Comprehensive Sport Marketing and Branding Concepts for Students

Sports elasticity

Professional sports have low demand elasticity

Marketing

The use of advertising, publicity and personal selling techniques to make others aware of a product, or to attract more consumers to buy it.

Sport Consumer

Someone who generally uses sport products or services.

Sport Customer

Someone who pays for the use of a specific product or service.

Sport Marketing

The process of planning how a sport brand is positioned and how the delivery of its products or services are to be implemented in order to establish a relationship between a sport brand and its consumers.

The Marketing Process

The process of planning and implementing activities that are designed to meet the needs or desires of customers.

Exchange in Marketing

Marketing aims to create an exchange, where the customer gives up something (usually money) for a product or service they believe is of equal or greater value.

Product in Marketing

Although the term 'product' directly refers to tangible items, it is quite common to use it to represent the entire offering to consumers including services.

Long-term Customers

Marketing aims to not only entice people to buy products or services, but also keep them as long-term customers.

Demand for Sport Products

Create, promote, and deliver sport goods and services to consumers and businesses.

Functions of Sport Marketing

Including functions such as product development, advertising, public relations, sales promotion.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A psychological theory that categorizes human needs into a hierarchy, often used in marketing to understand consumer behavior.

Emotional Connection in Sport Marketing

Most sport products and services have some association with a heightened appeal that is deeply intertwined with the culture and identity of its fans and supporters.

Seasonality in Sport

Sport often features seasonality, meaning its popularity and demand can vary significantly throughout the year.

Agility in Sport Marketing

Sport marketers need to be agile and adapt their strategies to fit the season, as well as ensure they can provide other products and services to maintain revenues during times where no games are being played.

Marketing of Sport

The marketing of sport products and services directly to sport consumers could include sporting equipment, professional competitions, sport events and local clubs.

Marketing through Sport

Happens when a non-sport product is marketed through an association to sport.

Examples of Marketing through Sport

A professional athlete endorsing a breakfast cereal, a financial-services business sponsoring a tennis tournament, and a beer company securing exclusive rights to provide its products at a sport venue or event.

Sport Product

A product is usually conceived as a physical good that has been manufactured; something that can be held and touched, such as a sporting shoe, football, or baseball cap.

Product in Sport Marketing

The term product can also refer to services and ideas, used in sport marketing in several ways.

Product

A term that can refer to goods, services, content, ideas, or a combination of these in sport marketing.

Sporting Goods

Physical products in the sport industry, such as sport shoes, tennis racquets, memorabilia, golf balls, and skateboards.

Tangible Items

Items that can be experienced physically by the senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing.

Sport Services

Intangible benefits received by patrons in the form of experiences, such as fitness opportunities, entertainment, physiotherapy, or coaching.

Intangible Experience

A benefit that cannot be physically touched or stored, typically associated with sport services.

Differences between Sport Goods and Services

Four important differences: Tangibility, Consistency, Perishability, and Separability.

Sport Content

Includes elements like the uncertainty of game outcomes, high-profile media content, and economic impacts of teams in communities.

Ideas in Sport Products

Concepts that can form the core of sport products, such as the idea of becoming slimmer through a gym membership.

Combination of Goods, Services, and Ideas

Most sport products and services are a mixture of tangible and intangible elements.

Sport Product Continuum

A scale showing that products can be defined from mainly tangible products to mainly intangible products, with a mixture in the middle.

Challenges for Sport Marketers

Unique challenges presented by products that sit exclusively at either end of the sport product continuum.

Tangible Products

Products that provide competitive advantage and involve pricing strategies.

Intangible Products

Products that require quality control measures.

Membership Packages

Examples of services sold with tangible items, such as club stickers, badges, and newsletters included with a football club membership.

Vicarious Achievement

The sense of identity and achievement that fans experience through their connection to sport.

Big League City

Status given to cities that subsidize expensive stadiums and sport facilities, impacting the local economy.

Corporate Sponsors

Entities that provide brand value and publicity, targeting ideal demographic groups.

Sport Experience

The overall experience that consumers receive from engaging with sport, including both tangible and intangible elements.

Physical Products

Items that can be purchased and removed, such as sporting goods.

Service Offerings

Services that cannot be stored for future sale, such as live matches or coaching sessions.

Sport Marketing Tactics

Strategies aimed at creating a blend of tangible and intangible elements in sport products.

Sport Branding

The process of cultivating a consumer's awareness and response to a sport product or service.

Positioning

When a sport brand has grasped a firm place in consumers' minds.

Branding

A key strategy that sport marketers use to help their product stand out from the crowd.

Brand Equity

The added value that a product possesses because of its brand name and identity.

Sport Brand

The symbolic representation of everything that a sport organization seeks to stand for.

Identifying Badge

A brand can be portrayed as this, triggering consumers to remember a product or organization.

