Portland Sporting Goods & Apparel

Today’s edition of Portland Business Journal featured an announcement that snowboarding apparel company, Holden Outerwear, has just established its headquarters in Portland, OR. Recently a number of sports apparel companies have relocated to the city, thanks in part to the proximity of Nike, adidas North America, and Columbia Sportswear. Besides these three giants, the greater Portland area is home to the following:

End Outdoor Inc., sustainable footwear
Icebreaker, outdoor sports apparel
Keen Inc., footwear
Le Coq Sportif, sporting goods and apparel
Li Ning Sports USA Inc., footwear and apparel
Lucy Activewear, women’s sports apparel and accessories
Montrail, footwear
Nau, inc., outdoor apparel
Nautilus, Inc., exercise equipment
Rapha Racing Ltd., cycling apparel
Solstice Outdoor Inc., outdoor gear

Online Video Marketing Campaigns

A 30-second spot in last year’s Superbowl cost advertisers $2.6M (it was $2.7M this year) plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in production costs. But for Five Point Productions, the winner of the 2007 Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, the production cost for their ad, “Live the Flavor” cost only $12.79. Though the story is inspirational (USA Today ranked the ad 4th out of the 62 ads that were aired), the implications of this sports marketing triumph went beyond the Frito-Lay accomplishment. The larger picture is that the Doritos ad campaign from the 2007 Superbowl affected the norms of sports marketing video content: how it’s assembled, where it’s distributed, and how much it costs.

In the last year, sport marketers seem to have boosted their online presences with fancier Web sites, integrated Flash applications, Social Networking profiles, and more. But of all the improvements these companies have made online, perhaps the most effective (after a Web site) has been the use of innovative video techniques.

One of the best videos, shot with an amateur camera, features the Brazilian soccer star, Ronaldinho, as he meticulously straps on a pair of Nike soccer shoes, juggles the ball for a minute, then fires four consecutive shots off the top of the goal post without letting the ball touch the ground. The video, posted by Nikesoccer.com, has been viewed more than 21 million times as of this posting. To put that in perspective, this is roughly a quarter of the global viewership of an average Superbowl. Not bad when you consider that the clip is 2 minutes and 44 seconds, and that viewers were likely paying more attention to the video they had chosen to see than they would to a Superbowl commercial.

With the majority of online video viewers saying that they find new videos through friends’ recommendations, it’s helpful to note that the Ronaldinho video was selected as a favorite (“favorited”) by 48,740 different viewers. Youtube, like other social participation sites, allows users to tag, comment, rate, and embed the videos as well as add them to a favorites list. In the near future participants should also expect to be able to personalize, edit, an add in-video comments.

“It Takes 5ive” is the adidas basketball campaign based on the idea of believing in the team. The campaign has put together a presence on YouTube with clips of Dwight Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Adam Morrison, TJ Ford, and other celebrity ball players. Their most viewed clip, “adidas 5ive on 5ive,” has just over a million views, and is part of a campaign that includes at least 14 other short videos. Though not as successful as the Nike soccer video campaign, adidas finishes the video with a call to action, urging viewers to see all the action by visiting their video site. Adidas’ video is a jumping off place for the basketball enthusiast to see more related videos and the accompanying marketing messages.

Digital marketing can help maximize the impact of production budgets (the Ronaldinho video would have cost more than $10M to air on the Superbowl because of its length), it can act as a gateway to a longer piece that allows for a deeper and more interactive experience, and it can work without the formal constraints of time (both in the sense of 30 second spots and the sense of ads appearing only after the 5 o’clock news). Digital marketing doesn’t mean that traditional marketing is irrelevant, but it has become enough of a force that media campaigns should have an Internet component. Moreover, traditional media should take a lesson from the 2007 Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest and learn how to integrate this new format with their own.

Samsung's Sponsorship Deal

The market researchers at TNS Global—a leading sports research company that provides information to over 300 sponsors—just released a case study confirming the sponsorship benefits for the Samsung Mobile brand in its pairing with the Chelsea Football Club. The full report is available here, but I’ve extrapolated some key points of interest:

Every month tabloids and newspapers print more than 100 photographs showing the Samsung logo or brand.

A Chelsea home game exposes viewers to 800 seconds (13 1/3 minutes) of Samsung.

Twenty-two percent of all soccer fans associate Samsung with a team, while 38% of Chelsea fans associate Samsung Mobile with an English Premiership club.

Samsung’s share of cell phone sales from August to January 2006 were double those seen for the same period in 2005.

Seventy-seven percent of Samsung Mobile users are quite or very likely to continue using the brand.

