endorsers of the new century? In 2003, a study was conducted by Burns Sports Celebrity Service, Inc. to answer this question. The survey asked more than 2,000 creative directors at national advertising agencies and corporate marketing executives, who hire athletes, to rate the most appealing athlete endorsers. Not surprisingly, the results indicated that the appeal of Tiger Woods continued to grow at an extremely rapid pace. Woods had firmly established himself as one of the top sports celebrity endorsers today, and Burns Sports’ president, Bob Williams, believed, “If Tiger Woods takes an aggressive approach accepting endorsements, he could become the first athlete to earn a billion dollars in endorsements. Woods’ golf career could last 30 years or more, unlike athletes from other sports whose average career is in the single digits. Hence, the real opportunity to earn a billion dollars from endorsements is within reason for a megastar like Tiger Woods.”

Although Williams’ comments have merit, the unexpected scandal that developed around Woods’ personal life in recent years has potentially tarnished his “megastar” status. American golfer Tiger Woods was once one of the most popular endorsers in the world, and then on November 25, 2009 the National Enquirer broke the story of his infidelity to his wife. Tiger’s infidelity led him to lose his endorsements with Gatorade, Accenture, AT&T, and others, leading him to lose $22 million in 2010. After Tiger’s marital infidelities came to light, Tiger announced an indefinite break from competitive golf at the end of the 2009 season. Tiger’s break from golf ended in April of 2010 when he returned for the Masters Tournament; however, Tiger failed to return to top form for the remainder of the golf season.¹⁶ Although his performance has improved since, his identity remains tarnished.

Athlete endorsers can be extremely effective; however, there are risks involved. Athletes are costly, may suffer career-threatening injuries, or just do foolish things. The following article showcases a classic example of how an athlete’s choices can have a detrimental impact on endorsers as well as their career.

In addition, the following narratives illustrate how sport complexities can create adverse situations for endorsers.

  The simplest of things in life can be completed without breaking a sweat, but not a 26.2 mile race. When 23 year old Rosie Ruiz crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon, she had the third fastest time ever for a female runner while barely glistening, and speculation started to mount. That wariness was justified when onlookers communicated that they saw Ruiz join the race in the final mile. She was stripped of her olive wreath and the rightful winner, Jacqueline Gareau, was crowned.¹⁷

  In baseball, U.S. prosecutors have begun to pursue new avenues of investigation after a former New York Mets batboy pleaded guilty to selling performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of major-league players. He is cooperating with authorities.

  A special commission set up by Major League Baseball to look into the sport’s drug problem asked dozens of players to meet with its investigators and sought medical records from at least two of the game’s recent top sluggers, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. The spotlight was not likely to dim as Barry Bonds slugged his way to becoming the all-time home run king, a pursuit that was tarnished as prosecutors investigated whether he lied during grand-jury testimony in a case involving the distribution of steroids to elite athletes. On November 15, 2007, federal prosecutors charged the 43-year-old slugger with perjury and obstruction of justice.¹⁸

  In a scandal of international proportion, the cricketing world was rocked by acclaimed South Africa captain Hanse Cronje’s fall from grace in the biggest match-fixing scandal the sport has seen. In 2000 Cronje confessed to accepting about $130,000 (£68,400) from bookmakers for providing them with match information to fix the results of games. He was banned from the sport for life – a devastating blow to the man who achieved iconic status after leading the Proteas, as the South Africa cricket team is known, to victory in 27 Tests – losing 11 – and 99 one-day internationals out of 138.

  American figure skater Tanya Harding calculated that it would be more difficult for her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, to compete if she had a bad knee. Harding hired Shane Stant to put fellow American figure skater Kerrigan out of commission at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, paving the way for Harding’s victory. Soon after, her ex-husband cut a plea bargain deal in which he spilled the beans of their scheme implicating Harding. When Harding’s time came, she had no choice but to plead guilty and received a $160,000 fine and three years’ probation, was banned from U.S. figure skating, and was stripped of her 1994 title.¹⁹

Although scandals typically involve individual athletes, an entire sport can also be involved in unethical, performance enhancing practices. NASCAR officials have been working to even the playing field for years as teams searched for any edge they could find in a sport in which a tenth of a second of extra speed can determine the outcome of a race. Inspections before and after qualifying for the Daytona 500 in 2006 nabbed no fewer than 5 of the 61 teams trying to make the race. One team’s crew chief and another team’s director were suspended for four races for failing to cover holes in a wheel well, which was seen as giving the teams an unfair aerodynamic advantage. They were also fined $50,000 and amassed a 50-point penalty for the driver and team owner. In the days before taking part in the Great American Race, six teams were penalized for technical violations. The infractions – which ranged from the unintentional (Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet was one inch too low after qualifying because of misaligned bolts in the car’s rear shocks) to the blatant (Michael Waltrip’s No. 55 Toyota was impounded after inspectors found an illegal substance in the engine manifold) – cast a dark cloud on a sport in which cheating has been omnipresent but never consistently targeted.

NASCAR’s president, Mike Helton, said: “There is a need for NASCAR to have that same confidence with the fan, with the TV audience, with the car sponsors, with NASCAR sponsors, with the racetracks and all the constituents of the sport to have confidence in NASCAR’s way that it handles its sport.”²⁰ In 2014, NASCAR revamped its “deterrence system” altering the penalty structure and appeals process to further defer infractions from occuring. Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president of racing operations, noted that it was not NASCAR’s intent to penalize but to implement a policy that is more fair, transparent and easily understood. O’Donnell added that NASCAR officials believe “the system is tailored to fit the needs of the sport, essentially building a firewall between the race teams, their sponsors, and the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers)”.²¹

In the past the NFL image was damaged in a series of off-the-field wrongdoings and arrests of some of its athletes. There have been no fewer than 50 player arrests since the start of 2006, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has instituted the toughest code of conduct in professional sports. Despite that, through August of 2013, there were 42 arrests and citations of NFL players. Goodell has shown a willingness to suspend players even before they are convicted in the courts. Goodell stated, “Persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime.” Discipline will include “larger fines and longer suspensions,” and for repeat offenders, “the commissioner may impose discipline on an expedited basis for persons who have been assigned a probationary period.” The commission also said this about players in trouble, “When that happens, you can be in the wrong place once, twice, maybe three times. But after a certain point, you are reflecting very negatively on the National Football League. It’s my job – not law enforcement’s job – to protect the National Football League.”²²

Because of the increased risk and incidence of scandal, many sports advertisers are shying away from signing megastar individual athletes to huge contracts and are instead using teams or events as their advertising platform. For instance, Reebok reduced its football endorsement stable from 250 to 150. Baseball endorsers were reduced from 350 to 100, and basketball endorsers were reduced from 100 to 25. Gatorade’s vice president of sports marketing, Tom Fox, said it best: “The paradigm in the athlete marketplace has changed. Like a lot of companies, we question the ability of any single athlete to reinforce brand equity to such a huge extent that it would move product off the shelf.”²³ Nonetheless, many companies are still using athletes to endorse their products. A recent example of this is Adidas; they signed Derrick Rose to a 14-year $260 million deal. Nike, as always, has had quite a few athletes under their payroll. This includes some large names like LeBron James, Tiger Woods, and Kobe Bryant to name a few.²⁴ You also have names like Phil Mickelson and David Beckham who are among the leaders of sport endorsement deals. Nike’s obligations to pay athletes and teams cumulatively over the lifetime of their contacts had risen in each of the previous three years, dating to fiscal year 2006. The decline in value of those obligations to $3.8 billion in 2010 leaves a total that is more than three times the amount posted in 2002, but it’s down $400 million from a record $4.2 billion in 2009. Table 10.3 presents some general guidelines for using sports celebrities in advertising campaigns.

Table 10.3 Guidelines for using sports celebrities as endorsers

•  Sports celebrities are more effective for endorsing sports-related products. Match-up hypothesis again holds true – does not matter if consumers recognize the athlete if they cannot remember the product that is being endorsed

•  Long-term relationships or associations between the product and the endorser are key – cannot be short-term or one-shot deals to be effective. Examples include Arnold Palmer with Pennzoil and Michael Jordon with Nike

•  Advertisements using athlete endorsers who appear during contests or events in which the athlete is participating are less effective

•  Athletes who are overexposed may lose their credibility and power to influence consumers. Tiger Woods is planning to limit his association with just five global brands to avoid overexposure

Source: Adapted from Amy Dyson and Douglas Turco, “The State of Celebrity Endorsement in Sport,“ Cyber-Journal of Sport Marketing

One promising alternative that reduces the risk of potential problems is to use athletes who are no longer alive. Nike ran a series of 10 commercials using former Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi. Other corporations that have featured departed stars in their ad campaigns include Citibank (Babe Ruth), Microsoft (Lou Gehrig and Jesse Owens), McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Apple Computer, General Mills (Jackie Robinson), and Miller Brewing (Satchel Paige). Dead athletes are more cost effective, scandal proof, and are icons in the world of sports. Ruth was chosen to represent Citibank in an ad campaign – 49 years after his death and 62 since his last homer – for similar reasons. “Babe’s an American sports icon, instantly recognizable,” says Ken Gordon, a Citibank vice president, explaining why Ruth got the nod over contemporary ballplayers.²⁵

Media strategy

As presented in Chapter 9, a medium or channel is the element in the communications process by which the message is transmitted. Traditional mass media, such as newspapers, television, radio, or magazines, are usually thought of as effective ways of carrying advertising messages to the target audience. However, new technologies are creating alternative media. The Internet, for example, represents an emerging medium that must be considered by sports advertisers. It is important to know the habits and preferences of each market segment and often these behaviors are identified using marketing analytics. Understanding these habits and preferences can enhance communication and marketing efforts for these audiences. For example, teens use a multitude of media each day, and technology is also an integral part of teen life. Technology influences the type of media teens use – from researching potential purchases and schoolwork to maintaining friendships. Teens often actively multi-task or let one medium influence their use on another concurrent behavior. Deciding what medium or media to use is just one aspect in developing a comprehensive media strategy. Media strategy addresses two basic questions about the channel of communication. First, what medium or media mix (combination of media) will be most effective in reaching the desired target audience? Second, how should this media be scheduled to meet advertising objectives?

