Many people have asked me what is marketing, and what process do you use to direct you? The answer to this question can be prolonged if you go into detail about it. After all, you can get a college degree in this field, but then you have the subcategories, some of which are Market research, Content marketing, Search engine marketing (SEM), Direct marketing, Database marketing, Social media marketing, Guerilla marketing, and Product marketing. Well, you get the idea. Marketing is extensive, but let’s stay focused.
First question, what is Marketing? This can be answered most directly by the 4 Ps. Marketing is the implementation of the product, price, promotion, and place, but I have seen this expanded to include people, process, and physical evidence. This is marketing broken down into the 30,000-foot view. Very preliminary, but it points you in the correct direction.
Now a very useful tool used in the marketer’s playbook is the SWOT analysis. This simply stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is your basic playbook; of areas, you need to exploit your advantage and protect against your weaknesses.
It can be confusing when talking about it in its abstract. With me, I learn better with examples. What better way to do this than to compare, and contrast the professional sports market in Denver, Colorado. This is easier for me because I’m most familiar with this market. The two businesses will be the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Rockies. Even though these two businesses operate within two different sports, the SWOT analysis is virtually the same because the same factors are present in both fields. The games are entirely different, but the study is closely related. The numbers and prices are dated, but the concept of the SWOT analysis is solid.
Brand
The brand of the Colorado Rockies and Denver Broncos are identified as members of the Major League Baseball and National Football League (MLB, NFL). The primary purpose of these organizations is to provide entertainment to a city, state, or region for its customers. The Denver Broncos and Colorado Rockies’ primary business focus is on entertainment. It’s other fundamental is to produce a profit to the team owners and the MLB and NFL respectfully. The Brand of the Broncos has been around longer in Denver but MLB as a whole has a much richer history.
Price
Pricing for the Colorado Rockies has changed over the years, with the company wanting to offer a price point for everyone wishing to see their product. In this area, the Rockies and MLB have done a great job. If you want to see one game, you can spend anywhere from $2 to $500 for the exclusive box suites behind home plate. If you want Season tickets, the price goes up to $806 to $3724 a seat. If you want only to see 5, 10, or 30 games a season, there is a fan package for you where you can pick what games to see.
(Colorado Rockies, 2017)
The Denver Broncos pricing gives you fewer options, but the pricing is more straightforward. For a marquee football game, you will pay anywhere from $67 to $229 a ticket. Season tickets can cost anywhere from $700 to $2500 depending on seating and when tickets become available. Then you have luxury boxes, where the price is out of reach for the casual fan. The Broncos local draw in Denver enables the company to list the price at whatever they like because the tickets will sell. This is an excellent advantage for the Broncos to have a low supply of seats and high demand for those tickets.
(Denver Broncos, 2017)
Advertising
Advertising to the target audience for the Rockies and Broncos is twofold. The primary audience would be people who live in Denver, Colorado, or the mountain west region or people who have some affiliation. The second target audience are fans of MLB and the NFL in general. Much like the Broncos, the Rockies are a regional draw, and this second level of the target market makes the audience infinitely bigger in the scope of fan base, creating a more significant revenue stream.
During the Baseball season, you will see and hear commercials promoting the Colorado Rockies. There are also sponsorships that MLB must promote the brand overall, which is a great back-to-back advertising plan.
The Denver Broncos and the NFL seem to be on a higher level when it comes to advertising. Companies are willing to pay the Broncos and NFL for an affiliation with their brand. Companies like the University of Colorado Health Care and Coors pay handsomely for the chance for their brand to be associated with the Broncos. The Broncos are the draw, and the companies simply want to be seen as a partner with that brand. When you’ve reached this level again, you name the price, and companies will step up and pay.
The marketing concept behind the Colorado Rockies and Denver Broncos is the Product Concept. This states that consumers favor products that offer the most quality, performance, or innovative features. The Rockies and Broncos are focused and have positioned themselves as providing entertainment with the highest level of competition in baseball and football. The Rockies and Broncos are meeting the customer’s needs simply based on the amount of revenue they produce every year. Each season new attendance records are being set and this is with a less than stellar record for the franchise over its history for the Rockies. The customer base might not be loyal to the Rockies but do support MLB overwhelmingly. For the Broncos, with every game being sold out every week going back to the 1970s, this brand will remain strong well into the future
Location
The location for these two products is the same being Denver Colorado. The Denver metro area that ranks 22 at 2,150,300 people, according to Bryan Farrish marketing is the scope of the overall market in the US.
SWOT.
SWOT Analysis for Major League Baseball and National Football League are virtually the same. This makes sense because of the markets they are pursuing in the sports entertainment industry. Even the end goal of expanding into Asia seem to mirror each other because of the population base with emerging economies.
Strengths:
The loyal and huge fan base in the USA (Both)
One of the major professional sports leagues in USA (Both)
Excellent merchandising and marketing (Both)
Presence of the best players from across the world (MLB)
Weaknesses:
Yet to tap into the Asian market, which is a growing economy (Both)
Various doping-related controversies in the recent past (Both)
The slowing economy in the USA is affecting some teams in the league (Both)
No proper association with broadcasters in Asia. (Both)
Opportunities:
Tap the global fan bases, especially the emerging economies like India and China (Both)
Tap international fan base and talent through World Tours. (Both)
Threats:
Threat from the rising popularity of other sports like soccer in USA (Both)
The potential risk of increased usage of steroids in the game, which will lead to a loss of credibility for the league. (Both)
Building and Developing a Brand
In all businesses building and then developing a brand is of primary importance. A good reputation can go a long way in the world of customer support. The way you go about this is by creating consistency in your product. In the NFL and MLB, that is acquiring the best talent available both on the sports side and business and then maintaining that level over a long period. This creates consistency in the eyes of the consumer, which in turn buys loyalty. These high standards must be kept in place; otherwise, the consumer will leave because of the lack of consistency. Determining how high of a quality standard you want to keep your product at will then correlate into the quality of talent you need to hire. The better the employee you are seeking requires a company to come with a better compensation package to attract and keep talent within the business. Having this quality talent within your industry is money well spent and a positive step in building and maintaining your brand.
(Joshi, A, Giménez, E. 2014)
Even though the numbers and dollar amount are old, the proof of concept is valid. Hopefully this will bring into focus the idea of SWOT analysis to someone who is unfamiliar. So next time you’re at a dinner party, and the conversation breaks out into marketing and SWOT analysis, you can hopefully join in and enjoy the interaction.
References
Colorado Rockies. (2017). Ticketing. Colorado Rockies website. Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/ticketing/index.jsp?c_id=col
Denver Broncos. (2017). Tickets. Denver Broncos website. Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://www.denverbroncos.com/tickets/season_tickets.html
Joshi, Aditya; Giménez, Eduardo. (2014). Decision-Driven Marketing. Harvard Business Review. Jul/Aug2014, Vol. 92 Issue 7/8, p64-71.
MBA Skool. (2017). MLB Major League Baseball SWOT analysis, USP & competitors. MBA Skool website. Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/sports-teams-and-events/6236-mlb-major-league-baseball.html
MBA Skool. (2017). NFL National Football League USA SWOT analysis, USP & competitors. MBA Skool website. Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/sports-teams-and-events/5926-nfl-national-football-league-usa.html
McDonald, Malcolm & Wilson, Hugh. (2011). Marketing plans: how to prepare them, how to use them, seventh edition. Chapter 1. [Books24x7 version] Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://common.books24x7.com.dml.regis.edu/toc.aspx?bookid=40947.
Radio Media. (2017). Markets, Radio media website. Retrieved February 4, 2017 from http://www.radio-media /markets/main.html