When the “Granddaddy of them All”, the Rose Bowl, debuted as the first post-season college football game in 1902, the sporting world could not have conceived that the 2010 post-season calendar would boast 35 Division I FBS major bowls. In just a few weeks, college football fans will be traveling en masse with their teams to write the final chapter of the 2010 season. Although the growing number of bowl games and the lack of a playoff system are both intensely debated topics, there is no questioning the interest of brands to participate in bowl festivities. With everything from the GoDaddy.com Bowl to the freshly minted Discover Orange Bowl, brands put forth a pretty penny to play host to the party.
The advertising ecosystem has experienced dynamic changes in consumer habits triggered by rapid adoption of evolving technology and the growing importance of relationships with brands. Marketers know they want a deeper and more meaningful connection with consumers, and experiential marketing at sporting events is a significant opportunity to make this connection.
Sports Illustrated has found a winning play for the publication’s advertisers through experiential marketing at regular season college football games. Now in its third iteration, the SI Heisman Tour presented by Nissan has grown from an initial shift in spend from print to digital to a 10,000 square foot activation with custom publications by city, appearances by Dan Patrick, former players and Heisman greats, 52″ touch screen gaming monitors, customized fan photos, sweepstakes and virtual test drives. Fans are immersed in an intelligently designed experience that includes a one-on-one photo op with the Heisman Trophy – an experience that many college football players themselves rarely have. I caught them in Happy Valley on October 30th when Penn State took on Michigan.
The tour stopped in 10 cities during the 2010 season and reached an estimated audience of 220,000. While that number may sound a little low, the value of the experience should not be underestimated. The relationship between fans and their team, the love of the sport and the admiration for the Heisman translates to a significant amount of time spent immersed in the brand. It also translates the brand positioning: Nissan Driving Performance. The experience is designed to boost the presence of Nissan, but it is clear that the consumer experience is maintained as the most important element. Fans are ultimately directed to the Nissan site to collect their photos. The online experience could use fine-tuning — the site is missing the results of last week’s stop and I couldn’t click through to Nissan.com via the Nissan logo or car displayed in the banner. In the long run, there are also ways to improve. Specifically, of the very few videos or photos I found, SI.com or Nissan created none of them. This is an easy way to extend the experience to consumers on the microsite, a YouTube channel, SI.com or even through the SI iPad app.
Fueled in part by Nissan, SI.com has grown their experiential marketing business over the past five years to $25M in annual revenues. At a time when media industry analysts have called magazines down for the count, this evolving role in serving advertisers demonstrates that publications willing to adopt a new mindset can find a revenue producing approach. Creating experiences around their content, Sports Illustrated has not only amplified the impact of the content in the short run, but extended the lifetime and consumer reach. Other experiences in the SI.com arsenal are focused around key publications like the Swimsuit and Sportsman of the Year issues. These experiences are a bit different in that they’re less experiential with consumers, but should also be leveraged as an event from which content should be captured and shared.
Having the experience of creating client activations for NBA All Star Jam Session and MLB All Star Fan Fest with OgilvyEntertainment this past year, it’s clear that fans want to spend more time around the sport they love and celebrating their favorite team, favorite player, and just their extreme love of the game. While most college football bowls and brands are focused on creating a property to attract teams and conferences with a substantial traveling fan base, there is room to expand the consumer experience and engage with fans with the help of marketers looking for the opportunity to reach a passionate audience. While many major bowls offer an official “Fan Fest”, there is opportunity for improvement in creating a truly immersive and appealing brand experience. Maybe in the future when Penn State fans pack their bags for a big bowl game, they’ll be looking forward to Fan Fest just as much as the game itself – and maybe JoePa will still be coaching.