Of course the report doesn't comment on what Samsung paid for the sponsorship rights, but chances are they’re pretty happy. Chelsea FC’s support in London at the end of 2006 was nearly double what it was three years previously, and Chelsea is currently ranked third in the Premier League. On top of that, the cost of the 13.33 minutes of TV advertising might cost Samsung over a million dollars per game, were the company to pay for it 30 seconds at a time. (Calculated at $50,000 per 30 seconds, plus $350,000 initial production costs. In the US, TV ads could be 3 to 10 times that cost.) And that’s not even taking into account the 100 print photos/month, the value of which depends mostly on placement and circulation.

Sports Marketing in Second Life

About a year ago, Pat Coyle wrote an interesting article pushing for Lucas Oil Stadium (the soon-to-be home of the Indianapolis Colts) to go live on the Internet-based virtual world of Second Life. Recently, his article got me wondering what sports properties exist on Second Life, and how they function to support their brands. Below is a list of four major sports properties with significant presences in Second Life.

adidas AG

For $50 Linden Dollars (L$50—roughly $0.20) you can outfit your avatar with a3 Microride shoes from the adidas store, which allow the wearer to bounce around like a kid on a pogo stick. The shoes may not have permeated the Second Life market like adidas once hoped, but the move to open a retail outlet got some positive press back in 2006 and may have also made Second Lifers feel like an important demographic.

Reebok

Direct your avatar over to the Reebok island on Second Life and you’re in for a marketing treat. Unlike at the adidas Sim, at the Reebok store you can buy shoes AND customize them. Shell out L$50 for the initial white pair and before you know it you’ll be upgrading to a custom-color pair for only L$5 more. You can come back as often as you want to switch the color, and the cost is L$5 each time.

Major League Baseball

In July of 2006 Major League Baseball simulcasted its popular Home Run Derby on Second Life. Fans and their avatars paid L$1000 (about $3) to congregate at the virtual stadium on “Baseball Island” and watch the event on virtual screens. The event was criticized for adding very little interactivity to the experience, though the MLB marketing executives did set up chat rooms for fans to trash talk, and sold virtual MLB merchandise at the event and at in-world stores.

NBA

If the Major League Baseball foray into Second Life is a rim shot, then the NBA’s presence is a slam dunk. At the NBA headquarters that opened there in June 2007, sports-minded avatars can watch 3-D diagrams of games in real time while chatting with others, play HORSE and Crash The Boards at the NBA Jam Session area where basketballs are freely available, and buy NBA merchandise. Like the Reebok store, this virtual world is likely to attract repeat visitors.

One of the detractors to sports properties focusing their attention on Second Life is that some of the recent media has highlighted the adult nature of the virtual world. For a family-friendly brand like Major League Baseball, association with Second Life has its drawbacks. Just consider the recent articles decrying inappropriate behavior, FBI investigations, sexual harassment, and pornography. So while some sports properties are excited to be among the first in the industry to brand themselves in these virtual worlds, others are understandably worried.

Facebook Applications

Sports marketers use the popular networking site, Facebook, to promote events, market leagues, advertise media outlets, and generate excitement about sports properties. And while not all sports entities have created a presence on Facebook, those that have can claim real results for a minimal investment.

CBSSports.com has recently created the Official Tournament Brackets application. Roughly 500,000 users have uploaded this app, and most days nearly 5,000 of those users open the application to play around with it. This particular application lets users create a NCAA basketball tournament bracket, register themselves as fans of particular teams, and compare brackets against friends and other users for a chance to win $10,000.

Sports Illustrated has created a more modest application with roughly 10% as many users as the CBS sports app, which allows the user to choose favorite teams from the “Big Four” leagues plus NCAA basketball and football. It then spits out customized SI headlines for those teams.

A third, less-known company, Citizen Sports Network, has created dozens (possibly hundreds) of Facebook applications targeted uniquely to fans. Each page is a forum for fans of a team to congregate, discuss, and cheer with fellow supporters. Citizen Sports Network has highly-downloaded and viewed applications, with names like “Red Sox Nation” and “England Football.”

Many sports properties, such as Nike, haven’t necessarily created their own Facebook applications, yet still maintain a Facebook presence. A search for Nike applications, for example, yields a “Nike+ Running Monitor” app that lets users share Nike+ running progress with friends, and a few other applications designed independently from the company. Searches for “adidas” and “nfl” yield similar results.

