Local sports would seem to appeal to a broad audience and be ideal for building a local following. But there are drawbacks.
Union Brewing is a local craft brewery in the Baltimore City limits. They know the local market and how to connect, naming one of their first beers "Balt Alt" and building a strong following in a short amount of time.
When they started shipping beer in summer of 2012 they also offered brewery tours on Saturdays and opened a taproom for sampling. I was there within the first couple of weeks, along with about half a dozen others.
I have seen the crowds grow at these tours over time, and one of the first early attendance boosts was when Union Brewing gave away a purple t-shirt in the middle of the Ravens Superbowl run in early 2013 (a good example of guerrilla marketing, too, a topic for another time). It went so well they repeated with another give away during the same run.
Jump ahead a year, crowds remain strong on Saturdays and recent changes to state law allowed the brewery has expanded taproom hours to Thursday and Friday. Attribution is tough, but the football tie-in certainly did not hurt in building a regular following.
So do not get me wrong. I believe in the power of tying in with local sports teams. The NFL is a marketing machine, and the NBA is no slouch. Latching on to that can pay off.
Local sports teams have already invested a lot in building good will in the community and branding themselves as part of the community, and tapping in to that goodwill and local association makes sense.
Including local sports in your marketing, especially social media, should be part of a mix of local identification efforts in your branding. But there are reasons not to make it your sole focus.
1. It is Obvious
Bringing your brand to Cleveland? Even if you know nothing about Cleveland, you know the Browns are there. So...Go, Browns!Great. That took a few minutes. Now what have you got? (And if your next thought is "Go Cavs!" jump ahead to #6 on this list).
2. It is Crowded
This follows from being obvious. When everyone sees a chance to do it, your voice joins a chorus of others. Oh, look - someone else is tweeting good luck to the team on Sunday.3. Local Affinity Not Universal
Yes, the local team uses the geographic identity as part of its own branding. But the people in that market do not necessarily identify with that team.
A Pew study from 2008 of U.S. born people who have lived in more than one place revealed that nearly 4 in 10 (38%) do not consider where they live now to be "home". And 80% of those who participated in the study have lived outside the state they were born.
So local identification itself may not be strong, and identification through sports is an even weaker derivative of that.
Look at this map produced by the Common Census Sports Map project. You can see in some areas affiliation to the home team is strong, but in others (especially those with recent migration like Phoenix and Atlanta) it is divided.4. True Branding Tie-Ins are Expensive
The popularity of the NFL and other leagues mean that marketing opportunities are expensive.
Sure, the guerrilla route that Union Brewing took in the case study is available to you, but if you want a true tie-in, it will cost.
5. The Branding Tie-In is Transparent
Even if you do spend the money, attempts to latch on to it may be transparent.When I say transparent I mean it is is easy for the consumer to see through the ad as just an attempt to get in good with the locals. What does it take to print out an ad with one helmet that cannot be reproduced with another 29 different helmets?
Especially for large national and international brands, identifying with the local sports team is not going to be confused with any kind of true affinity. If you are driving through the East coast on I-95, there is a chance you might see the same brand identify with three different teams in the span of 150 miles or so.
Hardly meaningful communication. And that leads to the next point.
6. It Can Grow Monotonous
This is the real danger for tying in with local sports through social media.The most basic principle of social media is to keep it social. This is usually expressed two ways:
- Listen more than you speak
- Do not speak only about yourself
In other words, act like you are at any social gathering, where communication is a two way street.
Well, another thing you do not want to be at a social event is boring. If local sports is the only thing you can talk about then you are only slight less of a bore than only speaking of yourself.
Look at your Twitter feed. Only self references? Very bad. Only self references and local sports? Still pretty bad.
In the next post I will give suggestions on going beyond local sports to create meaningful local tie-ins.
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