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Opinion: Sports Marketers Need To Break The Formula, Get Fans Excited Again

The "most competitive six weeks of the Australian sports marketing calendar start in October each year," according to Publicis Worldwide Australia CEO Andrew Baxter, writing for THE AUSTRALIAN. Racing’s spring carnival "gallops into action, cricket, basketball, baseball and the A-League launch their seasons," and the Australian Football League and National Rugby League clubs kick off their membership campaigns for the following year. And on top of that, "the major sponsors of all of them vie to leverage the dollars they’ve spent." After sports marketers had brought us cricket’s “Come on Aussie, Come on” campaign in '78 and the AFL’s “I’d like to see that” in '94, "the past 20 years have seen few highlights." The famous creative campaigns of the past have been replaced by a formula -- "rapid cuts of sports action intertwined with the rah-rah cheering of supporters, a big music track, and a warlike tagline at the end." Marketers cannot "invest heavily in their product and skimp on promoting it." And many of these organizations "have fallen into the trap of hoping that the sport’s content and newsworthiness will promote itself at little cost; that the owned and earned media can carry the promotional burden." Unfortunately, marketing sport "requires an investment across the entire media mix." It "needs an investment in paid media and compelling communications to succeed." There "are some great examples of those that are investing, both in Australia and overseas." NASCAR "has a strong history of promoting its sport well and differently." BBC "ran a campaign two years back for the rugby Six Nations tournament." The Australian Baseball League’s Melbourne Aces "ran a campaign last season showcasing their players’ different skills in other ball sports." All of these campaigns "are a great reminder of the basics behind all successful communications -- a single-minded idea executed well." A "compelling campaign that stands up against the best communications in any category, not just within the category you play in." As top-level sport has become a business over the last 20 years, "the investment in those sports’ product has certainly outweighed the investment in promoting it." Those sports organizations that find a better balance over the next decade "will be the ones that succeed" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 11/21).

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