Media decisions or media selection

The far-ranging (and growing) number of media choices makes selecting the right media a difficult task. Choosing the proper media requires the sports advertiser to be mindful of the creative decisions made earlier in the advertising process. For instance, an emotional appeal – best suited to television – would be difficult to convey using print media. It is also critical that the media planner keep the target market in mind. Understanding the profile of the target market and their media habits is essential to developing an effective advertising campaign.

Every type of media has strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when making advertising placement decisions. Table 10.4 demonstrates selected advantages and disadvantages when choosing among advertising media.

Table 10.4 Profiles of major media types

Medium	Advantages	Limitations
Internet	Allows messages to be customized; reaches specific market; interactive capabilities	Clutter; audience characteristics; hard-to-measure effectiveness
Newspapers	Flexibility; timeliness; good local market coverage; broad acceptability; high believability	Short life; poor reproduction quality; small pass-along audience
Television	Good mass market coverage; low cost per exposure; combines sight, sound, and motion; appealing to the senses	High absolute costs; high clutter; fleeting exposure; less audience selectivity
Direct mail	High audience selectivity; flexibility; no ad competition within the same medium; allows personalization	Relatively high cost per exposure; “junk mail” image
Radio	Good local acceptance; high geographic and demographic selectivity; low cost	Audio only, fleeting exposure; low attention (“the half-heard” medium); fragmented audiences
Magazines	High geographic and demographic selectivity; credibility and prestige; high-quality reproduction; long life and good pass-along readership	Long advertisement purchase lead time; high cost; no guarantee of position
Outdoor	Flexibility; high repeat exposure; low cost; low message competition; good positional selectivity	Little audience selectivity; creative limitations

Source: Adapted from Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Marketing: An Introduction, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997), 471.

Alternative forms of advertising

Because of the advertising clutter present in traditional advertising media, sports marketers are continually evaluating new ways of delivering their message to consumers. Alternative forms of advertising range from the more conventional stadium signage to the most creative media. Consider the following innovative illustrations of alternative forms of advertising: The International Cricket Council has allowed players to sell the top 23 centimeters of their bats for advertising. In Connecticut, 35 public golf courses signed up for a program that put advertisements in the bottom of their holes. Formerly, 7–Eleven entered into a three year $500,000 sponsorship contract with the White Sox, calling for all weekday games to start at 7:11. A company spokesperson called this a “fun way to insert our name into fans’ hearts and minds.” This sort of creativity could open up other areas where brands can get involved without impacting the field of play, as well as additional inventory for teams to sell.

Stadium signage

Stadium signage or on-site advertising, is back and is an extremely popular form of promotion and sponsorship packages. For some time, nary a sign was found on the outfield wall of an MLB team or on the boards at an NHL game. Now, stadium signage prevails on every inch of available space. Not unlike other forms of advertising, stadium signage is designed to increase brand or corporate awareness, create a favorable image through associations with the team and sport, change attitudes or maintain favorable attitudes, and ultimately increase the sale of product. The Cubs have struck a three-year sponsorship deal with Under Armour to place two 7-by-12-foot signs on the Wrigley Field outfield doors, the first corporate advertising to be placed among the famed brick-and-ivy outfield wall in the stadium’s then 93-year history.

Photo 10.2 Coca-Cola creates a positive association with baseball by using stadium signage.

Source: Laura M. Hoffman

Traditionally, stadium sponsors and advertisers have utilized in stadium ads, naming rights and banners visible on TV to capture consumer attention. However, with the advent of digital technology, attention is becoming a scarce resource. Due to consumer behaviors such as multitasking and shorter attention spans, the quality of viewer attention has eroded over the past two-and-a-half decades.²⁶ Therefore, marketers today must be innovative, integrating more targeted and interactive advertising strategies. Attention economics have been a scarce commodity in the age of information overload. However, in this playing field, aggregating the attention of fans and selling a portion to advertisers and sponsors is where the real riches lie.²⁷ For example, in the NFL, teams like the Dallas Cowboys earn in excess of $100 million from sponsorships and advertising in a single season, while teams such as the Oakland Raiders and Buffalo Bills earn less than $20 million.²⁸ Estimated expenditures on stadium signage and sponsorships are expected to continue to increase. Thus, given the advent of new technologies, allowing stadium billboards to be changed and customized for local markets, the use of flat panel displayers for digital out of home advertising will continue to be one of the fastest growing industries and with deployment of stadium signage appear in almost every major world market.

Although stadium signage can be an effective means of advertising, it can also be costly. The new Dallas Cowboys stadium is one of the world’s most modern venues, but it came with a significant price tag, $1.2 billion. The stadium features a retractable roof and a signage scheme unlike any other. Cowboys Stadium is home to the world’s largest outdoor digital display. The 2,100 inch display weighs in at approximately 600 tons, spans over 25,670 square feet, features back to back high definition LED screens, and has two small screens at each end to accommodate the stadium end zone fans. The cost of this massive display is just a mere $40 million. However, the digital signage does not end there, apart from having the largest outdoor back to back HD screen, they also utilize over 3,000 small displays around the stadium to allow fans to stay abreast of the game and to inform fans of news related to the team. In addition, in other venues across the country items such as rotating/digital scorers and press tables often seen at NBA and collegiate basketball games can cost between $50,000 and $250,000. How is expensive stadium signage sold and justified by sports marketers? First, research has shown that locations considered to be part of the game (e.g., scorer’s table or on the ice) are more effective than those locations removed from the action (e.g., scoreboards).²⁹ Other research found that spectators had improved recognition of and attitudes toward eight courtside advertisers for an NCAA Division I men’s basketball team. This finding is, of course, extremely important to sponsors considering the cost and effectiveness of this type of stadium signage.³⁰

Other outdoor

A new form of outdoor advertising is also becoming popular at national sporting events. This type of outdoor promotion uses live product demonstrations or characters to attract fans’ attention. For example, the 2011 Paribas Showdown became the first professional tennis event in the U.S. to feature digital signage capable of full motion animations. The promoters utilized these digital features to integrate legends like John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras, and Andre Agassi thereby enhancing the ESPN broadcast. In addition, the U.S. Army staged a live combat reenactment prior to the start of the Charlotte 500 NASCAR race. In another example, Juan Valdez, the very recognizable brand character for Colombian coffee, showed up in the stands of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Similarly, Ronald McDonald attended the Kentucky Derby and a Chicago Bulls game to promote new products from McDonald’s.

In a related fashion, sports marketers sometimes use variations of product placement techniques. Product placement occurs when manufacturers pay to have their products used in cooperation with sporting events, television shows, movies, and other entertainment media such as music videos. For instance, Gatorade’s Jeff Urban teamed up with Major League Baseball’s Homerun Derby. Prior to the placement opportunity the brand received little exposure and was confined to the limits of the dugout. The placement initiative afforded Gatorade the opportunity to hand each slugger a bottle of Gatorade and towels with the Gatorade logo near home plate on the sidelines while they conducted their post hitting interviews for television. The Gatorade placement was front and center, in a manner that fans could not help but notice. In other examples, Gordon and Smith surfboards were prominently featured in the movie Blue Crush, written about female surfers; and perhaps the earliest sports product placement was when James Bond, 007, used Slazenger golf balls on the links in the classic Goldfinger. In the ultimate product tie-in, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks of the NHL were named after the series of movies created by their then parent company, Disney.

Are these product placements effective? Top-rated TV shows aren’t necessarily the best places for product placement. That’s the conclusion of a new study of television product placement effectiveness conducted by New York-based Intermedia Advertising Group (IAG), a research company whose roots are in measuring the effectiveness and performance of network television commercials.³¹ “We both poll viewers and measure the exposure ourselves,” IAG co-CEO Alan Gould said. “We code the exposure type; we measure the duration and note factors such as whether the product is embedded into the story line, used as intended, and in the foreground or background.”³² Even though this study seemed to find little support for the effectiveness of product placement, anecdotal evidence shows that product demonstrations seem to work and are certainly popular. Spike TV’s and EA Sports’ recent product placement recognition involved logo placement in the television series the Ultimate Fighter. Others include the likes of Everlast and the former television show The Contender as well as recognizable films such as: Requiem for a Heavyweight, Raging Bull, Ali, Cinderella Man, The Hurricane, Million Dollar Baby. Other sports product placements in recent movies include the following:

Gridiron Gang – Nike, Puma, Rogers Athletic, Schutt Sports, Spalding; The Departed – Adidas; Invincible – Adidas; Talladega Nights – EA Sports; Click – Huffy Bicycle Company; The Break-Up – EA Sports, Reebok; and Failure to Launch – EA Sports, Nike.

The advantages that have been cited for these alternative forms of advertising include:³³

  Exposure – A large number of people go to the movies, rent movies, or could be exposed to a live-product demonstration if they are attending a sporting event or watching television.

  Attention – Moviegoers are generally an attentive audience. Sports spectators are also a captive audience when they are waiting for the action to begin.

  Recall – Research has shown that audiences have higher levels of next-day recall for products that are placed in movies than for traditional forms of promotion.

  Source association – for product placements, the audience may see familiar and likable stars using the sports product. As such, the product’s image may be enhanced through association with the celebrity.

Another alternative form of advertising is using the athlete as a “human billboard.”³⁴ The history of athletes wearing an advertisement can be traced back to the 1960s, when organizations began establishing relationships with stock car drivers. Soon, the practice of drivers wearing patches on their clothing spread to other sports, such as tennis and golf. The use of athletes as advertisers is much more common in individual sports because these individuals have the ability to negotiate and wear whatever they want, as opposed to the tight controls imposed on athletes in team sports by their respective leagues.

Today, the use of athletes as human billboards is part of the integrated marketing communications plan rather than a stand-alone promotion. Fred Couples, Rich Beem, Chris DiMarco, Stuart Appleby, and Steve Flesch of the PGA wear sweaters and shirts, in addition to the other advertisements and promotions they perform for Ashworth. The major appeal of this form of advertising is the natural association (classical conditioning) formed in consumers’ minds between the athlete and the organization or product.

