Virtual Ads

At their exhibit at the New Orleans Convention Center, the Spalding team showed off its plans to use NBA backboards as an advertising medium. Spalding’s rear-screen projection system would put ads on the glass backboards during timeouts, halftime, and other non-play periods.

Virtual ads are nothing new: the patent dates back to 1993 and the technology really took off in 2002, about the same time that virtual first-down lines started showing up in NFL broadcasts. But where midfield soccer ads, corporate logos behind home plate, and branded first-down lines are all examples of completely virtual advertising, the projection technology proposed by Spalding is visible to in-game spectators as well as broadcast viewers. In fact, the target audience is presumably the in-game spectator since timeouts and halftime trigger commercial breaks for broadcasters.

It will be interesting to see how this technology is received. In the 2001 World Series virtual ads were criticized as obviously fake and obnoxiously big, while today they are a fully-integrated part of the event.

Promotional Products Association International Expo

Last week I attended the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) expo in Las Vegas. More than 14,000 promotional consultants showed up to the expo at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, where they walked the 1.1 million square feet of exhibition space in search of products for their corporate clients.Sports products made up a large percentage of the promotional products available. From footballs with space for a company logo, to specialty water bottles, to name-brand golf equipment, the convention was filled with sports merchandise.I went around to some of the more prominent booths (Nike Golf, Augusta Sportswear, Spalding, etc) and to booths belonging to less established exhibitors, to ask them about the challenges of marketing a sports product. The responses were varied. Some spokespeople claimed they had no difficulties because their’s was such a great product. Others didn’t see their industry as the sports industry but rather the promotional products industry—as though selling an imprinted jersey was the same as an imprinted book or coffee mug. Still, I got some honest and interesting answers, shared below.“The most challenging part is reaching the right audience. We do team sports and corporate uniforms, so the challenge is not losing each side.”

-Doug Massong, Augusta Sportswear

“My biggest challenge is the constant price increase in urethane foam.”
-Tom Teach, Quality Foam Designs

“We’ve needed to differentiate our product. Everybody knows about these sticks [holding up a pair of thunder sticks]. We make ours out of beach ball material so you can inflate these and reuse them.”
-Terry Brizz, Galaxy Balloons

“We sometimes have trouble with big companies because they may only have a few preferred customers. We’d like to communicate directly to them, but we can’t.”
-Bob Nowak, Spalding