Aman Bindra's Blog

The 2011 MLB season just kicked off last week and so I thought I’d write a little blurb about my favourite team, the Toronto Blue Jays. I searched up blogs about the Jays on Google and one that I really liked was http://www.spadblog.com/intern-experience-marketing-the-toronto-blue-jays/. It talks about how Sean Carroll worked as an intern for the Blue Jays marketing department and some of his favourite memories. I really enjoyed the part about him walking past former Blue Jays greats, the Blue Jays GM, and the ’92 and ’93 World Series trophies. He says that the marketing department met every Monday to discuss possible new ideas for advertising campaigns and home game promotions. That reminded of another campaign that Blue Jays GM Paul Beeston wants to embark on. There is talk of a cross-Canada advertising campaign, where the Blue Jays would play games in cities such as Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver in order to grow the brand. This seems like a great idea considering that the Jays, over the last 3 years, have averaged the highest TV ratings for their season opener. Yes, they pull in a bigger audience than even the Yankees and Red Sox on opening day. The Yankees and Red Sox pull in viewers from an approximately 20 million strong population each, while the Blue Jays have a potential 32 million viewers all across Canada. Couple that with the fact that the NBA and NHL seasons are winding down when the Blue Jays open their season, and it’s a recipe for success.

With the World Cup having ended last summer, Major League Soccer is hoping that it can capitalize on the giant surge in soccer interest in this country generated by the month-long event. Post-World Cup, MLS has seen increases in average attendance from 2009, as well as some dramatic increases in attendance post-World Cup for some franchises.  Teams are hoping to leverage high interest in the sport into stronger loyalty for their local teams and higher attendance overall.

According to MLSDaily, this year, 75% of MLS teams were experiencing an increase in average attendance from 2009. These increases have been ranging from an almost 17% increase in average attendance for the Chicago Fire to an astounding 42.97% increase for the New York Red Bulls.  While the World Cup is certainly a huge contributor to this recent surge, it’s safe to say that MLS has been building a successful product in North America for years and the league should be given credit for its ability to build strong soccer communities in various cities across the country.

Furthermore, MLS attendance is stacking up well in comparison to other soccer leagues across the globe, and even to other major sports leagues in the States.MLS’ average attendance ranks it third in North America, behind only the NFL and MLB.

The league has done a great job of marketing soccer by funding the construction of soccer stadiums throughout the States, and by signing high profile European stars such as Thierry Henry and David Beckham to play for its clubs, as well as by cashing in on the ever-popular US soccer star Landon Donovan. The league has also made a smart move by moving into a huge and previously untapped soccer market in Vancouver, whose Whitecaps are now only the second Canadian team in the MLS. The Whitecaps sold out their first 3 games and already bring a rabid following of fans who cheered for the team when it played in the NASL. The MLS can also market the already burgeoning rivalry between Toronto FC and the Whitecaps to attract an even larger Canadian following.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is a long haul as it is, but subjecting fans to the same series of commercials every weekend for roughly a month can make the road from the First Four to the Final Four seem interminable for the event’s captive audience. For sponsors and networks, however, that road is paved by millions of viewers, laid with of billions of dollars in cash stretching into a monthlong steam of revenue well worth the toll.

March Madness generated $4.8 billion in ad revenue within the past decade, according to Kantar Media. Tournament ads brought in more than $643 million from 102 advertisers in 2008 and drew drew $613 million from only 82 companies last year.

Hundreds of companies lineup to sponsor the event and have their ads played over and over and over again on CBS. However, some companies don’t even sponsor the event and never play a single commercial throughout the entire month and still gain publicity. Just take a look at the courts that the games are played on. Then take a look at the jerseys of most of the teams playing in the tournament. If you think that March Madness is a giant Nike commercial, you’re not seeing things.

Because of a rule change during the offseason requiring NCAA approval of all basketball uniforms, jerseys can now sport the manufacturer’s logo. While not affecting much of anything within the game itself, the change did Nike a big favor heading into March Madness, where 51 of the 68 schools in the tournament field wear Nike or its subsidiary Jordan brand. For a bit of perspective on how big  this is for the folks in Oregon consider that Adidas is the next biggest apparel supplier in the field and has only 10 teams’ jerseys as display space.

It’s even more of a Nikefest now that 14 of the teams in the tournament’s Sweet 16 are wearing the swoosh on their shirts. Fans and NCAA sponsors could get all lathered up about what seems like millions of dollars in free publicity for a company that isn’t even one of the event’s big donors, but ethics issues aside it’s hard to get mad at Nike for pumping their product without pausing the action.

With the impending NFL lockout next season, many fans are wondering what they will do to pass the time now that their favourite pastime is going to be absent from the television next year. Another group of people wondering how they will pass the time are the NFL players themselves. Even though these guys are multi-millionaires, they need something to fill the gap left in their daily routine, and also need to stay in shape because who knows how long the league will shut down for. For this reason, many NFL players are setting their sights on several different sports.