Photo 10.3 These runners all exemplify the human billboard.

Source: Shutterstock.com

How much does it cost sponsors to rent advertising space on an athlete’s body? An IndyCar driver’s helmet might cost between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on the driver. The precious space on a professional golfer’s visor would cost between $250,000 and $500,000. Although these prices may seem outrageous, organizations are willing to pay the price for the exposure and enhanced brand equity.

In addition to these more conventional examples, basketball player Rasheed Wallace was asked by a candy company to tattoo his body for the NBA season. This offer was ultimately rejected as it was thought to potentially violate the NBA Uniform Player contract. Additionally, boxers have started to use their bodies as billboards by tattooing corporate logos on their chest and back. The Nevada State Athletic Commission tried to ban body billboards, but ultimately lost to the state court’s ruling protecting boxers’ right to free speech.

Regardless of how you slice it, collectively assessing how big the advertising business can be is something that’s still being questioned. New methods of advertising are constantly being developed. According to the 2014 Global Games Market Report by Newzoo, the global games market will rocket past the $100 billion market, to reach $102.9 billion by 2017.³⁵ The Entertainment Software Association estimates that the in-game advertising market for this industry could grow to be $1 billion by 2014, up from $56 million in 2006.³⁶, ³⁷ “All the forecasts are overstated, but even at the low end, it’s a healthy business,” said Chip Lange, vice president of online commerce at Electronic Arts, and this “healthy business” contributes further to advertising’s bottom line. ³⁸

Internet

Another major player in the world of advertising media is the Internet. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Internet has already become a valuable source of sports information for participants and fans. In addition, the Internet is fast becoming the favorite promotional medium for sports marketers. A total user base of over 274 million people exists in the United States alone, and Internet usage is growing globally with approximately 2.5 billion users (34 percent of the world population), which is one advantage to promotion via the internet (as seen in Table 10.5).

In addition, according to a BurstMedia report, 35.1 percent of all sports fans – including two-in-three (66.8 percent) devoted fans – go online at least once per day for sports-related reasons, e.g., check scores, read sports news, watch sports videos or play fantasy sports games.³⁹ Nearly one-third (30.4 percent) of all sports fans say most of their time online is spent reading content versus watching online video. “Whether it’s consuming original sports content online, sharing likes and tweets with friends, or using a tablet to follow the score, sports enthusiasts have many options to access content,” said Mark Kaefer, marketing director, Burst Media, “and with digital media becoming an increasingly significant part of the total sports fan experience, online publishers and advertisers now have access to a much wider set of platforms and tactics to use to engage audiences.”⁴⁰ Let us take a look at some of the other advantages to promotion via the Internet.

Table 10.5 World regions by Internet penetration

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

Perhaps the most substantial advantage to using the Internet as a promotional tool is the good fit between the profile of the sports fan and the Internet user. The typical Internet user was described as an entertainment-minded, educated male between 18 and 34 years old. However, today the web is no longer the virtual playground of just well-educated males and technology aficionados. Today the online consumer population is undergoing a major shift. Sixty percent of these new users are women and many earn average or below average incomes. Moreover, 33 percent have had web access for less than a year.⁴¹ These trends require the traditional sport marketers to re-think their communication strategy. For instance, the demographic profile of espn.com users is 94 percent male, 47 percent single, with 66 percent between the ages of 18 and 34.⁴² Sound familiar? These characteristics closely match the traditional sports fan.

Digital platforms are fast becoming the choice of media for sports fans and are pushing the boundaries of media convergence across television, Internet, and mobile devices. The television and the Internet now outweigh other media at peak viewing times and twice as many sports fans watch video via mobile devices compared with the average mobile device user. These individuals are also known to multitask, for results indicate that twice as many sports fans use the Internet while watching TV compared with the average user. Ultimately sport users are more engaged and receptive than the average Internet user to online advertising and these users are more likely to increase their sports consumption online due to its ease of use, accessibility, technology, and its real time availability.⁴³ Finally, the Internet is the ideal medium to target college sports fans due to greater access and usage rates among students. Generally, the Internet allows the sports advertiser to reach an extremely focused targeted market.⁴⁴

Another distinct advantage of promotion via the Internet is the interactive nature of the medium. Promotions attract the attention of the target audience and then create involvement by having consumers point and click on the information they find of interest. For instance, the Major League Soccer site (www.mlssoccer.com) has advertisements asking soccer fans, “are you a true MLS fan?,” and then asking fans to go to the Zune store to download MLS screensavers and backgrounds.

A point and click of the mouse will take fans to the Georgia Pacific soccer link, which features the ability to download player screen savers and wallpapers, enter a shootout online contest, and, of course get more information on MardiGras products.

Other advantages of the Internet versus more traditional media include the Internet’s ability to be flexible. Web promotions can be updated, and changes can be made almost instantly. This flexibility is a tremendous advantage for sports marketers, who are constantly responding to a changing environment. In fact, the Internet seems to be the perfect tool for sports marketers using the contingency framework for strategic planning. For example, the emergence of social media has supercharged an age old consumer activity allowing consumers to chat about things like scores, stats, and other sport interests. This established consumer behavior, now enabled by new technology platforms, is driving a fundamental change in the way sport brand marketing works. Today’s relationships are more explicit and must consider the engagement of the message and the consumer; these engagements make platforms much more measurable which constantly inspire new ideas between research, media, and consumer brand perceptions.

Web 10.5 The Internet has become a popular medium for all forms of online purchasing.

Source: InTheHoleGolf.com

Web 10.6 The Golf Channel, PGA, and LPGA team up for online contests.

Source: GolfChannel.com

A final benefit of promotion via the Internet is its cost effectiveness. The Internet provides organizations with a means of promoting sports to consumers around the world at a low cost. The ability to reach a geographically diverse audience at a low cost is one of the primary advantages of Internet promotion.

Web 10.7 Social media continue to emerge as an interactive Web strategy.

Source: Twitter; https://twitter.com/nickpangio

Although there are many advantages, promotion via the Internet can also pose potential problems. As with other forms of advertising, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of sports promotion over the Internet. Often, marketers use the “number of hits” as a proxy for effectiveness, but this cannot be used to determine the interest level of the consumer or purchase intent.

Promotional clutter is another difficulty with Internet promotions. As the Internet becomes a more popular advertising medium, more organizations will compete for the audience and its attention. To break through the clutter, sports marketers must design new Internet promotions. Differentiating among Web promotions will become increasingly important in gaining the attention of consumers and developing a unique position for organizations.

A final disadvantage of promotion on the Internet is its inability to reach certain groups of consumers. Although the Internet is a great medium to reach younger, college-educated, computer-literate consumers, it may be extremely inefficient in trying to promote to the mature market or, perhaps, consumers of lower socioeconomic standing.

Although we have looked at some of the pros and cons of promotion via the Internet, the fact remains that the Internet is here to stay and that the use of personal mobile devices will have a significant marketing presence for years to come. The low costs, ability to target sports fans and participants, and high flexibility far outweigh the disadvantages of this medium. Certainly, sports marketers have accepted the Internet as another important tool in their integrated communications efforts.

Choosing a specific medium

Once the medium or media mix is chosen by the sports organization along with the advertising agency, the specific medium must be addressed. In other words, if the advertisement will appear in a magazine, then we must choose which magazine will be most effective. Do we want our advertisement to promote the NHL to appear in Sports Illustrated, Sporting News Magazine, the Hockey News, or some combination of these specific media? Should we promote Texas Motor Speedway via Internet advertising, text messaging, podcasting, or by more traditional means – television, radio, magazine, and newspaper? To answer this question, we must consider our reach and frequency objectives.

Reach refers to the number of people exposed to an advertisement in a given medium. For the advertiser who wants to generate awareness and reach the largest number of people in the target audience, perhaps Sports Illustrated, with a circulation of over 3 million, would be the most effective medium. However, if the target audience is women, then Sports Illustrated might be reaching people who are not potential users.

The reach of an advertisement is determined by a number of factors. First, nature of the media mix influences reach. The general rule is that the greater the number of media used, the greater the reach. For example, if the advertising campaign for the NHL were broadcast on television, printed in magazines, and also appeared on the Internet, reach would be increased. Second, if only one medium is to be used, increasing the number and diversity within this medium will increase the reach. For instance, if cable television were chosen as the sole medium for the NHL campaign, reach would be increased if the commercial were aired on ESPN, Lifetime, and Fox Sports versus ESPN alone. Finally, reach can be enhanced by airing the advertisements during different times of the day or day parts. The advertisement might be shown at night after 9:00 P.M. and also in the morning to reach a greater percentage of the target audience.

Along with reach, another consideration in making specific media decisions is frequency. Frequency refers to the number of times the individual or household is exposed to the media vehicle. An important point is that frequency is measured by the number of exposures to the media vehicle rather than the advertisement itself. Just because an advertisement is shown on television during the Super Bowl does not mean that the target audience has seen it. Consumers might change channels, leave the room, or simply become involved in conversation. A study examined this issue using Super Bowl viewers in a bar setting.⁴⁵ It found that visual attention levels for the game are similar to attention levels for the advertisements, attention to commercials varies by their location in the cluster of advertisements and time of the game, and that Super Bowl commercials may receive more attention than commercials on other programs.

Media scheduling

Four basic media scheduling alternatives are considered once the medium (e.g., magazines) and specific publications (e.g., Sports Illustrated) are chosen. These schedules are called continuous, flighting, pulsing, and seasonal. A continuous schedule recognizes that there are no breaks in the demand for the sports product. This is also called steady, or “drip,” scheduling. During the advertising period, advertisements are continually run. Most sporting goods and events are seasonal and, therefore, do not require a continuous schedule. Some sporting goods, such as running shoes, have roughly equivalent demand and advertising spending throughout the year.

A flighting schedule is another alternative, where advertising expenditures are varied in some months and zero is spent in other months. Consider the case of the Houston Astros. Heavy advertising expenditures are spent in March, April, and May leading up to the season. Reminder-oriented advertising is placed over the course of the rest of the season, and no advertising dollars are spent in the winter months. This type of scheduling is most prevalent in sports marketing due to the seasonal nature of most sports.