Other sports properties have reserved the use of their name in the same way that someone might buy a domain name for future use. The difference with Facebook is that application names are free and must be at least 7 characters (thus “nike” would be unacceptable, but “niketennis” would work). Callaway Golf has reserved their name without actually creating an application, as have EA Sports and adidas. However, some companies have clearly failed to reserve the use of their names, as “IMGWorld” and “Daktronics” are still available for anyone to snatch up.

I reserved the use of some excellent application names that might someday have value just as domain names in the early 21st century came to be valuable. Perhaps years from now “icehockey,” “softball,” and “wrestling” will all be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if these names aren’t worth anything, it seems prudent for any corporation to grab up their own name. I just registered “NorthFace” and it didn’t cost me a penny.

Accepted to the UO Sports Marketing MBA program

Today I was accepted to the University of Oregon Warsaw Sports Marketing Center’s MBA program, class of 2010. The Sports Marketing program at the U of O places graduates in sports leagues, sports franchises, sports media, and sports products companies. Nike hires more UO MBA graduates than any other company, and more UO MBAs intern at Nike than at any other company. Other top firms to hire UO Sports Marketing MBA graduates include adidas North America, the NBA, the WNBA, the NFL, Visa, Octagon, Wieden + Kennedy, Columbia Sportswear, and many more.

Warsaw Guest Speakers

The sports marketing program at the University of Oregon had a strong group of guest speakers this winter. Below is a list of the industry professionals who recently shared their insights with students. Source: Lundquist College of Business biannual magazine, Business. (Volume 5, Number 11, Winter 2008)

Rick Alessandri, ESPN

Grant Armbruster, Columbia Sportswear Company

Marc Badain, Oakland Raiders

David Baker, Arena Football League

Scott Bedbury, Brandstream

Jeff Benjamin, Printroom.com

Malcolm Bordelon, San Jose Sharks

Renee Brown, WNBA

Carter Carnegie, National Thoroughbred Racing Association

Arjun Chowdri, Genesco, Inc

Michelle Collins, IMG

Ron Coverson, Stanford Athletics

Bob Cramer, Genesco, Inc

Jarrod Dillon, Oakland Raiders

Andy Dolich, Memphis Grizzlies

Kelly Dredge, IMG

Jarrett Dube, ESPN Andrew Fink, NFL

Evan Frankel, NASCAR, Inc.

Tom Fritz, Marmot Mountain, LLC

Mary Pat Gillin, NBA

David Haney, Arena Football League

Chris Heck, NBA

Stephanie Heidrich, Columbia Sportswear Company

Mike Herst, Electronic Arts, Inc.

Calen Higgins, Columbia Sportswear Company

Heather Higgins, National Thoroughbred Racing Association

Gregory C. Houser, Marmot Mountain, LLC

Stu Jackson, NBA

Akash Jain, NBA

Brian Jennings, NHL

Ilana Kloss, World Team Tennis

Katie Lacey, ESPN

Amy Lasky, National Thoroughbred Racing Association

Michael Leming, Nike, Inc.

Dana Lent, NASCAR, Inc.

Hunter Lochmann, New York Knicks

Mike Lopono, Arena Football League

Marc, Lowitz, Arena Football League

Julie Malmberg, Nike, Inc.

Mark Martin, Marmot Mountain, LLC

Donovan Mattole, Nautilus, Inc.

Chris McCloskey, Arena Football League

Tom McDonald, San Francisco Giants

David Murrell, Columbia Sportswear Company

Darrin Nelson, Stanford Athletics

Kim Nelson, Nike, Inc.

Jim Noel, ESPN

Jolynn Ovington, nau inc.

Steve Patterson, Portland Trailblazers

Andi Poch, WNBA

Jeff Price, Sports Illustrated

Craig Purcell, Oakland Raiders

Dan Reed, NBA

Andrew Rentmeester, Oakland Raiders

Michael Rooney, ESPN

Peter Rotondo, Jr., National Thoroughbred Racing Association

Peter Rotondo, Sr., National Thoroughbred Racing Association

Robert Rowell, Golden State Warriors

Jennifer Rowland, Visa International

Norris Scott, NASCAR, Inc.

Adam Silver, NBA

David Stern, NBA

Jimmy Su, NBA

Aaron Taylor, ESPN Bob Thompson, Fox Sports

Gary Treagen, Electronic Arts Inc.

Donna Tripiano, IMG

Jeff Tucker, San Francisco Giants

Jim Tucker, NASCAR, Inc.

Steve Tseng, IMG

Heidi Ueberroth, NBA

Matthieu Van Veen, NBA

Ted Van Zelst, NASCAR, Inc.

Tyler Vaught, Electronic Arts Inc.

Pamela White, National Thoroughbred Racing Association