Catching Up With Blazers Interactive Marketing Dir Dan Harbison

Trail Blazers Dir Of Interactive Marketing & Media Dan Harbison

Q: How would you define interactive marketing?

Harbison: Interactive marketing has now turned into a conversation. So it’s, what is going to be the best way to talk to your fans? So whether that’s through a cell phone or a Web site or interactive TV or any of these digital mediums, it’s a way you’re going to be able to talk with them, find out more information about them, and being able to turn that around and use that information that they’re giving you about what they want and what they don’t want, and making sure you’re able to deliver what they want when they want, whether you’re talking about content or a product. And that’s marketing in general. The nice thing about interactive marketing is that conversation has become a lot more intimate in a very dynamic way. So instead of just broadcasting a TV commercial and you’re not quite sure if that’s being responded to -- or if it’s being received or if it’s even the right message, you have no idea -- if you get feedback from people and have that conversation, you can figure out, did that work?

Q: What do teams/properties/brands misunderstand about the digital space?

Harbison: It’s a really hard culture shift for the industry. We are the brand, we dictate what the brand is, and really the brand is your reputation with your customers and your fans. (Fans) at times dictate what your brand is, it’s what they believe your brand is. So it’s kind of relinquishing that control a bit, understanding that you can’t control that all the time. So the way the Web has shifted with everybody having a voice, it is okay to have conversations with your fans on your Web site and have those comments up there. If it’s negative, learn from why it’s negative. It’s okay if people are saying negative things about you, it really is okay, you just have to learn from those negative things and figure out a way to authentically have a conversation with those people that are negative. So it’s that feeling that you have complete control over your message and your brand, that’s one thing that sports teams misunderstand. And we’ve done that transition, but it was a difficult one, and we still go through it every day, being able to be okay with a lot of information being out there and being open to your public. And kind of an old school way, especially in sports, is being closed-door, not really opening up your door and instead just opening up your curtain. That’s what we’ve really worked on for the Trail Blazers -- being a lot better connected with our fans, and by doing that you kind of open up the doors a little bit more, especially on the site.

Q: With iamatrailblazersfan.com, you were the first team to launch its own social network. What kind of a response have you gotten? Would you call it a success?

Harbison: Definitely. We have 12,000 plus signed up right now. We’re working on version 2.0, which will launch before the season starts. I’m really excited to launch the new version, because we’ve learned so much from the old version. We’ve been up for about a year and a half, so really the site is over two years old, and I really want to evolve it and bring in new features. So with the feature set and the involvement and engagement from fans, it’s been great. From a monetary perspective, we’ve shown great return through sponsorship and through ticket sales, and we’re looking at really pushing the envelope in the next iteration of trying to extend more revenue stream.

Q: In which professional sports league do you think social media is best suited to thrive? 

Harbison: I think they all lend themselves really well, actually. All of the leagues have games going on and fan interaction, behind the scenes stuff. Fans are passionate no matter where you go so I don’t think there is one that is tailor-made for that because there is stuff in the NBA which is so fast paced that there isn’t a ton of down time, versus baseball where there is more down time but there is also more opportunity in baseball to do a lot of features during the games or even with the fans at the stadium. In the NFL, it would be awesome to be able to be in the huddle with a huddle cam or something like that or on the sidelines. With hockey the same way, being able to be on the ice would be amazing. So I think it really is tough to pinpoint one league that would stand out because it’s all about content. They all have dynamic content and that’s the reason we’re in this business, and that’s the reason why fans are so passionate about it, because it’s really exciting.

Q: Is there a particular sports marketing idea or social media application that you wish you had come up with?

Harbison: Who wouldn’t have wanted to come up with YouTube? The reason why YouTube was created, and this is why I respect it so much, is people saw a problem on the web: How do we do online video? How do I upload video and put it on my site really easily? I’ve been doing interactive marketing now for 10 years and that was such a pain for so long. It still is somewhat difficult if you don’t have a third party service or you don’t have a built in service like that. Having video encoded across the board so everybody can see it. So I think YouTube would be an easy one to say. Most recently I really have enjoyed, like I mentioned before, Twitter. I think that is a really simplistic concept and probably not a lot of people have heard about it, but it’s a way to communicate what you’re doing to micro blogs. So I’m doing a one sentence sort of thing and your friends that are following you find out what you’re doing. And I found out things about my friends or colleagues or people that I respect, what they’re up to, things that I would never have known beforehand. Because that’s not something you e-mail to somebody, that’s not something you IM to somebody. So it’s a little bit different to look at what people’s behaviors and thoughts are and it’s a really cool way to go and interact. I wish I would have come up with that. That would be cool. 