A pulsing schedule is a variant of the flighting schedule. Ad expenditures may vary greatly, but some level of advertising is always taking place. Although it sounds similar to a flighting schedule, remember that a flighting schedule has some months where zero is spent on advertising.

Personal selling

Now that we have looked at the advertising process in detail, let us turn to another important element in the promotion mix – personal selling. Personal selling is used in a variety of ways in sports marketing, such as in securing corporate sponsorships, selling luxury suites or boxes in stadiums, and hawking corporate and group ticket sales. In the marketing of sporting goods, the primary applications of personal selling are to get retailers to carry products (push strategy) and consumers to purchase products (pull strategy).

Personal selling represents a unique element in the promotion mix because it involves personal interaction with the target audience rather than mass communication to thousands or millions of consumers. The definition of personal selling reflects this important distinction between personal selling and the other promotion tools. Personal selling is a form of person-to-person communication in which a salesperson works with prospective buyers and attempts to influence their purchase needs in the direction of their company’s products or services.

All the advantages of personal selling described in Table 10.6 make it an attractive promotional tool, so the ability to use personal selling to develop long-term relationships with consumers is becoming increasingly important to sports marketers. In fact, building long-term relationships with consumers has become one of the critical issues for marketers. More formally, relationship marketing is the process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing strong, value-laden relationships with customers and other stakeholders.⁴⁶

As Kotler and Armstrong point out, the key premise of relationship marketing is that building strong economic and social ties with valued customers, distributors, dealers, and suppliers leads to long-term profitable transactions. Many sports organizations are realizing it is cheaper to foster and maintain strong relationships with existing customers rather than find new customers or fight the competition for a stagnant consumer base.

Table 10.6 Benefits of personal selling

•  Personal selling allows the salesperson to immediately adapt the message they are presenting based on feedback received from the target audience.

•  Personal selling allows the salesperson to communicate more information to the target audience than other forms of promotion. Moreover, complex information can be explained by the salesperson.

•  Personal selling greatly increases the likelihood of the target audience paying attention to the message. It is difficult for the target audience to escape the message because communication is person to person.

•  Personal selling greatly increases the chances of developing a long-term relationship with consumers, due to the frequent person-to-person communication.10 Promotion mix elements

Two examples of building relationships with consumers of sport were described in an article entitled “Pursuing Relationships in Professional Sport.”⁴⁷ In the first example, a promotion was developed by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Giant Eagle Supermarkets. The basic premise of the promotion was that fans could earn discounts and special offers at Pirates games by participating in the Giant Eagle preferred shoppers program. For example, fans with an Advantage Card (given to program participants) were offered discounted ballpark meals for a month, half-price tickets to five games throughout the season, and discounts on Pirates merchandise. The relationship-building program was deemed successful by the Pirates, Giant Eagle, and the fans.

Another relationship-building effort was designed for the fans of the San Diego Padres. The program for season ticket holders, called the Compadres Club, and for single game purchasers called the Frequent Friar Club, rewards fans for attending predetermined numbers of games. Each program is tailored to a specific audience; season ticket holders identified as the lifeblood of the Padres are rewarded for their investment while the Frequent Friar Rewards Club rewards the Friar Faithful for their ticket purchases. Ultimately, fans can redeem their frequency points for Padres merchandise, posters, and dinners. For example, the top earners receive an authentic baseball bat autographed by a Padres player and presented on the field at a special pregame ceremony. Although both the Pirates and the Padres have developed marketing programs to build relationships with fans, the importance of personal selling should not be overlooked. Personal selling was necessary for the Pirates to communicate the benefits of the partnership to Giant Eagle. As a result of selling a successful program to Giant Eagle, the company increased its Pirates-related marketing budget by roughly 25 percent. The Padres, armed with a database of the demographics and buying habits of its most loyal fans, will use personal selling to secure additional sponsorship and advertising dollars.

The strategic selling process

Now that we have defined personal selling and discussed some of its major advantages, let us examine how the selling process operates in sports marketing. As previously discussed, sports marketers are generally concerned with selling an intangible service versus a tangible good. Most salespeople view the selling of services as a much more difficult process, because the benefits of the sports product are not readily observable or easily communicated to the target audience. It is much easier to sell the new and improved r7 Superquad driver from TaylorMade when the consumer can see the design, feel the weight of the club, and swing the club. In essence, the product sells itself. Contrast this with the sale of a luxury box to a corporation in a stadium that is yet to be built. Selling this sports product is dependent on communicating both the tangible and intangible benefits of the box to the prospective buyer. In addition to the problems associated with selling a service versus a good, the sale of many sports products requires several people to give their approval before the sale is complete. This factor also makes the selling process more complex.

In the ever-changing world of sports marketing, the “good ol’ boy” approach to selling is no longer valid. To be more effective and efficient in today’s competitive environment, a number of personal selling strategies have been developed. One process, developed by Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman, is called strategic selling.⁴⁸

Miller and Heiman suggest the first step in any strategic selling process is performing an analysis of your current position. In this instance, position is described as understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats that are present in the selling situation. In essence, the salesperson is constructing a mini-SWOT analysis, analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Questions regarding how prospective clients feel about you as a salesperson, how they feel about your products and services, who the competition is, and how they are positioned must all be addressed at the initial stages of the strategic selling process.

Good salespeople realize that they must adapt their current position for every account before they can be successful. To change this position, six elements in the strategic selling process must be considered in a systematic and interactive fashion. These elements, which must be understood for successful sales, include buying influences, red flags, response modes, win-results, the sales funnel, and the ideal customer profile. Let us take a brief look at how these elements work together in the strategic selling process.

Buying influences

A complex sale was earlier defined as one where multiple individuals are involved in the buying process. This is true of large organizations considering a sponsorship proposal or families considering the purchase of exercise equipment for a new workout facility in their home. One of the first steps in the strategic sales process is to identify all the individuals involved in the sale and to determine their buying roles.

Roles are patterns of behavior expected by people in a given position. Miller and Heiman believe there are generally four critical buying roles that must be understood in a complex sale (no matter how many people play these roles). The economic buying role is a position that governs final approval to buy and that can say yes to a sale when everyone else says no, and vice versa. The user buying role makes judgments about the potential impact of your product or service on their job performance. These individuals will also supervise or use the product, so they want to know “what the product or service will do for them.” The technical buying role screens out possible suppliers on the basis of meeting a variety of technical specifications that have been determined in advance by the organization. The technical buyers also serve as gatekeepers, who screen out potential suppliers on the basis of failing to meet the stated specifications. Finally, the coach’s role is to act as a guide for the salesperson making the sale. The coach is a valuable source of information about the organization and can lead you to the other buying influences. As Miller and Heiman point out, identifying the individuals playing the various roles is the foundation of the strategic selling process.

Red flags

Once the individuals have been identified, the next step in the strategic selling process is to look for red flags, or things that can threaten a complex sale. Red flags symbolize those strategic areas that can require further attention to avoid mistakes in positioning. In addition, red flags can be used to capitalize on an area of strength. Some of the red flags that can threaten a complex sale include either missing or vague information, buying influences who are not contacted, or reorganization. For example, any buying influences who are not contacted are considered a threat to the sale.

These buying influences who are not contacted are analogous to uncovered bases in baseball. Teams cannot be fielded or successful when there is no shortstop or catcher. Likewise, a sale cannot be successful until all the relevant players have been contacted.

Response modes

After the buyer(s) have been targeted and you have correctly positioned your products or services by identifying red flags, the next step in the strategic selling process is to determine the buyer’s reaction to the given sales situation. These varying reactions are categorized in four response modes. These modes include the growth mode, trouble mode, even keel mode, and overconfident mode.

The growth mode is characterized by organizations who perceive a discrepancy between their current state and their ideal state in terms of some goal (e.g., sales or profits). In other words, the organization needs to produce a higher quality sports product or put more people in the seats in order to grow. In this situation, the probability of a sale is high.

The second response mode is known as the trouble mode. When an organization is falling short of expectations, it is in the trouble mode. Here again, there is a discrepancy between the current and ideal states. In the growth mode the organization is going to improve upon an already good situation. However, the trouble mode indicates that the buyer is experiencing difficulties. In either case, the potential for a sale is high.

The even keel mode presents a more difficult case for the salesperson. As the name implies, there is no discrepancy between the ideal and current results and, therefore, the likelihood of a sale is low. The probability of a sale can be enhanced if the salesperson can demonstrate that a discrepancy actually exists, the buyer sees growth or trouble coming, or there is pressure from another buying influence.

The final response mode is the overconfident mode. Overconfidence is generally the toughest mode to overcome from the salesperson’s perspective in that the buyers believe things are too good to be true. Just think about individual athletes or teams who are overconfident. Invariably they lose because of their false sense of superiority. Organizations that are overconfident are resistant to change because they are exceeding their goals (or at least they think so), so sales are difficult. The NFL is one example of a sports league currently at the top in terms of fan popularity, but subject to the overconfident mode. Specifically, off-the-field issues (as noted earlier) may alienate fans and sponsors. Gene Upshaw, the former executive director of the NFL Players Association, commented that “I do not want the fans to turn us off because of off-field behavior. It has happened in other sports, and I would not want that to happen to the NFL.”⁴⁹ In this stage of the strategic sales process, the response mode of the organization should be analyzed. In addition, each of the buying influences should be examined to determine their perception of the current situation. By analyzing the buying influences and their perceptions, the salesperson is in a position to successfully adapt his or her approach to meet the needs of each buying influence and each customer.

Win-results

Much of sports marketing today is based on the premise of strategic partnerships. The same is true for the strategic sales process. In strategic partnerships, the sales process produces satisfied customers, long-term relationships, repeat business, and good referrals. To achieve these outcomes, the salesperson must look at clients as partners rather than competition that must be beaten.

Miller and Heiman define the win-results concept in the strategic selling process as an objective result that gives one or more of the buying influences a personal win. The key to this definition is understanding the importance of both wins and results. A result is the impact of the salesperson’s product or service on one or more of the client’s business objectives. Results are usually tangible, quantifiable, and affect the entire organization. Wins, however, are the fulfillment of a promise made to oneself. Examples of personal wins for the potential client include gaining recognition within the organization, increasing responsibility and authority, and enhancing self-esteem. It is important to realize that wins are subjective, intangible, and do not benefit all the people in the organization the same way.