Star wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is going to be trying out for the Kansas City Sporting soccer team of the MLS. Superstars Lofa Tatupu and Steve Johnson are thinking of playing in the Arena Football League next season. Dallas Cowboys QB and ex-bf of Jessica Simpson, Tony Romo, is going to be trying out for Strikeforce mixed martial arts. Running back Reggie Bush is trying out for a AA baseball team in Syracuse.  The influx of NFL players into all these different leagues will only help market the leagues better. Fans of these athletes will tune in to follow their idol’s foray into a new domain, while fans of the league will tune into see how well the athleticism of professional football players translates to their favourite sport. Casual fans will be attracted to the league just to see the spectacle of an athlete trying his hand at another sport(think Michael Jordan’s baseball stint). The biggest negative out of this situation is that it will hurt the NFL’s image with fans. Players are taking shots at the league, with running back Kevin Barnett calling the commissioner a “blatant liar” while superstar Adrian Peterson compared the NFL to ”modern-day slavery”. While other leagues rejoice at the marketing coup this may represent, the NFL will have to work hard to reverse the image of amateurism and childish selfishness its players and owners are exhibiting.

I was recently reading a blog about how Aaron Rodgers is all of a sudden one of the most marketable NFL players. The blog can be found here : http://sportsmarketingblog.net/. I read the article and I have to say I disagree. I just don’t see Rodgers as being all that marketable. His career will forever be overshadowed by Brett Favre’s run in Green Bay. The article claims that his integrity and ability to stay out of tabloids and entertainment headlines is a great reason for him to be used as a major marketing tool by the NFL. However, I believe he is just a bit too bland to appeal to the masses. If you look at a guy like Tom Brady, who not only dominates the league statistically but also has a supermodel wife(Gisele Bundschen) and has been on the cover of GQ, or a guy like Peyton Manning, who is not only one of the greatest QBs of all time but also has that indelible southern charm, they are both much more appealing than Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers only real appeal is that he has stepped up and begun to fill up the giant shoes left behind by Favre, so he is much more marketable to the Green Bay faithful than all of America.

One of the key things we’ve discussed in the last few classes is the idea of branding. A corporate logo or wordmark is one of the first things to come to mind when you see a firm’s name and vice-versa. This is why in order to market yourself effectively, you should have a very unique and easy to identify logo. Companies such as McDonalds, Virgin, Toyota, and Hewlett-Packard have logos that have been in the public eye for such a long time that they have become ingrained in our culture.

One of the biggest things holding the Vancouver Canucks back is the fact that they have changed their logo so many times that they have had trouble building a strong logo to go along with the brand. Since their inception in 1970, the Canucks have gone through 6 different jersey/logo combinations changing the colours from blue/green to red/black/yellow to blue/red/silver and back to blue/green. With all this constant shifting of logos, it is difficult for most fans to picture the exact same image when they hear the name “Vancouver Canucks”. One simply has to hear the word Canadiens and picture the bleu, blanc, et rouge of the legendary Montreal “CH”, or if the word Yankees is uttered in someone’s presence, they will automatically picture the hallowed navy blue or white “NY” depending on the background. If the Canucks want to improve branding, they really need to settle down, stop with the consistent changing of colours/logos and build a strong image that all fans can identify with.

Or we could just mash up all the jerseys into one...

In the past few days, there’s been a lot of talk about the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA possibly relocating to Vancouver. However, quite a few naysayers are saying that the poor attendance figures of the past Vancouver professional basketball team, the Grizzlies, is a sign that basketball just isn’t very popular here. However, one of the reasons the Grizzlies never put butts in their seats is because they were quite frankly, terrible. The best record the team ever had was 23-59. Furthermore, a reason the Grizzlies could never put together a good marketing campaign to attract fans was the fact that they almost completely ignored a huge target segment of the population: the Asian community.

Buoyed by immigration from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, particularly during the last decade, the city’s Asian population base is among the largest in North America.

Indeed, the Asian connection played a pivotal role in the city landing the franchise back in 1994. At the time, NBA commissioner David Stern wasn’t shy in expressing his hopes for Vancouver — that it would become the NBA’s eventual gateway to Asia.

The team’s home stadium, GM Place, was located adjacent to the city’s bustling Chinatown. And the team’s birth coincided with the rising financial and political clout of the city’s Asian population.

But the team never took off with Asian fans from either side of the Pacific Ocean.

One reason was that the Grizzlies never had a bona fide Asian star. It passed up Wang Zhi Zhi, a 7-foot behemoth who played professional basketball for the Beijing Army basketball team before being passed over in the NBA draft by the Grizzlies, only to be snapped up by the Dallas Mavericks.

By the time celebrated Chinese superstar Yao Ming was available in the draft, the Grizzlies franchise was on its last legs and Yao refused to even report to the Grizzlies if he was drafted. The Grizzlies moved the following year, having lost $46 million the previous season, a number which would have been considerably smaller if they had focused on targeting the Asian market in Vancouver.

Coke or Pepsi? The eternal debate. I was reminded of this age-old question when I stumbled on the blog of one of my classmates, Lana Lauriente(https://blogs.ubc.ca/lanalauriente/). She says that Pepsi does a better job of targeting the younger demographic, which is especially evident with their slogan “taste the one that’s forever young” and the fact that they use younger celebrities to market their product. However, I was thinking that Pepsi has made some poor decisions regarding who they chose to market their products.

