In the sporting world, fans will do crazy, often unthinkable things: yell obscene things at other people, light people on fire, (go streaking?), and of course, the list continues. I was reading a blog post titled a blog post titled Cheaper Insurance Means More Money For Jays Games, and while what this person decided to do is admirable (from one Jays fan to another), it demonstrates the power of consumer loyalty.
In my opinion, the reason consumer loyalty is so powerful is because it resides with the affective side of the human psyche. In a sense, it’s a value added premium that is not easily quantifiable. Think about it, if someone asks you “how much do you love me”, you don’t often answer with a percentage or number, right? Also, in a case like this, the product is fairly consistent: it’s baseball! Although the dynamics of the product change whether the team wins and depending on the team personnel, granted, yes, but at the end of the day, someone who loves baseball, loves baseball!
Another aspect of consumer loyalty is that people are willing to go to great deals and expend considerable effort to retrieve a product, and the insurance example proves just that. Also with consumer loyalty, comes a high negligence to substitutes. For a passionate Toronto Blue Jays fan, this means refusing to cheer for other division rivals and jump on their bandwagons.
Don’t get me wrong, baseball teams and organizations know the power of consumer loyalty, that is why they strive to put forth the greatest level of talent onto the field, and on some days, they even have promotional giveaways! The aim of this is to not create fans for a day, but for a lifetime!
sport.sympatico.ca
Check out the latest Toronto Blue Jays promotional offer: a Jose Bautista bobble head doll.
-Faiz
Virtually all of the major sports that Canadian cities offer have a hard time recruiting athletes to play; the one exception to this is hockey (I’m not counting the CFL). The Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Blue Jays, Canada’s lone “major league” basketball and baseball teams respectively, suffer, because players forego the opportunity to play in Toronto, making it harder for Toronto sports GM’s and ownership groups to put forth talent worth cheering for. Putting a marketing spin on things, let’s investigate ways to lure players to play in Toronto.
It comes with no surprise that the act of managers trying to sign players is a form of personal selling, but may managers include “consumer promotion” elements, which are referred to as incentives in sports, to players as a value added bonus to signing in Canada? You bet! Teams, often include performance incentives in contracts to motivate players to play well. Also, to motivate players to sign, they may also include shares in team ownership, buy players new cars/watches, or focus advertisements on them.
In a way, teams and managers of Toronto sports teams need to be able to mimic the effects of a pull strategy to entice players to play in Toronto. On top of that, managers and teams must be able to not only grab the attention of the player, but to make the player want to play in Toronto, and then try to seal the deal (signing the contract—nothing’s official until that piece of paper has been signed!). Careful, if managers don’t know that the player is right for their organization, and then plan their contact with, and contract offer to the player, they may never get to the closing and follow up stages!
http://chatbluejays.wordpress.com/
Jose Bautista is the latest player to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays, after having a monster season last year. Last but not least, and I know this has nothing to do with my blog post, but THE BLUE JAYS SEASON OPENER IS TOMORROW! YESSSS!!! FINALLY!
-Faiz
This blog post was inspired by Sam Gregory’s “Nike, Soccer & Aspiration” (which I believe was inspired by a blog post by Jonathan Cheng). Sam tailored his blog post to the ability of a renowned company (Nike)’s ability to use aspirational social reference figures from different parts of the world (that have a common feature–the fact that they are professional soccer players) to appeal to various geographically dispersed target markets. As I have been raving about the start of the Toronto Blue Jays season (now in less than 9 days!!!!), let’s see what they have done in terms of aspirational marketing to build hype for the upcoming season!
This season, the Blue Jays have branded their main product (the physical playing of Baseball) with the following phrase: “Hustle & Heart 2.0”. The Blue Jays compete in the most competitive division in baseball, the AL East, partly because two of the richest teams in baseball (The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox)’s ability to buy any player at any price on any given day. Thus, the Blue Jays are basically a write off in many baseball fans’ mind.
The Blue Jays have in fact embraced this view, and positioned themselves as the underdogs of the division. While embracing this standpoint, they then decided to coin their play based on “Hustle & Heart” (this was last season, thus this season is H&H 2.0) as a tribute to the players that they are shaping their organization around (read the last few blog posts to learn more).
All in all, the underlying message is “Hustle & Heart” is what the Blue Jays think is needed to beat the big market teams in their division, and league for that matter, and have personalized their organization with sufficient personnel to serve as aspirational social reference figures that embody this strategy through their actions, both on and off the field.
Click here to watch the Hustle & Heart 2.0 season opener video.
-Faiz
The Canadian Press
I guess you could say that this post is carrying on from the last one, where I blogged about all the great work that Alex Anthopolous, aka “The Silent Assassin” has done to revamp the Blue Jays organization (including the farm system) over the last year and a half.