The sales funnel

The sales funnel is another key element in the strategic sales process. This is a tool used to organize all potential clients, as opposed to developing a means for understanding an individual client. Basically, the sales funnel is a model that is used to organize clients so salespeople might organize their efforts in the most efficient and effective manner. After all, allocating time and setting priorities are two of the most challenging tasks in personal selling.

The sales funnel divides clients into three basic levels – above the funnel, in the funnel, and the best few. Potential clients exist above the funnel if data (e.g., a call from the prospective client wanting information or acquiring information from personal sources) suggest there may be a possible fit between the salesperson’s products or services and the needs of the potential client. The salesperson’s emphasis at this level is to gather information and then develop and qualify prospects.

Potential clients are then filtered to the next level of the sales funnel. If clients are placed in the funnel (rather than above it), then the possibility of a sale has been verified. Verification occurs once a buying influence has been contacted and indicates that the organization is in either a growth or trouble response mode. Remember that these two response modes represent ideal conditions for a sale to occur.

When all the buying influences have been identified, red flags have been eliminated, and win-results have been addressed, sales prospects can be moved from in the funnel to the “best few.” At this final level of the sales funnel, the sale is expected to happen roughly 90 percent of the time.

Ideal customers

The ideal customer concept in strategic selling extends the notion of the sales funnel. In this case, all potential customers outside the funnel are evaluated against the hypothetical “ideal customer.” The strategic sales process is based on the belief that every sale is not a good sale. The ideal customer profile is constructed to cut down on the unrealistic prospects that should not be in the sales funnel in the first place.

When constructing the ideal customer profile, the salesperson must judge each prospect with respect to organizational demographics, psychographics, and corporate culture. Current prospects can then be evaluated against the ideal customer profile to determine whether additional time and energy should be invested.

Sales promotions

Another promotion infix element that communicates to large audiences is sales promotions. Sales promotions are a variety of short-term, promotional activities that are designed to stimulate immediate product demand. A recent Taco Bell sales promotion illustrates how a simple game promotion can affect redemption sales techniques.

Over the years a variety of professional and amateur teams have enticed fans through sales promotions. For example, millions of fans have been part of the Chalupa-hungry crowds that have flooded NBA markets. Markets such as Cleveland, Dallas, and Portland have utilized the 100-point Taco Bell Chalupa promotion for years. In fact, the Mavericks have reached a Chalupa milestone, securing their 100th win in a row when the team has scored 100 points or more; now that is a Chalupa accomplishment. The promotion dates back to the Chalupa’s inception in 1999 and is not directly tied to Taco Bell Corporate. The first NBA promotion occurred in Seattle, with the Sonics, when the local Taco Bell owners partnered with the NBA franchise. However, it was not until approximately 10 years later that the promotion became famous. Before a national audience, Cleveland fans booed then team icon LeBron James for selfishly dribbling out the clock at the end of a 99–93 Cavaliers’ victory, thereby denying the fans their rightful Chalupas.

Other examples of these redemption strategies include: the NBA Philadelphia 76rs and their 100 point redemption of a Big Mac through McDonald’s; The St. Louis Blues of the NHL introduced a Dairy Queen Blizzard coupon giveaway which affords fans the opportunity for a free Blizzard when the Blues score five goals or more. Other NHL teams such as the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders offer promotions which allow fans to redeem their ticket for a free Wendy’s chili when their home teams score three goals or more.

In addition, some teams utilize sales promotions outside the core environment. For example, creativity afforded the Detroit Pistons faithful the opportunity to interact with their players when conducting a promotion for a free gas giveaway. Not only did the fans have the opportunity to win a $200 gas gift card, but the promotion provided the public a chance to chat and secure autographs while the Detroit Pistons players pumped the gas to fill up their tanks. The promotion generated an enormous amount of publicity for the team.

The sales promotions used in sports marketing come in all shapes and sizes. Think about some of the sales promotions with which you may be familiar. Classic examples might include the Bud Bowl; Straight-A Night or all you can eat at the ballpark; coupons for reduced green fees at public golf courses; a sweepstakes to win a free trip to the Super Bowl; seat upgrades to courtside recliners; or Coke’s Win-a-Player Promotion.

Minor League Baseball has always been known for its creative sales promotions. For example, the Sacramento River Cats have partnered up with Miller Brewing Company at Raley Field for Miller Lite Thirsty Thursdays where $2 Miller beers and music keep the party going all night long. The River Cats gain the attention of fans on Tuesdays with the introduction of Kraft Singles Tuesday Nights, where tickets are buy one get one free courtesy of Kraft, making the River Cats Tuesday home games a steal for the deal. As stated in the definition, all forms of sales promotions are designed to increase short-term sales. Additional objectives may include increasing brand awareness, broadening distribution channels, reminding consumers about the offering, or inducing a trial to win new customers. To accomplish these objectives, sports marketers use a variety of sales promotion tools.

When the NHL returned to the ice following a lengthy work stoppage, Molson hired Grand Central Marketing to execute a grassroots promotion that would rekindle excitement among fans and position the brand as the beer of choice for hockey fans. The Molson Goalies program took place in seven NHL cities in the weeks leading up to the start of hockey season. In each market, teams of six brand ambassadors wearing Molson-logoed goalie uniforms made unannounced appearances in high traffic locations, outside stadiums and arenas, and in bars. They entertained consumers with goal scoring contests, hockey trivia questions, and games. Wherever the goalies went, they gave away Molson-branded premiums including T-shirts, hats, stress hockey pucks, inflatable goalie sticks, goalie bags, and jerseys.

The promotion succeeded in its “goal” of reaching hockey fans and closely aligning Molson with the sport. Over the course of the promotion, more than 30,000 premiums were distributed. Not only did the goalies cause a stir among consumers, but the local media also took notice. The goalies appeared on television ten times and their photos were in the newspaper seven times.

In a collegiate example, the University of Iowa Hawkeyes promotes men’s and women’s gymnastics by offering fans a pair of free sunglasses. Along with this giveaway, the Hawkeyes have redemption opportunities for free t-shirts and use other promotions to enhance interaction with the fans.

In 2008 Taco Bell was also involved in a MLB “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” World Series promotion. If an eligible base was stolen during the World Series games, Taco Bell made an announcement through selected media channels that consumers could obtain their free taco. Everyone in line at participating Taco Bell restaurants before 6 P.M. local time received a free taco. Giving away the free tacos was pretty much a sure thing, but it garnered little attention for the league.

Premiums

Premiums are probably the sales promotion technique most associated with traditional sports marketing. Premiums are items given away with the sponsor’s product as part of the sales promotion. Baseball cards, NASCAR model car replicas, water bottles, hats, refrigerator magnets, posters, bobbleheads, and almost anything else imaginable have been given away at sporting events. Although premiums are often given away to spectators at events, they can also be associated with other sporting promotions. For example, both Sports Illustrated and ESPN magazines give away hats, T-shirts, and videos to induce potential consumers to subscribe. In another example, many credit card companies are giving away hats with the logo of the fan’s favorite team for applying for a line of credit.

Perhaps the most effective and exciting premium over the past several years has been the bobblehead. The Triple-A Pacific Coast League Portland Beavers, a Padres affiliate, “sent letters to every Bob L. Head they could find” and asked them to submit an essay “explaining why they should be cast as a miniature, head-bobbing figurine.” The team narrowed its search to three finalists and the winner had his bobblehead given out to the first 2,000 fans who attended the team’s game against the Las Vegas 51s. Who knows what the next premium craze might be in sports?

In 2010 MLB teams dramatically increased their use of premiums to offset the drastically reduced consumer spending and the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. There was a 16 percent increase over the 2009 expenditures and a 25 percent jump compared to 2008.⁵⁰ Sport marketers have traditionally used premiums to increase sales for lower demand games. In the past, popular premiums included items such as hats and bats or low cost items such as pens, pencils, or magnets. Today teams have developed sophisticated models to accurately measure the incremental revenue generated by premiums. They often have to integrate value components while accounting for other variables such as strength of opponent, weather, and the day of the game. Today’s consumers demand a higher level of sophistication in the products and although the premium cost is paid for by corporate sponsors, the Sport Business Journal reports that professional teams are now including giveaways for weekend and higher demand games even where there are much smaller potential revenue gains from ticket sales.⁵¹

Photo 10.4 Athlete signing autographs

Source: Shutterstock.com

Although premiums can bring people to games who would not otherwise attend, they can also have negative consequences and must be carefully planned. In the now defunct World Hockey Association (WHA), the Philadelphia Blazers handed out souvenir pucks at the first home game. Unfortunately, the game had to be postponed because the ice was deemed unfit for skating. When the Blazers’ Derek Sanderson announced the game cancellation to the crowd at center ice, he was pelted with the pucks.⁵² In a similar scenario, the LA Dodgers had to forfeit a game because fans began throwing baseballs (that they had been given) onto the field, endangering players and other fans. The Dodgers can also be used to illustrate the height of premium marketing. In 1984, the Los Angeles Olympic Games created a region-wide craze for pin collecting. Sensing the “legs” of this mania, the Dodgers created six pin-giveaway nights at their stadium. They picked games that would typically have low attendance. The result was that all six of these games sold out on the strength of a $0.60 per unit collector’s pin!

Contests and sweepstakes

Sweepstakes and contests are another sales promotional tool used by sports marketers to generate awareness and interest among consumers. Contests are competitions that award prizes on the basis of contestants’ skills and ability, whereas sweepstakes are games of chance or luck. As with any sales promotion, the sports marketing manager must attempt to integrate the contest or sweepstakes with the other promotion mix elements and keep the target market in mind.

Web 10.8 Philadelphia Eagles reach out to the community

Source: PhiladelphiaEagles.com

One of the classic contests sponsored by the NFL was the punt, pass, and kick competition. In this competition, young athletes competed for a chance to appear on the finals of nationally televised NFL games, making the NFL the winner for promoting youth sports. Other contests have capitalized on the growing popularity of rotisserie sports. Dugout Derby, Pigskin Playoff, and Fairway Golf are all examples of “rotisserie” contests conducted via toll-free numbers where fans could earn prizes for choosing the best fantasy team or athletes. In return, marketers capture a rich database of potential consumers.

