Great Sports
by Michael Klein
EXPERTS CAN'T SEEM TO AGREE on exactly how many advertising messages the average American is exposed to each day. Estimates range from as few as 247 to around 3,000. But few would disagree that whatever the precise number is, the quantity can be characterized as: "a whole lot."
Marketers and advertisers talk about "breaking through the clutter" and offer a variety of advice on how best to do that. One bit of advice that
resonates: Go beyond simple advertising — whether print or electronic — and instead get involved in multi-leveled sport sponsorships. More than just advertising, sports sponsorships are designed to not only put a brand in front of spectators, but to associate two or more brands together to make the viewer fe/el good about something and drive traffic to the sponsor.
SUPPORT THE HOME TEAM
Cuba, Missouri–based Wallis Companies uses partnerships with the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Rams to not only show support for the home team, but also drive traffic to its 26 On the Run branded stores.
"If the Cardinals score six runs, then the next day you get 20-ounce drinks — coffee, fountain or frozen — for 25 cents," explained Tracey Hughes, director of strategic planning at Wallis. "We don't have to win or lose, home or away, it doesn't matter. They just have to score six runs. We track and measure cup count. We chart it against the number of times the Cardinals score six runs, and we can see that on a six-run day our cup count goes up significantly. It's more than noticeable."
Hughes says that while the company loses money on every 25-cent cup of coffee that goes out the door on those days, Wallis is happy with the promotion because it brings people into the store to make additional purchases. It also helps drive home the message to customers that Wallis is a locally owned company that supports the home team. Local ownership is an important point of differentiation that Wallis uses in all of its external communications.
he fact that Wallis ends up making a significant investment outside of the ballpark is not lost on
the St. Louis Cardinals. The team rewards its long-time partner with other promotional opportunities, such as making On the Run stores the exclusive location to enter a contest to throw out a first pitch — or by extending the company other special considerations.
"The fact that they had a new ballpark and that they won the [2006] World Series caused things to be a little different this year," said Hughes. "Of course the Cardinals had really high demand for all their [promotional opportunities], but we were already a partner. I'm sure we would not have gotten the package we got with them this year had we not had a history with them."
It's clear that at the end of the day, Wallis management and employees are St. Louis sports fans, which also helps explain last year's promotion with football's St. Louis Rams, which had nothing to do with how the Rams performed on the field. As a distributor of Rain-X chemicals in the St. Louis market, Wallis promoted its Rams partnership with Free Rain-X Monday. The company communicated its unique offer to fans via radio spots: If the Rams played a game on Sunday, you could get a free wash on Monday. "If you were willing to wait in line, you got a car wash," said Hughes.
And for 13 weeks, customers lined up in droves to receive a free car wash. Clearly giving away free car washes cost Wallis a lot of money, but it paid them back in what they feel was brand awareness and customer loyalty.
"We measured our gallons, in-store sales, customer count and our redemption rate on the free washes, and it was a great promotion in terms of awareness. We got a lot of new customers across our lot, and we got a lot of good will with customers saying, 'Wow, no one's ever given me this much for free.'"
But in the final analysis, Wallis decided that a lot of the success experienced from October through December quickly fell off come January and February. Like the Cardinals' promotion, this year's Rams promotion is now performance-based and automatically results in a sale. This season, when the Rams rush for 100 yards on a Sunday, Wallis sells gasoline with a nickel-a-gallon discount on Monday. (Hughes couldn't provide metrics on how the promotion was running, because as of press time in early October, the Rams weren't running. They were yet to notch 100 yards rushing in a game.)
DON'T GIVE AWAY THE STORE
With sports marketing, the key for retailers is
to find ways to develop marketing programs
and show their team support without losing
their jerseys.
In upstate New York, Wilson Farms, operator of 198 stores across the state, works with the Buffalo Sabres, Bills and the Bisons, a minor league baseball franchise. But Wilson Farms' programs are about rewarding fans for making specific purchases, which guarantees sales and helps strengthen relationships between Wilson Farms and key suppliers.