I wanted to approach this blog post from more of a marketing lens than I usually would, because it’s interesting how marketing can be applied to various aspects of the sporting world. Where the Blue Jays stand now, they have a young core of athletic position players, some of whom aren’t major league ready, to go along with a young, major league ready starting pitching staff.
To address the position players that are not all ready for the big leagues, the benefit of this situation is that a lot of them are playing together in the minor leagues. Competitive team sporting success is a result of cohesive team chemistry, and if you are an individual that refuses to work in teams, it’s going to be hard for your team to experience any prolonged success. Like I said last week, these players are very athletic, and offer more than just an on-field product—relentless work ethic, passion for the game, passion for competition, and desire to be the best.
The fact that there are quite a few players that demonstrate those attributes, all at a similar age, is going to produce a sustainable competitive advantage for the Blue Jays in the years to come. In sports, sustainable competitive advantages are usually referred to as “depth”. When a team is deep in a certain aspect, it allows them to trade players from that depth, to acquire players with talent/attributes that the organization needs. Knowing Alex Anthopolous, he is going to use this depth (that he has created) to push the Blue Jays in a favourable direction for many years to come.
-Faiz
First things first, I’m glad to have my computer back after a long week of repairs. Seriously, what kind of evil person makes Trojan viruses, ugh. Dear Trojan maker, if anything happens to you, you don’t have my sympathy.
Second, I know its only Spring Training, but a Blue Jays game was on over the weekend, and I was super psyched to watch it. Seriously, 5 months without baseball is way too long for any passionate fan to wait; but nonetheless its t-23 days until opening day– can’t wait.
While watching the game, it was a great opportunity to take a look at a bunch of minor league prospects that are deemed to be “our future”. Most of them looked like they had a solid foundation of talent, but it seemed that there was something more to their game (almost like a value added premium to their skill set). These players had a tremendous passion for the game, and it definitely showed while they played.
What’s special is that most of these players were not in the Blue Jays organization when Alex Anthopolous took over as General Manager at the end of the 2009 season (at the time, the Jays also had the 3rd worst minor league system, and in a year and a half, Anthopolous has pushed the Jays to 4th best). When he took over, Anthopolous’s vision statement for the organization was “to be more athletic and diverse”, and everything he has done since has embodied this strategy.
Clearly, his perception of what it takes to win has influenced the transactions that have taken place within the last year and a half. Across the league, Anthopolous has been marveled for the work he has done, and is on the way to making the Toronto Blue Jays as noted as they were during their glory days of the early 90’s.
Click here for a complete list of transactions while Anthopolous has been boss (talk about a busy man!).
-Faiz
Before I get started, I would just like to thank Scott Rolufs for sending me this article; it sparked an idea for my next post: what has happened to the fun in baseball? I don’t literally mean that the professionals don’t find baseball fun, but why have teams chosen to forgo signing a player because of his personality. In a sense, it seems that in this case, the team doesn’t trust the player’s “brand”. Given, at the end of the day, the product that these teams/organizations offer is high quality baseball, but to what degree are players urged to act as time-ticking robots both on and off the field? Perhaps before I carry on, I should pose the question: is it the player’s responsibility to regulate himself, or the teams responsibility to regulate the player?
I am not the first person to bring up Manny Ramirez, and I certainly will not be the last. One of the best hitters that our generation has seen (too bad I can’t say the same for his fielding), has done everything from making a phone call during a game, to high-fiving a fan during the play. Because of his off-beat antics, people attribute his behaviour to the coined phase “Manny being Manny”, but at what point does this become detrimental to the team’s ultimate goal (winning a championship).
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/
One positive aspect is that it’s clear that Manny is having fun while playing. It seems obvious to me, that if you try and govern a player like this, there is no way that he will be as proficient as possible. Is there a need for balance, obviously, but who am I to judge? The flip side of the argument is that if Manny was able to produce while being robot like, he would probably have signed one of the biggest contracts in baseball history, based on his past stats. One thing’s for sure though, he’s quite popular with the fans.
-Faiz
One of the many ways for sports organizations to reel in additional revenue is by giving the fans an option to purchase sports apparel, or team trademark items –a standard example would be a sports jersey (and if you’re me, a Toronto Blue Jays jersey!). Arguably, the biggest benefit from the consumer’s point of view is the chance to feel like a part of the team, increasing the chances that the fan will become an advocate.
My 19th birthday present!
One of the problems is that organizations must diversify their product to make it relevant to many different types of consumers; not everyone is going to want the exact same jersey, and even if they do, they definitely won’t be the same size. Some typical segmentation variables sports organizations might use when segmenting their potential target markets may include country/city, age, gender, income, benefits sought, usage rates, and brand loyalty.
Over the last few years, female sports fans have been a great target market for organizations to target; not only do they have significant purchasing power, but the fact that there are more female sports leagues for young females to play in nowadays compared to years ago increases the chances that they will become fans of elite level (professional) sports teams, which then makes them more likely to purchase fan memorabilia.