As sweepstakes become more and more popular, companies are constantly looking for new ways to break through the clutter. Consider this tremendous opportunity for race fans offered by General Motors. General Motor’s Camaro Giveaway Sweepstakes provided an opportunity for loyal fans to win a Chevy Camaro SS vehicle and trip to Daytona Beach, Florida for the Coke Zero 400 NASCAR Race. The winning fan will receive a trip package that includes roundtrip transportation for two, two night’s accommodation in a hotel, two tickets to the Coke Zero 400 race, a meet and greet with Jimmie Johnson, and $500 spending money.

In a more recent example, billionaire Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, partnered up and insured the Quicken Loans sponsoring of the “Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge”. Quicken Loans President and Chief Marketing Office Jay Farner noted that they had seen a lot of contests offering a million dollar prize which got them thinking what was the perfect bracket [correctly predicting the outcome of every game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament] worth?⁵³ The result’s a big “B”, a billion dollar sweepstakes with a grand prize that includes a $500 million payout or $25 million a year for the next 40 years. Farner added, their mission is to create amazing experiences for their clients and a billion dollar giveaway definitely fits that bill.⁵⁴ Now that’s a sweepstakes!

Another recent sweepstakes includes the ESPN Zone Baltimore Ultimate Couch Potato Contest, which is a competition to see who can watch the most continuous television sports coverage among the four chosen finalists. Finalists were chosen based on a required 200 word essay discussing why they should be selected as a finalist. One grand prize winner received a gift certificate to Best Buy in the amount of $1,000, one XZipIt Recliner chair with the logo of the winner’s choosing, payment to cover one year of cable bills, a $500 ESPN Zone game card, $500 in food and beverage certificates, and an ESPN Zone Ultimate Couch Potato Trophy.

Other sweepstakes are taking advantage of the Internet as well as the use of mobile devices. Networks such as CBS, ESPN, and Fox offer a variety of opportunities for fantasy football, NASCAR, and baseball enthusiasts through interactive play and chances to compete against analysts. These sweepstakes have grand prizes targeted toward individual players as well as entire leagues. Many of them require the use and exchange of data over the Internet and mobile devices therefore enhancing the opportunity for these networks to secure user profiles. Other sports agencies such as Nike have a multitude of sweepstakes available for the consumer. Niketown.com provides an opportunity for consumers to win gear for a year, which is $1,200 worth of merchandise. Nike promotes to its basketball fans by affording one lucky winner the opportunity for an autographed Kobe Bryant/Aston Martin footwear set. In addition, this sweepstakes provides 220 lucky patrons a place in line at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California to purchase the collectible packs, which include two pairs of footwear and a Kobe AM leather jacket. Nike provides its golf patrons with opportunities to win three golf vacations as well as provides opportunities through other sweepstakes to exerience Nike’s golf and research development facility known as “The Oven.” This includes air transportation for the winner and a guest to Fort Worth, lodging and meals, an insider’s tour of “The Oven,” a round of golf, a chance to demo the latest Nike golf clubs and equipment; entrance into the final round of the Colonial PGA Tournament, and a Nike golf apparel head-to-toe gift pack.

In yet another example, the Miami Dolphins held a sweepstakes giving fans a chance to win tickets to the game against the Giants at London’s Wembley Stadium. New season-ticket holders were automatically entered three times, while other fans could enter at http://miamidolphins.com. The grand prize included round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, Royal Box tickets to the game, and passes to NFL pre-parties for four fans.

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The Philadelphia Flyers and visitphilly.com granted fans a chance to win a trip for two to Philadelphia for the Ultimate Flyers VIP Experience. The grand prize package included tours of Wells Fargo Center, deluxe hotel accommodations, roundtrip airfare, dinner for two inside Cadillac Grill, a merchandise package, a Love Philadelphia XOXO giftbag, and a pair of premium lower level seats.

For those with a taste for horses, a gourmet luncheon, Kentucky Derby party atmosphere, and ringside seats with spectacular views await a lucky VIP patron at the Fidelity Investments Jumper Classic presented by Porsche. This equestrian event affords fans the opportunity to watch in an elegant setting some of the nation’s top riders and horses. Additional amenities include enjoying a sampling of local liquors and wines while the ladies can participate in a hat contest judged by a panel of local magazine editors.

Sampling

One of the most effective ways of inducing customers to try new products that are being introduced is sampling. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to give away a small portion of a sporting event. However, sports have been known to put on exhibitions to give consumers a “taste” for the game. Squash demonstration matches have been held in the middle of New York’s Grand Central Station, attracting thousands of fans who would have never otherwise been exposed to the sport. The Olympics, of course, have used demonstration sports since 1904, in sports such as roller hockey and bandy (soccer on ice), to provide a “sample” of the action to spectators. If fan interest is high enough (i.e., attendance), the sport can then become a medal sport in the next Olympiad.

In yet another example, the NCAA has often partnered with a variety of companies to provide product samples to consumers to be distributed in conjunction with NCAA March Madness. Examples include the distribution of one million samples of Nivea for Men where employees outfitted as referees, cheerleaders, and basketball players distributed the products both on college campuses and in the streets to prospective consumers. In a more recent example of sampling, Kraft Foods’ U.S. Snacks business teamed with the NCAA and CBS Sports to become an Official NCAA Corporate Partner for several of its flagship snack brands, including Planters, Ritz, Oreo and Wheat Thins. The partnership includes promotional and marketing rights for the NCAA and all 89 of its men’s and women’s championships. The initial sampling effort during NCAA March Madness featured Wheat Thins snacks and two of the company’s newest snack products: Ritz Munchables pretzel crisps and Planters Flavor Grove almonds and cashews. In addition, in people were able to follow Mr. Peanut’s Road to the NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis by becoming fans of Mr. Peanut on Facebook.

Point-of-purchase displays

Point-of-purchase or P-O-P displays have long been used by marketers to attract consumers’ attention to a particular product or retail display area. These displays or materials, such as brochures, cut-outs, and banners, are most commonly used to communicate price reductions or other special offers to consumers. For instance, tennis racquet manufacturers, such as Prince, design huge tennis racquets, which are then displayed in the storefronts of many tennis retail shops to catch the attention of consumers. The Super Bowl, an American classic, provides a forum where many official sponsors and non-sponsors of the game utilize point-of-purchase display tie-ins to interact and attract consumers.

Companies like Heineken have been innovative with their use of point-of-purchase displays with events such as the U.S. Open. Heineken launched an upscale aluminum bottle to U.S. consumers and the bottle when viewed under a black light revealed hidden patterns of stars and trails. In addition to the black light properties, the 16-ounce bottle displayed a progressive European design which further indicated the upscale style and attitude to Heineken’s consumers.

Coupons

Another common sales promotion tool is the coupon. Coupons are certificates that generally offer reductions in price for sports products. Coupons may appear in print advertisements, as part of the product’s package, inserted within the product packaging, be mailed to consumers, printed on or part of an admissions ticket, or be offered as part of a social media strategy. Labeled by many to be a new “social sport” couponing offers an inexpensive way to try something new, often with an emphasis on local business. In fact, the business has its own terminology; for example, “stacking” means using both a manufacturer’s coupon and store coupon for purchase. Consumer’s reasons for utilizing coupons range from critical issues like the economy to simpler reasons such as freeing up more money to spend on fun activities. The idea for many of being able to go out for a meal with friends or family at a discounted price, while also trying out a new sport venue, game or show is a valuable brand asset. Today many organizations utilize social media platforms to gain exposure to key demographics. Surprisingly, the demographic users are wealthier and younger than most people would expect. In many instances, it provides a business a unique opportunity to attract new customers, without spending a fortune on advertising. Couponing is a great way to get people to attend an event, but the task of turning it into repeat purchase or profit lies with the business. For example, utilizing couponing to secure patrons to participate at a fitness center or bowling alley is one thing, getting them to repeat the use or purchase is another. Although coupons have been found to induce short-term sales, there are disadvantages. For instance, some marketers believe continual coupon use can detract from the image of the product in the minds of consumers. It is not a forum that should be utilized with every game or event, but may be utilized several times a year and continue to attract consumers. Another concern is that couponing only affords business an opportunity to make back a portion of the profit. In addition, most coupon redemption is done by consumers who already use the product, therefore limiting the use of coupons to attract new customers.

Public relations

The final element in the promotional mix that we discuss is public relations. Quite often, public relations get confused with other promotional mix elements. Public relations often gets mistaken for publicity. This is an easy mistake to make because the goals of public relations and publicity are to provide communication that will enhance the image of the sports entity (athlete, team, or league). Before we make a distinction between public relations and publicity, let us define public relations.Public relations is the element of the promotional mix that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between the sports organizations and the various publics on which its success or failure depends.

Within the definition of public relations, reference is made to the “various publics” with which the sports organization interacts. Brooks divides these publics into the external publics, which are outside the immediate control of sports marketers, and the internal publics, which are more directly controlled by sports marketers. The external publics include the community (e.g., city and state officials, community members, corporations), sanctioning bodies (e.g., NCAA), intermediary publics (e.g., sports marketing agencies), and competition (e.g., other sports or entertainment choices). The internal publics, such as volunteers, employees, suppliers, athletes, and spectators, are associated with manufacturing, distributing, and consuming the sport itself.

Sports marketers have a variety of public relations tools they can use to communicate with the internal and external publics. The choice of tools depends on the public relations objective, the targeted audience, and how public relations are being integrated into the overall promotional plan. These tools and techniques include generating publicity (news releases or press conferences), participating in community events, producing written materials (annual report or press guides), and even lobbying (personal selling necessary for stadium location decisions).

Former Notre Dame’s sports information director Roger Valdiserri is regarded by some to be the best ever at his profession. Though maybe best known for the changing of Joe Theismann’s name from THEES-man to THEIS-man – which happened to rhyme with Heisman, Valdiserri, in his 30 year tenure, pioneered the use of a variety of publicity concepts that are still in use today. For example, he prerecorded coach Ara Parseghian’s answers and presented them to the media, thereby dramatically reducing the time that Parseghian had to spend meeting enormous media demands. He was the king of balancing precious access time. He maximized constituents’ effort by affording individuals the opportunity to just do their jobs.