"We look at [these promotions] like a triangle with the team at the top, one corner being Wilson Farms, and the other corner being our supplier partners," explained Josh Gregory, public relations and communications coordinator. "The needs of each of those entities must be met for the program to be successful. And we found great success by doing an in-store promotion where customers could purchase two or more of the participating brands and then receive a fairly sizeable discount on highly sought after Sabres or Bills merchandise that is only available through Wilson Farms."
The promotion is highlighted in Wilson Farms' print advertising and in-store signage, which is an added bonus for its supplier partners. And, as in the case of Wallis in St. Louis, Wilson uses signage and additional opportunities in the stadium to further drive home the point that it is a major sponsor of the teams.
THE FINE LINE BETWEEN CLEVER AND ANNOYING
All of this promotion and flag waving is fine and good, but it is possible to go too far. Fans love their team, and they love the sport, too, so they can be very protective of images that they cherish.
In 2004, Major League Baseball announced a multi-million dollar deal to put the logo for the movie Spider-Man 2 on bases during games. Fans went ballistic, and the day after the deal was announced, the league pulled the bases. It's considered a classic sports marketing blunder.
"You've got to get creative to cut through the clutter, but there is going to be a point where it's too much," said Jeremy Steindecker, president of Net Results Marketing, a sports marketing and event management company with offices in New York and Washington, D.C. "The fans will dictate it. You'll hear back from them if something goes over the line of tastefulness. And that kind of thing can backfire on the sponsor."
Last year, 7-Eleven partnered with the NBA's Dallas Mavericks on many promotions, giveaways and entertainment events in the arena. One was a giant game of dice that pitted seating sections against each other. The sections rolled enormous dice down onto the court and if a seven or an 11 came up, the entire section received coupons for free merchandise. It effectively entertained spectators and rewarded them, and the campaign was considered a success.
7-Eleven is also responsible for what many consider to be the most inspired sports marketing promotion to date. Beginning with the 2007 season, the retailing giant signed a three-year
deal with the Chicago White Sox to change the start time of weeknight home games to — you guessed it — 7:11 p.m.
"I think it's great," said Jason Metnick, a Chicago native and 29-year White Sox fan. "As more companies advertise in ballparks — on scoreboards, behind home plate — this isn't in your face. It's subtle. It's just a few minutes, and you see that time, 7:11, everywhere. It's on Web sites, your ticket stub, on the radio, TV. It doesn't affect the game and it's subtle, so…great!"
Metnick went on to say he wouldn't feel the same way about "7-Eleven" emblazoned across his team's uniform. Or the bases. But on his ticket stub or a pocket schedule? No problem.
DON'T JUST SWING AWAY
Perhaps these ideas make you want to rush out
and partner with a team in your area, but don't
sign that deal just yet. Hughes and Gregory warn that you need to approach sports marketing
deals carefully — the same as you would for any marketing promotion.
"You need to ask, 'Does this fit the culture of our organization? And am I willing to invest beyond the sports relationship in a promotion that the customers are going to care about?'" advises Hughes. "You have to be willing to make the investment outside of the team. If you don't have a rich offer, then it doesn't matter if you're promoting with the best team in the game. If you're offering something that is not a high value — a 30-cent pack of gum — that's not of high value to the customer and it doesn't matter what the team does, your promotion is not going to work."
"The best advice I can give anybody is do your research," said Gregory. "Do not accept some base proposal that you might think is really great, because, let's face it, working with a team like the Sabres or the Bills is a very glamorous proposition. It's big, it's important, and people across the country pay attention to it. But at the end of the day we all need to be aware of the return on our investments. We have to make sure the promotion is working for us and our supplier partners, as well as the respective sports teams."
But perhaps nobody wants the sponsorship to work more than the team itself.
"Sponsorships are critical for sports teams," said Steindecker, who has also served as the general manager for two professional women's soccer clubs, the Washington Freedom and the former New York Power. "The two biggest ways any property brings revenue in are sponsorships and ticket sales. And sponsorships are much more important because you can't always count on ticket sales, particularly for outdoor events. But sponsorships? The money is in, rain or shine."
Convenience stores should be careful not to sell themselves short. They bring a lot to the table by the very nature of their business model. The sports promoter in Steindecker suggests that you have much more to offer than just money — and don't let a team tell you otherwise.
