I was doing some research online this afternoon and found an article published in USA Today preceding the Colts vs. PATS game on Nov 4.
It’s interesting to note the marketing and media strategies of the big brands.
They seem fairly rational on TV, and with celebrity-athlete endorsements, but they forget about the Web. Instead of capitalizing on the best channel to reach AVID fans, some brand elected to activate their NATIONAL campaigns at the stadiums. Argh! I wonder why these global brands would waste time at stadiums when they could use less effort and equal money to make bigger impacts on the team Websites?
Here’s a graph that shows Colts Web audience versus stadium attendance (over 12 months)
From USA Today: Sunday’s game pits quarterback Tom Brady for the Patriots against Peyton Manning for the Colts. The players are superstars on and off the field. Brady this week announced an endorsement deal with Coca-Cola’s (KO) Glacéau unit and has endorsement deals with Nike (NKE), Sirius (SIRI) and Stetson cologne. Manning has deals with DirecTV (DTV), Gatorade, Reebok, Sprint (S), MasterCard (MA) and Sony (SNE).
Many of those brands, including MasterCard, will be in the game. Manning, who has been a MasterCard spokesman since 2004, will appear in ads as part of the brand’s Priceless Pep Talks campaign.
In the ads, Manning appears on the practice field with advice on everything from dealing with spousal arguments to getting a social life and driving a minivan. Sunday, he’ll offer advice on dealing with not having rock-hard abs.
“We always look for opportunities across all the networks where we think there is going to be consumer interest,” says Chris Jogis, vice president of U.S. brand marketing. “When you’ve got a matchup of rivals like this, it fits perfectly.”
Big winners for game day:
•Advertisers. Among advertisers for the big game: Citi (C), Nike and Sprint.
Snickers also has a big NFL buy for the season and will be in pre- and post-game ads.
Marketers decided this week to have a big presence at the game itself.
Ad characters from its Feast campaign will be at the stadium for a tailgating party.
A king, Viking, pilgrim, Polynesian islander and toga-clad Roman will be at RCA Dome with giveaways. “The characters are historically known for being in big battles,” says Snickers spokesman Ryan Bowling. “We wanted to bring the characters to life, and what better venue to do that?”
WHY NOT BUY AS SEASON-LONG PRESENCE, OR PERHAPS DO GAMEDAY SCREEN TAKEOVERS OR RICH MEDIA PROMO ON TEAM WEBSITES?
Fifty-five percent of AVID NFL fans will never attend a game in their lives. Most NFL fans watch games on TV.
But TV accounts for just 38% of all NFL media content consumed. (See chart)
What does this mean? Perhaps we can put less emphasis at the stadium?
Maybe TV + Web is the best way to reach MORE AVIDS
Youre definitely right, the NFL’s main website is nice but the team websites really are lacking when compared to most websites out there. There are a lot of fantasy football websites that give much more information and are easier to use. I’m surprised the NFL marketing machine hasnt really put much of an emphasis on this, since they seemingly analyze every other aspect.