One of the most important and widely used public relations tools is publicity. Publicity is the generation of news in the broadcast or print media about a sports product. The news about a sports product is most commonly disseminated to the various sports publics through news releases and press conferences. Although public relations efforts are managed by the sports organization, publicity can sometimes come from external sources. As such, publicity might not always enhance the image of the sports product. Research by Funk and Pritchard (2005) noted that less committed readers tended to recall more facts from negative articles, while committed fans tended to counter-argue with more favorable thoughts.⁵⁶ Because publicity is often outside the control of the sports organization, it is seen as a highly credible source of communication. Information that is coming from “unbiased” sources, such as magazines, newspaper articles, or the televised news, is perceived to be more trustworthy.

In addition to publicity, another powerful public relations tool used to enhance the sports organization’s image is community involvement. A study was conducted to determine what, if anything, professional sports organizations are doing in the area of community relations. The survey specifically examined the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB to determine how they are involved in community relations and how important community relations are to their overall marketing program. All the responding teams indicated they were involved in some sort of community program, with the most common form of community involvement being (1) sponsoring public programs (e.g., food and toy drives, medical programs and services, auctions, and other fund raisers); (2) requiring time commitment from all of the sports organizations’ employees; (3) partially funding programs; and (4) providing personnel at no charge. Interestingly, the study found no differences among the importance of community relations by type of league. In other words, the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB are all equally involved in community relations.⁵⁷

For example, the Green Bay Packers community outreach program takes many forms. The Packers sponsor special fundraising events, make donations of cash and memorabilia to many charitable organizations, make personal appearances and serve on various community boards and commissions. The Cleveland Browns have many diverse offerings as well. A few highlights include: Annually the Cleveland Browns Foundation positively impacts the lives of more than 10,000 children in NE Ohio; Browns players have participated in the NFL-USO All-Star tour; with the Browns Play 60 Challenge students logged more than 7 million minutes of activity; Browns staff have volunteered to support multiple initiatives offered through the organization, accumulating more than 2000 hours of volunteer service.⁵⁸ The NFL and United Way have partnered, e.g., NFL Hometown Huddle program, in an ongoing effort to inspire people to become more engaged in the community. Campaigns such as NFL United Way and NFL Play 60 afford each organization within the league the opportunity to put their added touches to impact the community locally, all the while retaining national identity and publicity. The NFL Play 60 goal is to make the next generation of youth the most active and healthy.

Other examples of the community involvement and outreach component of public relations are shown with the Nashville Predators, Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Predators players took part in Predators Community Day, a “day of service where nearly every member of the team made an appearance in Middle Tennessee” and interacted with fans at locations including the airport, Supercuts, and Hardee’s. The idea was to expand on the normal team participation events by making it a day-long experience.”

The Philadelphia Eagles reimburses its employees living in the Philadelphia region and New Jersey who purchase wind energy, making it the first organization to pick up this type of cost for employees. The Eagles presented their Go Green program, which was launched in 2003, during the NFL Business Summit in 2007, as other NFL team representatives shared best practices in the areas of business, marketing, and community relations. Eagles owner Christina Lurie noted that they hope to serve as an example for NFL teams and the corporate sector. “The topic of greening in sports is especially important in cities like Philadelphia with professional teams and sports arenas. Game days have a huge environmental impact considering traffic, trash, energy and material consumption, and water use. They are also opportunities for education and awareness.”⁵⁹

The Pittsburgh Pirates continue their community-minded tradition of donating half the ticket sales from a handful of games to such programs as the Boys & Girls Clubs, the United Way of Manatee County, the Manatee Education Foundation, and Wakeland Elementary School, which is located across the street from the Pirate City training complex. Additionally, the organization held a PirateFest street celebration, staged before the game against the Minnesota Twins. The festival featured numerous family activities and free player autographs. Taking another step to cement the bond between team and city, the Pirates increased their charitable efforts. Pitchers Matt Capps and Josh Sharpless and the Pirate Parrot mascot visited children in the pediatric unit of Manatee Memorial Hospital.

The Pirates also held a three-day silent auction inside McKechnie Field that raised almost $8,000 for the Foundation for Dreams Inc., which provides fun, educational, and recreational experiences at Dream Oaks Camp for children with physical and developmental disabilities and serious illnesses. A Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins hockey jersey drew the top bid of $1,500. “We want to make sure we’re always giving back to the community, since the city of Bradenton and Manatee County have been so generous to us,” said Trevor Gooby, the Pirates’ director of Florida operations. “As part of our efforts, we try to help a lot of (charitable) groups in Manatee County throughout the course of the year that need items for a silent auction or a golf tournament.”⁶⁰

Although community involvement benefits any number of stakeholders in the organization, it is typically more than philanthropy alone. As suggested in the accompanying article, sports entities are reaping the rewards of their goodwill.

Summary

Chapter 10 focuses on gaining a better understanding of the various promotional mix elements. Advertising is one of the most visible and critical promotional mix elements.

Although most of us associate advertising with developing creative slogans and jingles, there is a systematic process for designing effective advertisements. Developing an advertising campaign consists of a series of five interrelated steps, which include formulating objectives, designing an ad budget, making creative decisions, choosing a media strategy, and evaluating the advertisement.

Advertising objectives and budgeting techniques are similar to those discussed in Chapter 9 for the broader promotion planning process. Advertising objectives are sometimes categorized as either direct or indirect. Direct advertising objectives, such as advertising by sports organizations to end users and sales promotion advertising, are designed to stimulate action among consumers of sport. Alternatively, the goal of indirect objectives is to make consumers aware, enhance the image of the sport, or provide information to consumers. After objectives have been determined, budgets for the advertising campaign are considered. Budget techniques, such as competitive parity, objective and task, arbitrary allocation, and percentage of sales, are commonly used by advertisers.

Once the objectives and budget have been established, the creative process is considered. The creative process identifies the ideas and the concept of the advertisement. To develop the concept for the advertisement, benefits of the sports product must be identified; ad appeals (e.g., health, emotional, fear, sex, and pleasure) are designed; and advertising execution decisions (e. g., comparative advertisements, slice of life, and scientific) are made. After creative decisions are crafted, the next phase of the advertising campaign is to design media strategy. Media strategy includes decisions about how the medium (e.g., radio, television, and Internet) will be most effective and how to best schedule the chosen media.

Another communications tool that is part of the promotional mix is personal selling. Personal selling is unique in that person-to-person communication is required rather than mass communication. In other words, a salesperson must deliver the message face to face to the intended target audience rather than through some medium (e.g., a magazine) that is not personal. Although there are many advantages to personal selling, perhaps none is greater than the ability to use personal selling to develop long-term relationships with customers.

In today’s competitive sports marketing environment, a number of strategies have been developed to maximize personal selling effectiveness. One process, designed by Miller and Heiman, is called the strategic selling process and consists of six elements. The elements, which must be considered for successful selling, include buying influences, red flags, response modes, win-results, the sales funnel, and the ideal customer profile.

Sales promotions are another element in the promotional mixes that are designed primarily to stimulate consumer demand for products. One of the most widely used forms of sales promotion in sports marketing includes premiums, or items that are given away with the core product being purchased. In addition, contests and sweepstakes, free samples, point- of purchase displays, and coupons are forms of sales promotion that often are integrated into the broader promotional mix.

A final promotional mix element considered in Chapter 10 is public, or community, relations. Public relations is the element of the promotional mix that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between the sports organization and the various publics on which its success or failure depends. These publics include the community, sanctioning bodies, intermediary publics, and competition. Other publics include employees, suppliers, participants, and spectators. The tools with which messages are communicated to the various publics include generating publicity, participating in community events, producing written materials such as annual reports and press releases, and lobbying.

Key terms

  advertising

  advertising appeals

  advertising budgeting

  advertising execution

  advertising objectives

  attractiveness

  buying influences

  coach’s role

  community involvement

  comparative advertisements

  continuous schedule

  coupons

  creative brief

  creative decisions

  creative process

  credibility

  direct objectives

  economic buying role

  emotional appeals

  even keel mode

  expertise

  fear appeals

  flighting schedule

  frequency

  growth mode

  health appeals

  ideal customer

  indirect objectives

  lifestyle advertisements

  media scheduling

  media strategy

  one-sided versus two-sided

  overconfident mode

  personal selling

  pleasure or fun appeals

  P-O-P displays

  premiums

  promotional mix elements

  public relations

  pulsing schedule

  reach

  relationship marketing

  response modes

  roles

  sales funnel

  sales promotions

  sampling

  scientific advertisements

  sex appeals

  slice-of-life advertisements

  stacking

  stadium signage

  strategic selling

  sweepstakes and contests

  technical buying role

  testimonials

  trouble mode

  trustworthiness

  user buying role

  win-results

Review questions

1.  What are the major steps in developing an advertising campaign?

2.  Explain direct advertising objectives versus indirect advertising objectives.

3.  Describe the creative decision process. What are the three outcomes of the creative process?

4.  Discuss, in detail, the major advertising appeals used by sports marketers. Provide at least one example of each type of advertising appeal.

5.  What are the executional formats commonly used in sports marketing advertising?

6.  Comment on the advantages and disadvantages of using athlete endorsers in advertising.

7.  What two decisions do advertisers make in developing a media strategy? What are the four basic media scheduling alternatives? Provide an example of each type of media scheduling.

8.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative forms of advertising available to sports marketers.

9.  When is personal selling used by sports marketers? Describe, in detail, the steps in the strategic selling process.

10.  Describe the various forms of sales promotion available to sports marketers.

Exercises

1.  Design a creative advertising strategy to increase participation in Little League Baseball.

2.  Design a survey instrument to assess the source credibility of 10 professional athletes (of your choice) and administer the survey to 10 individuals. Which athletes have the highest levels of credibility, and why?

3.  Attend a professional or collegiate sporting event and describe all the forms of advertising you observe. Which forms of advertising do you feel are particularly effective, and why?