"Convenience stores have a huge asset to present to a sports property," said Steindecker. "You can go to an event or a team and say, 'hey, we can help get the word out about ticket sales, about the event itself, about whatever else you want through all
of our stores.' So that is something to leverage when you are negotiating the deal to bring down the cash component."
DON'T FORGET THE LEVERAGE
As Hughes pointed out, this can be quite an investment. Not only will the initial deal cost money, you are likely to invest additional assets. It may not be 13 free $10 car washes for every customer the way Wallis did, but it will be something. And don't expect the investment to stop there.
"When you buy a sponsorship the industry standard is that you must spend two dollars to activate for every one dollar you spend on the sponsorship. And in some cases they say it may be three to one," said Dr. Darryl Lehnus, director of the Sports Sponsorship and Sales Center at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. "You're talking about activation dollars on top of sponsorship dollars."
But like off-season spending and player acquisitions of your favorite team, there is a purpose to all this check writing. It's about making the sponsorship work for you. "You have to look at leveraging whatever you're buying into," counsels Steindecker. "Once you buy that sponsorship, what are you going to do with it? You need to do those contests or leverage media tie-ins, or whatever else it is to let people know about the sponsorship and help you take advantage of it. A lot of companies don't allocate enough money to leverage their sponsorship. They put all their money in that one basket — spending everything on the sponsorship — and then they don't leave any money to help execute the sponsorship. You have to leave money aside to help leverage that sponsorship."
Wallis knows a thing or two about leverage. During the Free Rain-X Monday promotion with the St. Louis Rams, the company helped draw attention with the Rams cheerleaders. Although the cheerleaders weren't actually washing cars, Hughes laughs that the image may have popped into the minds of a few customers.
Wallis held the event with the Rams' cheer squad, but has not leveraged player appearances at its location. One concern that any sponsor faces is that if you build a promotion around a particular athlete's performance, and then he or she gets injured and sits out for a chunk of the season or a tournament, well, your promotion just got sidelined, too.
DON'T FORGET THE LITTLE GUYS
Certainly if your goal is to raise awareness about a new service or drive customers into your stores, a big league sponsorship is a good way to get in front of a lot of people quickly. But the investment is considerable. And you may not have a big league team in your market. Then again, your goal may be more about giving back to the community. If this sounds like you, consider sponsoring amateur, youth or community teams in your area.
Since 1982, Tiger Fuel Company of Charlottesville, Virginia, through its propane and home heating oil division, has been a sponsor of various little league baseball teams in the area.
"We get lots of positive feedback on the little league sponsorships," said Director of Marketing Stuart Lowry. "It's hard to say how many more gallons we've sold because of it, but really, the reason we do it is because it's the right thing to do." In return, the company usually is recognized with its name on the uniforms or on a billboard in the outfield.
Lowry says that gestures like this are definitely noted and truly appreciated in a smaller town like Charlottesville. "Corporate giving is sometimes hard to measure in terms of effectiveness for your business, but we see the benefit in doing the right thing in our community. And it also impacts employee morale. Plenty of employees have children playing in the league, or are coaching, and all of that is taken into consideration when we look at a sponsorship like this."
t's also nice to know that companies like Wallis, who play with the pros on a regular basis, also haven't forgotten the younger players.
"We are involved with community teams, but it is not organized, it's a store-level decision," said Hughes. "If a Little League team comes in and asks, then we sponsor — our logos are on the back of the shirts and they can come in on game day in their uniforms and get a free drink, and we're happy to do that. But right now, you have to come to us. If you have the initiative to come in and ask us, you get it. If you don't, you don't, but we are looking at more formal arrangements for the future."
Whatever the level of team you decide to partner with, if you do decide to add a sports-based promotion to your business plan, it will help you break through the clutter, as long as you do your research, leverage your deal, and most of all, have fun rooting for the home team.
Michael Klein is a Virginia-based freelance writer who supports many sports teams, including the Washington Capitals and his daughters'
soccer teams. He can be reached at michael.klein18@verizon.net.