Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

My Boss No Longer Trusts Old Advertising Methods?

Posted by Anonymous on 11/21/2010 at 4:05 PM ET 185 Points
Hi There,

I am the Public Relations representative for a major tennis tournament in Canada. The tournament director suggests that what we’ve been doing in the past, old advertising methods (print ads in local papers, radio, PR...Etc) may not be working as effectively as we think?

He believes that without ads on the radio or print ads in local papers we would still get the same kind of turnout through just PR and local press coverage? He wants to explore new advertising avenues and tap into a “smarter” way of advertising.

He wants us to come up with a couple ideas on our own for suggestions. I’m thinking of exploring popular websites and maybe putting ads on them. Obviously updating our current web site and making it more interactive. However aside from that, I’m still scratching my head...

What would you do with $125 000.00 budget for advertising if your boss doesn’t want you to do what you’ve been doing since the beginning? What “new advertising” strategies would you suggest?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 11/21/2010 at 4:21 PM Member
    your boss wants you to do "guerrilla marketing"-- and sorry if your boss doesn't want you to do what you've done from the beginning-- but if you don't adapt-- he'll find someone who will. Change is difficult-- and you will develop more from the experience.

    And in Guerrilla Marketing Land-- $125K is a LOT to play with! So you'll be expending energy vs dollars. Think of it that way!
  • Posted by Gail@PUBLISIDE on 11/21/2010 at 4:33 PM Member
    You could hire me to help you move into contemporary marketing and PR for less than that $125K!

    To answer your question in basics, you have to go to where your potential fans hang out on and offline. Lots of great possibilities to promote tennis via social media.
  • Posted on 11/21/2010 at 4:33 PM Author
    Carol,

    Thank you. Any ideas or examples of some effective Guerrilla Tactics? Maybe a web site or even a book?

    What would be the first thing you would do or set up in a Guerrilla marketing campaign?

    I just need some ideas to get inspired and steered in the right direction!

    Thanks!
  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 11/21/2010 at 4:42 PM Member
    Just google Guerrilla Marketing-- there are about 45 books on it and it's published in upteen languages and taught in some MBA courses.

    He wants you to network and fusion market. Its not that he distrusts tradtional marketing-- its just that he wants something more direct to your target!

    So -- who can you fusion market with-- how can you tap your sponsors to help both you and them?

    If you didn't have the traditional methods and had to take them off the table-- what would you do?
  • Posted by ilan on 11/21/2010 at 4:54 PM Accepted
    Your boss is right, advertising in its old fashioned way is not working. And I also guess that for the budget you have, you didn't hire the best creative guns in the market.
    With social media and guerrilla tactics today, you can go very far.
    But doing that alone is not enough.After all, these are just tactics. You need a brilliant creative strategy.
    You need some fresh, outstanding creative buzz to create the response and awareness you want.
    So you need a good team of experts in the topic, the actual media booking could be cheap, don't save on having real good creative and strategic minds working on the problem!
  • Posted on 11/21/2010 at 6:29 PM Author
    Phil / Randall,

    Thank you. It seems like I'm slightly behind the times. Call me old school, but I did not have a facebook, twitter, youtube account till last week.

    We hired this ad agency who seem to know where to go with this, but still I don't want them to take advantage of us...(Not that they would) but I have NOOOO Idea about all this new fusion marketing or Guerrilla Marketing...

    In their presentation they explained their strategy called 10-2-1. (10 feet from your tv, 2 feet from your computer screen and 1 feet to your smart phone.) That is their focus on the whole.

    So they are working out a plan based on that prospect interaction, or at least 75% of its focus on that philosophy and 25% on local print coverage (with PR of course).

    What can we anticipate from to see in their plan? What do you think will be covered in terms of outlets in their 10 - 2 - 1 plan?

    Do you guys even agree with that?

  • Posted by mgoodman on 11/21/2010 at 6:35 PM Moderator
    FWIW, getting people to buy tickets to tennis tournaments ANYWHERE is getting tougher and tougher. There are too many activities competing for the limited time people have, and The Tennis Channel gives them all the tennis they can stand 24/7. So even if you did what you've always done at higher volume, you'd probably still be struggling to fill the seats ... particularly in the early rounds.

    You might want to see if The Tennis Channel has an interest in partnering to promote the tournament locally. And the clubs, pros, shops and tennis venues in/around Toronto can probably be encouraged to help promote in exchange for some comp tickets (again mostly early rounds where there are lots of empty seats).

    And there are some out-of-town tennis buffs who would probably like a package that includes travel, hotel, entertainment, meals, and a few days/nights at the tournament. You might want to talk to some travel professionals to see how you can put those together.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 11/21/2010 at 6:45 PM Moderator
    "10-2-1" sounds like a dumb mnemonic device that basically means they will use multi-media. Some agencies think it sounds cool if they make up stuff like that.