4.  Visit a sporting goods retailer and describe all the sales promotion tools that you observe. Which forms of sales promotion do you believe are particularly effective, and why?

5.  Interview the director or manager of ticket sales for a professional organization or collegiate sports program to determine their sales process. How closely does their sales process follow the strategic selling process outlined in this chapter?

6.  Interview the marketing department (or director of community/public relations) from a professional organization or collegiate sports program to determine the extent of their community or public relations efforts. How do sports organizations decide in which community events or activities to participate?

Internet exercises

1.  Using the Internet, find two examples of advertisements for sports products that use indirect objectives and two examples of advertisements that use direct objectives.

2.  Find 10 advertisements on the Internet for sports products and describe the executional format for each advertisement. Which type of execution format is most commonly used for Internet advertising?

Endnotes

1  MKTGINC, Portfolio, Nike World Basketball Festival. Available from: http://mktg.com/#/project/nike-world-basketball-festival/wbf-page-1, accessed March 17, 2014.

2  Ibid.

3  See, for example, Joel Evans and Barry Berman, Marketing, 6th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 610.

4  IBISWorld, “Gym, Health & Fitness Clubs Market Research Report,t | NAICS 71394” (| February 2014). Available from: http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1655, accessed May 9, 2014.

5  Ibid.

6  “Physical Activity & Older Americans,” Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (June 2010).

7  William A. Sutton, Mark A. McDonald, George R. Milne, and John Cimperman, “Creating and Fostering Fan Identification in Professional Sports,” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1 (1997), 15–22.

8  “Maria Sharapova Inks Deal with Tiffany & Co.” BrandDunk (May 22, 2008).

9  “Maria Sharapova Signs Three-Year Sponsorship Deal With Samsung,” www.bloomberg.com (April 3, 2012).

10  Mark Levit, “Sex in Advertising: Does it Sell?” Partners & Levit Advertising – Alrakboa Sundanese Website. Available from: http://www.alrakoba.net/articles2/showarticle.php?article=2120, accessed June 22, 2014.

11  Dan Patrick, “Hope Solo Talks About Effect of Sex Appeal In Marketing Female Athletes,” The Dan Patrick Show (August 22, 2011).

12  Brent Kelley, “Wilhelmina W7 photos,” About.com Sports Golf. Available from: http://golf.about.com/od/golferswomen/ss/wilhelmina7.htm, accessed June 22, 2014.

13  Alan Shipnuck, “Is Marketing the Sex Appeal of LPGA Golfers Good for the Game?” Sports Illustrated (July 2009). Available from: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2011/08/24/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Hope-Solo.aspx.

14  Kevin Seifert, “Enough Is Enough,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (April 11, 2007), 3C.

15  Rachel Blount, “Selling Sex and Sports Isn’t Working,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (April 16, 2007).

16  William Wei, “Tiger Woods lost $22 Million in Endorsement in 2010,” Businesslnsider.com (July 2010).

17  “Rosie Ruiz Tries to Steal the Boston Marathon” Running Times (July 1, 1980). Available from: http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-miscellaneous/rosie-ruiz-tries-steal-boston-marathon, accessed March 19, 2014.

18  Christian Red, Teri Thompson, and Michael O’Keeffe, “Feds Unleash a Bonds Blast: Indictment Hits HR King for Lying, Obstruction,” New York Daily News (November 16, 2007), 90.

19  Craig Christopher, “Top 10 Worst Sporting Cheats from Around the Globe,” BleacherReport (April 13, 2010).

20  Viv Bernstein, “No More Cutting Corners as NASCAR Seeks a Clean Start,” The New York Times (February 18, 2007), 1.

21  “NASCAR Revamps its Penalty Structure, Appeals Process,” Dothanfirst.com (February 4, 2014). Available from: http://www.dothanfirst.com/story/d/story/nascar-revamps-its-penalty-structure-appeals-proce/22217/tJ2ppMXyC0iwq9KJ2Ok7tA, accessed March 19, 2014.

22  Kevin Seifert, “Enough Is Enough,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (April 11, 2007), 3C.

23  Terry Lefton, “The Post-Mike Millennium – Gatorade Advertising, Post-Michael Jordan,” Brandweek (January 3, 2000).

24  Rich Thomaselli, “$192 Million: Nike Bets Big on Range of Endorsers,” Advertising Age (January 5, 2004), 8.

25  Mark Hyman, “Dead Men Don’t Screw Up Ad Campaigns,” Business Week (March 10, 1997), 115.

26  Thales Teixeira, “World Cup Soccer: 770 Billion Minutes Of Attention,” Forbes.com (June 13, 2014). Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2014/06/13/world-cup-soccer-770-billion-minutes-of-attention/, accessed June 22, 2014.

27  Ibid.

28  Kurt Badenhausen, “NFL Stadiums: By the Numbers,” Forbes.com (August 14, 2013). Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/08/14/nfl-stadiums-by-the-numbers/, accessed June 22, 2104.

29  Jay Gladden, “The Ever Expanding Impact of Technology on Sport Marketing, Part II,” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4 (1996), 9–10.

30  Douglas Turco, “The Effects of Courtside Advertising on Product Recognition and Attitude Change,” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4 (1996), 11–15.

31  Wayne Friedman, “Intermedia Measures Product Placements; Study Shows No Correlation Between Ratings, Effectiveness,” Television Week (December 15, 2003), 4.

32  Marla Matzer Rose, “Firms Gauge Product Placements,” The Hollywood Reporter (January 20, 2004).

33  George Belch and Michael Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 4th ed. (New York: Irwin, McGraw-Hill 1998), pp. 431–434.

34  Joe Layden, “Human Billboards,” in Mark McCormack’s Guide to Sports Marketing, International Sports Marketing Group (1996), 129–136.

35  “Global Games Market Report 2014,” Newszoo (May 15, 2014). Available from: http://www.newzoo.com/insights/global-games-market-will-reach-102-9-billion-2017, accessed June 23, 2014.

36  Entertainment Software Association, “In-Game Advertising.” Available from: http://www.theesa.com/games-improving-what-matters/advertising.asp, accessed June 23, 2014.

37  Terry Lefton, “Will In-Game Advertising Catch Fire?” Sports Business Journal (January 15, 2007), 19.

38  Ibid.

39  “Online Insights: Sports Fans and Digital Media A Scorecard on Preferences and Behaviors,” BurstMedia (September 2012). Available from: http://burstmedia.com/pdf/burst_media_online_insights_2012_09.pdf, accessed June 23, 2014.

40  “Sports Fans Turn to Content Online to Stay Informed,” PR Newswire (2012). Available from: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sports-fans-turn-to-content-online-to-stay-informed-174570471.html, accessed June 23. 2014.

41  Nora Macaluso, “One Year Ago: Report: New Profile for ‘Typical’ Web Surfer,” E-CommerceTimes.com (October 16, 2001). Available from: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/14057.html, accessed June 22, 2014.

42  Masha Geller, “Reaching Young Sports Fans Online,” MediaPostNews (March 12, 2003). Available from: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/16862/reaching-young-sports-fans-online.html.

43  “Sports Fans Twice as Likely to Watch Videos on Mobile Phones,” European Interactive Advertising Association (June 2008).

44  Raechel Johns, “Sports Promotion & The Internet,” Cyber-Journal of Sport Marketing vol.1, no. 4 (1997). Available from:, http://fulltext.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/1997/cjsm/v1n4/johns.htm.

45  Fred Beasley, Matthew Shank, and Rebecca Ball, “Do Super Bowl Viewers Watch the Commercials?” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 3 (1998), 33–40.

46  Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Marketing: An Introduction, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997).

47  Sean Brenner, “Pursuing Relationships in Professional Sport,” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2 (1997), 33–34.

48  Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman, Strategic Selling (New York: Warner Books, 1985).

49  Mark Maske and Les Carpenter, “Player Arrests Put the NFL in a Defensive Mode,” WashingtonPost.com (December 16, 2006). Available from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/15/AR2006121502134.html, accessed June 23, 2014.

50  David Broughton, “Giveaways Grow as the When and Why Evolve,” Street & Smith’s Sport Business Daily (November 1, 2010). Available from: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2010/11/20101101/Marketingsponsorship/Giveaways-grow-as-the-when-and-why-evolve.aspx?hl=Ping&sc=0, accessed June 23, 2014.

51  John Tulchin, “Happy Meals and Ticket Sales,” In Stadium Promotions (November 9, 2010). Available from: http://www.instadiumpromotions.com/blog/uncategorized/premiums/, accessed June 23, 2014.

52  Ed Willes, “A Legacy of Slapstick and Slap Shots,” New York Times (November 30, 1997), 33.

53  Rob Dauster, “How a Perfect NCAA Tournament Bracket Will Win You a Billion Dollars,” Collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com (January 21, 2014). Available from: http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/21/how-a-perfect-ncaa-tournament-bracket-will-win-you-a-billion-dollars/, accessed March 21, 2014.

54  Ibid.

55  “NBA Pick Your Play Sweepstakes.” Available from: http://www.nba.com/webAction?actionId=surveyInitialize&target=/analysis/nba_start_of_the_season.jsp&surveyId=1316.

56  Daniel C. Funk and Mark P. Pritchard, “Sports Publicity: Commitment’s Moderation of Message Effects,” Journal of Business Research, vol. 59, no. 5 (2006), 613–621.

57  Denise O’Connell, “Community Relations in Professional Sports Organizations,” unpublished master’s thesis, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

58  Cleveland Browns 2013 Media Guide, Cleveland Browns Incorporated (2013). Available from: http://prod.static.browns.clubs.nfl.com/assets/docs/pdf/Cleveland-Browns-Media-Guide.pdf, accessed June 23, 2014.

59  “Philadelphia Eagles to Reimburse Employees for Purchasing Wind Energy; During 2007 NFL Business Summit, Eagles Owner Christina Lurie Hopes to Send a Message,” PR Newswire US (April 11, 2007).

60  Mike Henry, “Pirates Increase Charitable Work: Team Tries to Give Back to Its Spring Home of 38 Years,” The Bradenton Herald (March 29, 2007).