Marketing is
everywhere. Every time you turn around, you can see some kind of marketing
whether it is a commercial, newspaper ads, billboards, and many other ways to
promote different products and services.
At the Texas
versus Iowa State basketball game I found many different forms of marketing.
State farm advertised on the backboard. Advertising here made their name very
visible to anyone watching the game. Every time either team shoots the ball you
see the State Farm logo. With each team shooting more than 60 times during the
game, there is a potential for the audience to see this State Farm ad over 120
times per game. The location of this ad was brilliant because of its
visibility. A different style was used by Southwest Airlines to promote their
service. They created a game played by a selected audience, where they had to
shoot basketballs and make three different shots into a suit case. If the
audience member made all three shots in the allotted time, they won two tickets
to anywhere Southwest Airlines flies. This form of advertising was fun for all
fans to watch and cheer on the challenger. It is also fun for the selected
participant because of the potential prize at the end of the game. Having this
promotional during a timeout was also a great tactic because at that point in
the game you still had 6,000 people still in their seats. Having this game at
half-time would have been less effective because many people go to use the
restroom or get concessions at this time. Another great form of marketing was
the Chevron toy car challenge. I have seen and participated in this game at
numerous sporting events. This game is played at half-time or during some kind
of intermission, the game consist of three Chevron toy cars and as an audience
member you have to pick which car will win the race. Chevron does a good job in
their marketing because they get the whole audience to participate. Audience
participation is great because as a corporation you know you are reaching out
to the audience and have made a great selling point. All these forms mentioned above
are great examples of advertising through sport by using college basketball as
an avenue to reach fans about certain products.
In
my experience at the college basketball game I saw hundreds of ways different
ways marketing is used, but one stood out more than any of the others. The
Harlem Globetrotters did the best job throughout the game to promote their
product. They had numerous advertisements on the jumbotron, as well as a dunk
contest played by three selected audience members. The product being sold,
Globetrotters basketball, was easily recognized because it was presented in
bold lettering with a red, white and blue scheme (the Globetrotters traditional
colors). The product was very well marketed; it was clever to present the
product in a place where thousands of basketball fans already were. Who better
to advertise to than to the fans of the sport? Place also known as distribution deals with
this same kind of marketing strategy. The ad was presented in the same place
where it is actually taking place. If fans could come to the Frank Erwin Center
once, why wouldn’t they come again and see some more basketball? The Place is
also important due to the fact that everyone in attendance was a basketball
fan. I believe they got more for their money advertising for their event
because of the heavy concentration of fans. A type of pricing strategy that they
used was to not present the price of the tickets at all. This is probably because
it was a little more expensive than what people wanted to pay. Another way the
Globetrotters got around presenting a price was to do a slam dunk contest and
the winner received a free package of four Globetrotter tickets. Not only does
this have to do with the pricing strategy, but it could very well be considered
a promotional strategy.
Even with all
the marketing during the game, it did not take away from the game quality. I
can see how some people might see this advertising as overwhelming or a
distraction from the game. I felt as though it added to the whole experience of
the game. During the breaks in the action, these different advertising
strategies helped to keep me entertained. Without this game, there would have
been many fans, including myself, that would have been bored. Product and
company promotion during timeouts and halftime keeps the audience entertained
throughout the entire game. From a revenue standpoint I don’t see marketing
during a game hurting or helping. Ads
and promotional games are not what increases ticket sales individually.
Marketing of the two teams is what creates more revenue. Indirectly the
different marketing strategies may bring in some revenue due to the fact that
it keeps the audience entertained at all times.