Sports organizations have come out with female jersey lines to accommodate the female body contour, and some organizations have even changed the jersey colours to pink, so that female fans can get a jersey just the way they want it!
The bond created by “feeling like a part of the team” is one of the main factors that justifies consumer spending, and organizations are able to price higher and capitalize on the value added from having purchasable items.
-Faiz
For this week’s post, I am choosing to respond to my friend Graeme Law’s post called “Controversy as a Selling Point” (of course sticking to my trend of talking about sports, but not baseball this time). Before we get started, I have to say that Graeme is a fantastic writer.
anorak.co.uk
Here we go now. So we all know what happened in the Tiger Woods fiasco, and that’s partially my point. Tiger Woods still remains a social reference figure (whether aspirational or dissociative is up to you to figure) in not just our society, or even continent, but literally our world today. Graeme also mentioned that pre-fiasco, Woods was endorsed by quite a respectable number of companies, and post-fiasco (I seem to love that word–fiasco and conundrum, both great words), Nike remained the only company that would continue to sponsor him.
It goes without saying, that if companies thought that continuing to sponsor Woods would skew their sales in a harmful way, than it makes sense for them to drop the sponsorship. But what exactly are they doing by dropping the sponsorship? From a marketing stretch, the sponsoring companies had built a sustainable competitive advantage by sponsoring Woods–he is the only Tiger Woods in the world (pretty sustainable, huh?), and, who at that time was an aspirational social reference figure for many people, not just golfers. What does that say about the other companies? That they looked at their sponsorship from a transactional orientation point of view? Perhaps…
chad59.wordpress.com
With all the titles he has won, he added a supreme amount of value to his name, and companies’ willingness to pay for his marketing was through the roof. He helped many companies expand globally, and was an icon for millions of people. It’s scary how things can change so quickly.
-Faiz
Over the last ten years, baseball in Canada has performed a 180 degree turn. Look no further than the 2006 MVP Justin Morneau, a B.C. native, and most recently, the 2010 MVP Joey Votto, an Ontario native. There’s no doubt that hockey is still Canada’s sport, but in the current value-based marketing era that we live in, we understand that companies’ goals are to turn mere first time customers, or even window shoppers (metaphorically speaking) into advocates for the long haul that we call life.
http://www.daylife.com
Where exactly am I going with this, you ask? Well, with the recent successes of homegrown Canadian talent, these players are rapidly becoming, and if not, have already become, icons (marketing equivalent: aspirational indirect social reference figures?) for the young and youth (and yes that includes tweens!) of our nation today. This episode of social influence has sparked more Canadian baseball fans from coast to coast than any instance since the mid 1990’s. As a result, baseball teams are starting to reach out to this young fan base, whom eventually, will be turned into advocates (well, let’s at least hope so for the sake of the sport).
Let’s look at the Toronto Blue Jays, Canada’s lone (and my favourite) Major League Baseball team. Prior to the 2010 season, they were easily accessible on Facebook, but the 2010 season was a revolutionary one in terms of digital marketing. The Blue Jays shifted their marketing strategy, and embraced various social trends, such as a twitter fan page, a blackberry messenger (BBM) insider information contact, various online chat rooms and forums, and yes, even BLOGS to appeal to their, and Canada’s, young demographic fan base.
Click here to view Justin Morneau’s player bio.
Click here to view Joey Votto’s player bio.
-Faiz
As I’m starting to gather information on marketing, I’m scratching the surface of my curiosity in terms of “where does it fit in”…in what context you ask, well, more specifically, with what I am passionate about, where does it fit in (better?). I guess that would require me to first find the things that I am passionate about, and how marketing relates to them. Hmm, well let’s see: Family and marketing? I guess there’s a fit, but that would make for a boring post. Religion and marketing? Wow, don’t wanna go there! Sports and marketing? Go on Faizal…..baseball and marketing? You know what, it just could work!
Ok, let’s see now, baseball and marketing, baseball and marketing, baseball and marketing….hmmmm…..Let’s take this story, and put a marketing twist on it: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110119&content_id=16466358&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb .
Could we do a SWOT analysis on this situation? Absolutely, I would argue! Let’s break it down then, shall we? In terms of the “S” and “W”, I’m not sure whether to look at the player’s strengths and weaknesses, or the team’s. The “O” and “T”, however, I can do! The opportunities: At baseball’s current stage, pitching is re-emerging as the biggest and most effective asset for a team to have. That means, that when acquiring a pitcher, there is always a premium that needs to be attached (whether it’s giving a player more money than they deserve, or trading a player with a bit more potential than the one you are acquiring). What are the threats? Other pitchers that are on the “trade market, or free agent market”, perhaps? Yes. What about other teams that are trying to acquire the same player? That certainly seems like a threat to me! Baseball and marketing, totally digging it!
-Faiz