Pepsi has used celebrities such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey in recent years as spokespersons. Coincidentally, all had some tabloid scandals in recent years, resulting in ”trashy” images for all 3 of them. I doubt this is the way Pepsi envisioned things would turn out for them. In August of 2002, Pepsi pulled a national, 30-second commercial featuring multiplatinum rapper Ludacris from the air after reporter Bill O’Reilly called for a boycott of the soft drink company. O’Reilly characterized Pepsi as “immoral” for using the rapper, whom he described as a “rap thug.” O’Reilly referenced several of Ludacris’s lyrics, which he said emphasized a lifestyle that included getting intoxicated, selling drugs, fighting people, and degrading women.

Rap and fashion mogul Russell Simmons also objected to the idea of Pepsi running ads featuring the Osbournes, whom he called ”racially insensitive”. And let’s not all forget the backlash from Pepsi endorser Kanye West’s “George Bush does not care about black people” comment.

Although Pepsi is still in the race for cola supremacy, it seems that may be they would be in the King’s Chair instead of Coca-Cola if they had made some better choices when choosing spokespersons since a key aspect of marketing is portraying a respectable image to the public.

Los Angeles has long been known as  a Lakers town. Everywhere you go, people seem to be decked out in purple and gold. And with good reason. The Lakers as a franchise have won the most NBA championships out of any team.  In all this hub-bub, everyone seem to have forgotten about the other team that resides in the depths of the Staples Centre, the LA Clippers.

The Clippers have had one winning season in their history. Attendance figures have been in the basement of the NBA and the team seem to can’t do anything right to attract fans. But that all is about to change.

With dynamic young stars like Blake Griffin leading the charge, the Clippers have suddenly become a hot commodity. Television networks are clamoring for a chance to showcase games involving Griffin, who is quickly becoming known as the most electrifying in-game dunker in the NBA; out-muscling grown men, crushing dunks, and intimidating opponents. The Clippers new marketing campaign, centered on the team’s new players, tipped off with almost daily ads in the Los Angeles Times.

“Hi, I’m Blake Griffin” one ad starts out.

Players go on to talk about where they’re from, what they hope to accomplish, why they want to play for the Clippers.

“We had an opportunity we thought we should capitalize on,” said Carl Lahr, Clippers vice president of marketing. “We felt we needed to do a branding campaign to introduce each player and his hopes and dreams individually.”

The ads in the Times will be supplemented by radio, television and outdoor advertising in the coming weeks.

While the Clippers would not put any hard numbers on the cost of the campaign, Lahr said “it’s double what we normally have (for advertising) and is one of the largest ever in NBA history, as far as we can tell.”

The second prong of the Clippers’ print campaign is a retail piece that sells the opportunity to see visiting teams. “Big Stars. Low Prices.” is the headline on an advertisement that prominently features Miami’s Lebron James and San Antonio’s Tim Duncan.

Though the success or failure of a branding campaign is tough to measure, Lahr said the Clippers have sold 3000 new season tickets and nearly 2,000 more “Big Game” packages than at the same time last year.

If this campaign is successful, the Lake Show in LA could soon become the Blake Show.

Next time you’re at one of the local malls, just sit and watch people walk by. Take note of how many people you see wearing New York Yankees gear. Most likely, it will be a lot more than the number of people you see wearing memorabilia of other teams,  except for maybe that of the Vancouver Canucks. Surprising considering that the Yankees are located over 2,000 miles away, on the other side of the continent.

What makes the Yankees brand so popular?  The first factor is that the Yankees have utilized celebrities for years to make it seem like wearing Yankees clothing is more of a fashion statement than a show of support. I know dozens of people who have never watched a baseball game but own some kind of Yankees hat, or jacket just because they see their idols wearing it on TV. The Yankees take advantage of social influences by appealing to the millions of people who aspire to be famous like the celebrities we see on TV every day. The list of celebrities seen wearing Yankees gear in public includes Lebron James, Jay-Z, David Beckham, Scarlett Johansson, the cast of “Entourage”, and Senator Hillary Clinton.

Another marketing tool the Yankees use is the way they create an air of exclusivity around their brand. The team has the highest payroll of any team in North America (well over $200 million/year), just built a brand new billion dollar stadium, and can seemingly buy a championship at will. It has also gladly accepted the nickname, “the Evil Empire”, thereby giving it an image of power and glory. The Yankees marketing brass has seemingly tapped into the near-universal human aspirations of power and money. This is an example of influencing people through social reference groups(aspirational).

A third factor is the actual in-game experience itself. Someone within the Yankee organization has  thought through the entire fan experience. It’s much more than the game that goes on between the foul lines. It extends into the parking lots and into your homes. When booking tickets online, the site automatically directs you to a site to make parking arrangements.It automatically recognizes the date you are attending a game, presents a selection of parking lots near the stadium, and allows you to reserve and pay for a guaranteed parking spot. It also provides directions and the day after the game, you receive a “Thank you and Game Recap” email from the Yankees. It includes the box score, links to video highlights, and a schedule of upcoming games. They also ask for feedback on the experience.