Q: Describe a day in your life with the Blazers.

Harbison: We have a great team of people that I work with in the interactive marketing department and we go do a production meeting in the morning and go through all of the things that are on each person’s docket. Whether it’s what the messaging is or what the content is that we need to push out or any sort of promotions. We go through a couple of different meetings whether it’s with ticketing or sponsorship. Pretty much every day I sit down with one sponsorship person and talk about ways to maximize revenue on the web, and we have daily meetings with our ticketing vice president and directors about ways to retain and try to sell more tickets depending on the year and what type of tickets we’re selling and packages. It’s tough to say too because we’re in the offseason right now and the offseasons are different than during the season. During the season you’re so day-by-day. Each day you’re either recapping a game from the night before or you’re converting a game coming up, and a lot of times you’re doing both and trying to make sure everybody is on the same page with what our messaging is. Whether it’s trying to get out content or tickets or sponsorship stuff.

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Q: How do you involve your young stars in your campaigns, specifically some of your more interactive campaigns?

Harbison: Those guys are so enthusiastic. We have such a great group of guys. Truly the guys we have with BRANDON (ROY) and LAMARCUS (ALDRIDGE) and MARTELL (WEBSTER) and TRAVIS (OUTLAW) and JOEL PRZYBILLA, those guys are the veterans and they’re not even 30 yet, but they new guys too. With (JERRYD) BAYLESS and GREG (ODEN) and we have RUDY FERNANDEZ coming over from Spain, these guys grew up on MySpace and Facebook and they get social networking. They’re also really enthusiastic to be a part of the team and come on board. So one of the things that we have to do is continually reach out to them and make sure that we push their personality and who they are through our means, whether it’s at iamatrailblazersfan.com or trailblazers.com. It’s really exciting actually because they’re guys that get it and they’re really cool. They’re extremely accommodating and so in this next iteration that we have coming out at iamatrailblazersfan.com, it’s going to be really exciting having a better connection with the players. That’s something we’ve got and see that from fans. We want to continue to connect with each other on and off the site but we also want to connect on a different level with the players too. So getting them on the site and using it, and they’ve been really enthusiastic about it. We’re really excited because you wouldn’t believe how by giving a camera to a guy they become MARTIN SCORCESE. So they’re rolling around, doing their little commentary and their eyes light up. They’re stoked to be behind the camera, as opposed to always being in front of the camera. So it’s that level of involvement that they have that’s a little bit different -- they’re interviewing their teammates. You usually see some really good response. I’m excited to see how excited Jared is with the camera, but Greg’s been great. Like I said, he’s the type of guy that gets it, gets and understands marketing. He has his own blog on Yardbarker. He’s definitely involved, which is good, and the other guys, the “veterans,” who are under the age of 25, they grew up in that era too, so they’re really enthusiastic, so it’s kind of cool.

Q: There’s been a lot of debate about the future of newspapers and so-called old media. Do you think that old media and new media can co-exist?

Harbison: I think, with any sort of organization, they have to evolve with the times. So will old media go away? I mean it’s just going to be media, there won’t be old or new. We kind of talk about the brand, you're up to the consumption of the consumer or customer. So it’s about how they’re consuming your information. For example, if you’re a newspaper, will printed newspapers still exist in 10 years? I’m going to say some will probably still be out there, but it’s going to be a lot less. It’s going to be pretty difficult I think for even small regional papers to be around. Even from the cost perspective from the way resources are going of being able to afford paper. Is that going to be a cost that they’re willing to pay for versus doing something that’s online? Will there be newspaper? People want to go and read the news and consume the news, but it just may not be on a written piece of paper, or a pressed piece of paper. Same thing with radio in 10 years will you be listening to an FM signal? I’m going to say no. For radio, Pandora.com is an amazing source for listening to different radio that is tailor-made for your tastes. Radio needs to figure out how to not be linear anymore with their music. They need to be adaptive with their audience, like Pandora is.

Q: What is a sports business issue that you’re watching closely.

Harbison: I would say digital rights and online video. Streamlining what we were just talking about, how people are consuming their games and highlights is getting really interesting because of the use of broadband or broadband being more accessible for people. I would love for the teams to monetize the digital rights of video in a really powerful way. Essentially, that’s how our consumers are going to be watching our games, they’re going to be watching online. If you look at large networks, all the four major networks have most of their shows available to watch afterwards online. I’ve started watching some of my favorite shows through those means because I wasn’t in front of my TV right at that time when the show was on. Same thing for the Blazers, whether it’s people TiVo-ing games or the out-of-market experience, just being able to have teams show games over the web to their fans. I’m really excited to see how that goes.

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