Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Marketing on Gameday


College Athletics create a great atmosphere with a loyal & passionate fan base. These fan bases or potential customers, if your looking at it from a sponsors view, provide sponsors with a huge target market. In college football alone, the average attendance to a college football game was 46,074 in 2011 and that doesn't even take into account the millions of fans that are watching or listening to the game at home or in their car. For example, in 2012 the Alabama vs. Georgia game brought in 9 million viewers to the CBS network. The Sports Marketing world provides numerous opportunities and a large target market for sponsors to take advantage of.

The following are 5 effective ways for sponsors brand themselves and be apart of the college sports atmosphere:
Static Signage: These are signs of the sponsors logo, slogan, etc. that represents a visual presence in the selected college sporting venue. Placement for these signs could be in a variety of different places and could have unique options. Some examples include scoreboard  signage, concourse level signage, courtside signage, on the catwalk etc. The use and placement of static signage will be tailored to the sport and what opportunities the venue of choice offers.





Digital Signage: These signs allow sponsors to add a little more flare to there advertisements/impressions on Gamedays. Digital signs can be displayed on the venues videoboards, courtside,  or along what is called a ring beam. The ability to use videoboards and ring beams allow for multiple signs to be displayed throughout a game. Common usages of these signs are actual commercials, sponsor logo with a slogan, instant replays, etc.








Gameday Sponsorship: Gameday sponsorship allows the sponsor to own a college sporting event. This is a way for a sponsor to directly identify themselves with a college team and be apart of and in the eyes of the fan exclusively. Usually in a Gameday Sponsorship, the sponsor will be identified on the tickets, programs, videoboard, they could have their own tailgate, and have various PA announcements in the venue and on various media outlets, e.g. radio & TV.
Gameday Promotions: Gameday Promotions can be utilized in various ways and usually involves some creativity from the Account Executive selling the promotion and from the sponsor.  The better the promotion is tailored to the sponsor the more effective it will be for the sponsor. Examples of promotions are t-shirt toss, half-court heave, group of the game, and various other unique ideas and giveaways. The sky is the limit when it comes to Gameday promotions, but all have the same goal of connecting the sponsor with the fans.

 Radio/TV: Radio allow for sponsors to be mentioned live during the game, during game breaks, as well as pre & post-game recognition on the network the game is being broadcasted on. TV ads & commercials give the sponsors visual representation with the game. A main element with TV would be commercials played during breaks in action during the game.


Regardless of the avenue of choice that the college and sponsor take to market on Gameday there is always on common goal, "To connect the Sponsor with the exciting and passionate Gameday atmosphere that college athletics create."

Reference:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)