Building a Brand

A process made up of four steps: establish brand awareness, develop and manage a brand image, develop brand equity, and develop brand loyalty.

Sport Sponsorship

A form of marketing in which a company provides financial support, products, or services to a sport entity in exchange for commercial value.

Ambush Marketing

A marketing strategy in which a company seeks to associate itself with an event without paying sponsorship fees.

Nike's Air Jordan

A packaging strategy that provided royalties for Michael Jordan not only for shoes but also for apparel and accessories.

Successful Athlete Endorsement

The result of Nike's strategy with Air Jordan, leading to over $100 million of products sold in a single year.

Consumer Recognition

The visibility gained by associating with high-profile sport events through ambush marketing.

Official Sponsorship

The formal agreement that allows a brand to be recognized as a sponsor of a specific event.

Brand Image

The perception of a brand in the minds of consumers.

Brand Loyalty

The tendency of consumers to continue buying the same brand of goods or services.

Consumer Awareness

The extent to which consumers are familiar with the distinctive qualities or image of a particular brand.

Market Positioning

The strategy of establishing a brand in a specific place in the market relative to competitors.

Product Differentiation

The process of distinguishing a product from others to make it more attractive to a specific target market.

Brand Association

The connections consumers make between a brand and certain attributes, ideas, or experiences.

Commercial Value

The worth of a sponsorship deal, often derived from exposure and brand alignment.

Demographics

Statistical characteristics of a population, such as age, gender, income, education level, occupation, ethnicity, and geographic location.

Psychographics

Focus on lifestyle, values, interests, attitudes, personality traits, and behaviors to understand motivations and emotional connections to products or services.

Demographic Profile

A description of a target market, for example, women aged 25-40 with a college degree and an annual income of $50,000-$75,000.

Psychographic Profile

A deeper description of a target market, such as health-conscious individuals who value sustainability, prefer organic products, and enjoy outdoor activities.

Segmentation

Identify subgroups of the overall marketplace.

Target Market

A segment of the overall market with desirable traits and coveted by the marketer.

Demographic Segmentation

Segmentation based on age, income, gender, and education.

Geographic Segmentation

Segmentation based on region and postal code.

Psychographic Segmentation

Segmentation based on lifestyles, activities, or habits.

Sport Marketing Mix

The controllable variables that the company tailors to satisfy a target group.

Four P's

The elements of the marketing mix: product, price, place, and promotion.

Five P's

In sport marketing, this includes public relations as its own P due to its significant role.

Unique Aspects of Sport Marketing

There are unique aspects of marketing the sport product that must be accounted for when discussing the marketing mix.

Consumer Expertise

Consumers often consider themselves experts.

Predictable Demand

Consumer demand is predictable.

Universal Appeal

The product has almost universal appeal.

Unpredictability in Marketing

Inconsistencies and unpredictability are considered unacceptable.

Control Over Core Product

Marketers have control over the core product and often work with research and design to create the perceived perfect product.

Satisfaction Dependency

Satisfaction with the purchased product depends on the satisfaction of others who have also purchased the product.

Success

Depends on defeating and eliminating competition.

Consumers in Sport

Often consider themselves experts.

Unacceptable Inconsistencies

Inconsistencies and unpredictability are considered unacceptable.

Marketer Control

Marketers have control over the core product and often work with research and design to create the perceived perfect product.

The Marketing Mix

Controllable Variables to Satisfy a Target Market (4Ps): Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

Core Product in Sport Marketing

Some posit that the core product is the actual event; others argue it is the benefit (value) that consumers seek.

Experiential Product

Experiential product with unpredictability: advantage and disadvantage.

Product Extension

Enhance the attending experience beyond what happened on the field.

Event Pricing

When attending an event, there is usually more than one price, including ticket cost, parking, and concessions.

Premium Services Pricing

The cost of a ticket is separated into the actual ticket price and an additional charge for access to premium services.

Intangible Pricing

Because the sport product is usually intangible and experiential, its price often depends on the perceived value.

Consumer Perception of Price

Consumers can perceive a higher price to mean higher quality.

Total Cost of Attendance

Includes monetary costs, personal costs, and opportunity costs.

Place in Sport Marketing

The place where the product is produced is also where it is consumed.

Pre-selling Events

Sport marketers must aggressively pre-sell sporting events due to unique nuances associated with place.

Facility Aesthetics

Location and facility aesthetics play an important role in the marketing of sport products.

Amenities in Stadiums

Amenities available in new stadiums or health clubs can be a very important part of the place a sport product is sold.

Cultural elements

Facility atmosphere and traditions are a vital part of the fan experience.

Promotion

The role of promotions is to inform and persuade consumers, thereby influencing their purchasing decision.

Promotion mix elements

The elements of the promotion or communication mix are traditionally considered to be advertising, personal selling, publicity, sponsorship, and sales promotion.