    They also like it because the non-traditional media have low working media costs and that leaves lots of room for high agency fees without blowing the budget.

    Without some solid experience with new media for your event I'd be a little careful about a dramatic change. Absolutely begin exploring some options for new approaches, but don't just abandon traditional media before you have alternatives that have been tested and proven effective. You could end up with a real disaster.

    As with any agency presentation, listen to what they have to say, but don't let them tap dance their way to a fat budget (for them). They may have some very good ideas. The real key is whether their plan works or not. I'd be nervous about trusting anyone with a whole new approach unless they're prepared to be paid based strictly on performance. (They won't be.)

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 11/21/2010 at 7:12 PM Accepted
    Do you know who purchased tickets from you in the past? If so, contact them directly. Also consider that a majority of the people who would want to attend the tournament are likely members of a (nearby) tennis club. Therefore, market directly to these clubs/members. Instead of trying to attract everyone, focus on getting your advertisement in front of tennis players (and those that like watching tennis).
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 11/21/2010 at 8:16 PM Accepted
    Dear Accounts,

    You've already received a lot of great advice.
    Here's my humble two cents' worth.

    Your boss is partly correct: old school advertising no longer works as it once did, but it's a mistake to shift your entire focus and to ignore traditional press, direct mail drops, radio spots, and TV or other PR vehicles.
    Into your mix you MUST add a social media element to drive additional traffic to the key places you're pitching: which I would imagine are ticket sales, sponsor visibility, return on investment for other key partnerships.

    Posts on Twitter and Facebook can be used to drive traffic to a blog, or to YouTube videos. Facebook in particular can offer major visibility through its ad system, and through your tournament being listed and liked on other, tennis related pages. The main Facebook "wall" for the group dedicated to tennis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tennis/105650876136555?sk=wall has 2,225,752 fans. This means whenever your tournament Facebook page mentions the word "tennis" and you're connected to the main Tennis page, your message is seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

    Posts on Digg can help drive traffic to relevant links as well. In turn, a YouTube channel can be pushed through to other video sharing sites (such as tubemogul.com), and can be used to drive traffic to a blog or a dedicated ticket sales site or page on which you can have all kinds of associated content (opinion pieces, audio interviews, more video, special offers, and exclusive, "online only" ticket offers, competitions, and other elements that create user buy-in).

    In terms of your role as a PR person, it might be
    worth digging into ways you can get your tournament message in front of the TV cameras through the game's association with a whole host of areas that might ordinarily have no association with the game.

    Here are a few suggestions:

    Tennis and travel: how the game brings revenue in to your region and how tennis fans spend money in the local area.

    Tennis and children: camps, training, and mentoring from well known players and how their examples can give children and young people an example of success.

    Tennis and people with disabilities: how players and sponsors are making the game more accessible to fans who are blind, or deaf, or physically disabled. My niece is and she has cerebral palsy. But that has not stopped her from auditioning for (and being cast in) several theatrical productions. Nor did it prevent her from performing on stage in the UK in front of an audience of 1,500 with a major West End theatre star.

    Tennis and pets: Think this has no scope for PR? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSdn4zRPydU
    This video has been seen by 784,000 people. If you can hook into something similar and put a link in the video, AND in the text, you drive traffic.

    Tennis and celebrity: who can you get to be a guest commentator on online videos? I'd tune in to hear John McEnroe's take on things connected with the game. So would other people.

    Tennis and celebrity, pt. 2: which famous Canadians also love to play tennis? Track them down, interview them, tell the media, get exposure.

    If you'd like to chat more, I'm available for hire and I'd love to discuss your needs in greater detail. To contact me, click my name at the top of this post.

    I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

    Gary Bloomer
    The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted by bill.hoelzel on 11/24/2010 at 10:31 PM Member
    Please do research before you make a major shift from traditional media to new media. You clearly need to know how your existing audience found you in the past and how they expect to find you again.

    Do you know the median age of your audience and the percent of men and women? You might find that they're not as young as Facebook or Twitter users.

    Do they use social media more than you and your boss and colleagues do? Many people are surprised to learn how few people in their target audience are digitally literate. We're still in a transition from traditional media (print, broadcast, cable), and it may be premature to shift your budget radically if your audience has not shifted its media habits as radically.

    In short, find out who your audience is, where they live and how to reach them before you decide that social media or online media are the only answer.

    If a survey of a statistically reliable sample shows they generally use a tennis website (or any group of websites or social media, for that matter), use those media. But I suspect that traditional media are still the most cost-effective way to reach many in your target audience, and that new media deserve some attention primarly as an experiment where you can test and measure results.

    Yes, do better PR, and yes, show people that your tournament understands and values new media. And IF you use traditional media, insist on better creative than you've done before -- and test and measure results.

    But don't shift totally from traditional to new media without some basis in research for making the change, or the story in traditional media could soon be about your tournament's flawed marketing strategy if that strategy leaves the stands empty.
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