Professional Sports Teams' National Reach

Although each sports team is generally attached to a specific city, their fan base spreads nationally. We have done multiple geotargeted campaigns with both NFL and NCAA teams sites and people are often amazed at the outcome. One team in particular, the Indianapolis Colts run most of their ads both locally and nationally and the national numbers blow away their local numbers. People grow up, go away to school, and then move even farther from there, but never forget their hometown team. I live in San Diego...love the Chargers...but I'm a Clevelander at heart and as bad as the Brown's are, year after year, I still love 'em. :)

The team sites are still the best place to go for team information. They are pretty much guaranteed to have the best, most up to date news, tips, reports and highlights. Why wouldn't you go there?

And the best thing about the web is everyone can reach it. I can rarely watch the Browns game on TV from the comfort of my own home, but I can access their home page. I don't understand why more teams don't put more money into their website. It's their calling card and the most accessible to their fans. You want to reach out and grow your fan base? USE THE WEB

What Makes a Super Bowl Ad Memorable?

As everyone knows, the commercials are one of the best parts about Super Bowl time. There are always the same questions running through everyone's minds: How much are they going for? Who's advertising? What's the big secret to be revealed? Which one's going to be the best?

I think some of the most memorable ads in more recent Super Bowl history are the Bud Light commericals (as always), Aflak, Career Builder (the monkey commercials) and my all time favorite to date: Terry Tate Office Linebacker.

The key to commercials are to connect to people through using techniques such as using humor, tapping into emotions, sparking curiosity, and appealing to our wants and needs such as hunger (food always looks better on TV doesn't it? And have you ever noticed how many restaurant commercials are on around dinner time?). So which technique makes a commercial memorable? I would have to say it depends on the person...I personally, am drawn to humor. In fact, I have my latest favorite posted below. And although I don't foresee this actually airing on TV, you better believe I downloaded it to my desktop to play every time I need a laugh.

Advertisers payout a huge sum for the Super Bowl Advertising space, and add that to the cost of producing the commercial...you have yourself a huge chunk of change. Is it worth it? I guess it depends on how good your commercial is. Studies will be done after the Super Bowl airs on how many downloads occurred , how commercial recall is (how well people remembered the actual advertiser responsible for the commercial), what people thought, etc. I may not remember what company Terry Tate was representing, but everyone remembers his commercial and all you need to find the company behind it, is a google search away.

Fans Don't Even Have Compassion for Kids

This past Sunday, at the Colts/Chargers playoff game, multiple kids were selected as honorees for winning a punt/pass/kick competition and they each got to represent an NFL team. When high school freshman, Anna Grant, sporting a Patriots jersey, stepped up to be honored, she was not greeted with cheers and applause, but she was booed by the fans in Indianapolis. Luckily, she seemed to have a good sense of humor about it, knowing she was walking into dangerous territory, but I'm sure it wasn't the type of experience she dreamed it would be.

To off-set this negative experience, the Patriots owner Robert Kraft extended the once in a lifetime opportunity for Anna to be present at the coin toss of this weekend's game against the Chargers, plus tickets for her whole family. He had the mindset that she was a champion too and deserved to be recognized for it.

Although the situation may bring a slight smirk to the faces of everyone but Patriots' fans, it's still pretty sad if you think about it. Thankfully this girl was old enough to understand the rivalry, but how far do fan oppositions have to go? I have friends who are Patriots fans that won't dare wear their jerseys out this weekend for fear of Chargers' fans. Where does "it's all in good fun" start and "going to far" end? I guess I just felt bad for Anna as Robert Kraft obviously did. Hopefully the rest of this season will remain in the "good fun" category and stay safe.

Mobile Advertising, the Next Big Thing???

So 2007 was supposed to be the year of the video. I haven't necessarily made up my mind one way or the other on whether or not I agree with that, but 2008 is predicted to be the big year for Mobile Advertising. In my opinion, people are smart to jump on that bandwagon, but they have to be careful. Cell phones are the most private piece of technology many of us have. They are personal, portable and we always have them with us, right? What better way to target people than go through a device they literally already have in their hand.

Eventually (if not already) you will be walking to the store and a text message will pop up that "you are only 50 feet from a Starbucks, come in for a cup of coffee!" College campuses are already working with companies that are teaming up with local businesses to provide its students with deals, discounts and services via a double opt-in text message program. Everyone seems to have text messaging bucket plans today anyhow, so it doesn't cost the end-user anything extra. They can opt out at any time at the press of a button. The text message ad is already being upgraded to rich media and video ads and they will continue to get fancier and more interactive.

What people have to watch out for is not to become too intrusive. There is advertising saturation out there and packing too much into mobile will backfire fast. As I said, people will be more protective of their cell phone space than anything else. The mobile marketer needs to be sensitive to this fact to be successful, but if they are successful, then the behavioral targeting knowledge they would gain could be priceless.

Go Gators

For those of you who don't know me, I am a huge Gator fan.

I would just like to throw out my support for Tim Tebow to win the Heisman this year. Since we won't win any national championships, we could use this to keep the championships alive! Having the underdog win is always fun and age aint nothing but a number :)

Fighting for Digital Rights - who really hurts?

A friend of mine sadly came into my apartment last Thursday evening after realizing he wasn't going to be able to see the Cowboys/Packers game on TV (unless he travelled on over to a bar).
A bar, not being his normal Thursday night scene, was not much of an option for him so he sat at the computer, watching the box scores.

The NFL and cable companies have been fighting over the cost/stipulations to air the NFL Networks' Thursday night games. The NFL Network wants to keep the games free to the fans, but is charging the Cable companies and amount they are not willing to pay for, resulting in less than half the normal NFL audience having access to this game.

Apparently, the NFL is pushing online viewing as a viable alternative (which I don't necessarily disagree with) but I would rather use that as a supplement rather than an alternative option. Although it would be nice to skip the commercials, you can't quite have the same viewing experience on a small part of the computer screen as you would on the flat screen, HD TV (not that I have one, but I can wish right?) Plus, forget a viewing party, the computer would be for you and you alone. I think that they add quite a few great features to the online element, but would still rather it be an "extra" instead of an "only".

So my question is...who is this TV rights feud really hurting? My answer would be the fans, who just plain love the game.