The Marketing Myth – Over-promising and Under-delivering.

The Marketing Myth – Over-promising and Under-delivering.

by Wayne Goldsmith

Kids and families are walking away from traditional, organized competitive sport.

We know that.

We also know that for the most part, kids and families are walking away from sport because of “experiences”, i.e. poor experiences from the deliverers of sport: coaches, officials, sports administrators and (other) parents.

And the evidence is incredibly consistent all over the world that sport needs to change, that what we’re doing to change it isn’t working and that what’s urgently needed is a way to try and fix the sports industry from grass roots level up.

But do you want to know the WRONG way to try and fix things?

With a National Marketing Campaign!

Let’s explore – examine – then explode the Marketing Myth.

Hamburgers and Sport

Ever been sitting on your couch and feeling hungry and one of those hamburger adds come on TV?

You know the ones I mean.

The luscious, juicy 100% beef patty sizzling on a shining, spotless grill.

The buns roasted and toasted – light and fluffy and golden brown.

The lettuce, tomato and onions appearing as if they were just picked on a crisp spring morning from an organic garden on a hill-side in the south of France.

The whole burger assembled precisely – almost eloquently – artistically – looking mouthwatering and irresistible.

And then someone without a millimetre of excess body fat, with perfectly groomed hair and excellent teeth, grabs the burger and with a huge smile takes a bite of the biggest and tastiest burger ever created.

So before anyone can say “Would you like fries with that?”, you run excitedly down to the local burger place, rush in, slam your five bucks down on the counter and say “Can I please have one of those burgers I just saw on TV?”

You can barely contain your delight as you wait for the burger to be cooked and served.

Finally, after seemingly hours of anticipation, you have the burger in front of you. You open the packaging…..and…..

It’s about the size of a golf ball.

The meat is dry and tasteless.

The bun is under-cooked on the top and overcooked on the bottom.

The salad vegetables are drab, colorless and without flavor.

You take two bites and throw the rest in the trash.

In spite of the promise of an exquisite culinary experience, you leave feeling empty, disappointed and ripped off vowing never to return again.

That’s why National Sports Marketing campaigns don’t work and why we’re looking at the Marketing Myth.

The Marketing Myth – Why most Marketing campaigns do not work in sport.

There’s nothing wrong with marketing. Sure – most Marketing Directors have better teeth, nicer suits and drive much more expensive cars than most of us do, but marketing does play an important role in sport as it does it all industries.

However, regardless of the brilliance and cleverness of the marketing campaign, in the end, the promised experience that is actually delivered must be similarly outstanding.

Imagine for example, you’ve just spend a huge amount of money on a National Marketing Campaign to help inspire growth in participation in a traditional Olympic sport.

Let’s say you’ve come up with a brilliant name like Our Passion – Your Potential or something similarly inspirational.

The “promise” is that the sport is fun, fast, fantastic and fabulous. That it will be an exciting and enjoyable experience.

And the campaign will inspire the hearts and minds of children across the nation to aspire to represent their country at the Olympic Games.

Inspired by the marketing campaign mom and dad take their child down to the local pool or track or court or field to become part of the amazing sporting community they’ve heard so much about.

What’s the reality that the child – and the family – actually experience with the sport?

• Coaches obsessed with physical training, with technical precision, with the athlete’s progression along the high performance “pathway”;
• Officials who are intent on enforcing rules and regulations which were designed and developed for senior athletes and high performance competitors;
• Competitions which take 6, 8, 10 hours or even longer to complete – and in some cases require a full weekend commitment from the entire family;
• Other parents who spend their entire time scheming and shaping the political environment at the Club to benefit their own child;
• Club administrators who insist on running the sport with a set of inflexible, unreasonable and inefficient rules and policies they’ve had in place since the 1970s.

It’s not the Marketing campaigns that are the real problem.

It’s the way the sport is actually being delivered that’s killing (your) sport.

The Marketing Promise Must Be Delivered: The Experience must Equal or Exceed the Expectation.

Here’s where Sports Marketing campaigns fall down: what they promise is rarely delivered.

Marketing Law Number 1 is: The experience must equal or exceed the expectation.

Marketing Law Number 2: See Marketing Law Number 1!

That means, if I market and advertise something so that my clients are expecting an experience of some kind – that experience needs to be as good – or ideally even better than what was promised.

Think again about the hamburger.

The promise is: “Our hamburgers will be like the ones you see in this marketing campaign. Big, juicy, tasty and delicious!”.

If the actual hamburger you buy is small, dry, tasteless and terrible, then the promise of a wonderful fast-food meal has been broken!

Now think about your sport’s last National Marketing Campaign.

Ask yourself:

1. What was the sports experience that was promised?
2. What was the sports experience that was delivered?
3. Did the sport experience that was delivered equal or exceed the sport experience that was promised?

If the answer to Question 3 is “NO”! then I am guessing that the clients, e.g. the kids and families who came to try your sport, not only didn’t come back, but they told anyone and everyone who’d listen not to try your sports experience.

If you spend bucket-loads of money on a national marketing campaign to try and build and grow participation in your sport BEFORE you’ve seriously committed to building and growing better quality grass roots experiences, you are putting the proverbial cart before the horse and you are wasting your money.

Yet, practically every sport in the world does it this way – and then wonder why it fails.

Sports Marketing campaigns invariably OVER-promise and UNDER-deliver.

If sport is going to grow and flourish we need to reverse this. 

We need to UNDER-promise then OVER-deliver for every kid and every family who walks through our door!

So What’s the Solution: How to dispel the Marketing Myth.

First of all, accept that sport does not work from the top down. It has been – is now and forever shall be – grass roots driven.

The vast majority of people involved in sport are:

• Volunteers;
• Amateurs;
• Part time / Casual;
• Kids and their Parents.

As such, any Marketing campaign must be specifically targeted at delivering quality services for these people: the 99% of people who are involved in, participating in, coaching, officiating and delivering sport.

Second, very, very few athletes can be – should be – or want to be – Olympic athletes or professional players.

The old marketing strategy of throwing millions of marketing mega-bucks at national campaigns which are built around inspiring young participants to want to become world class athletes is totally misguided.

This is outdated thinking and a marketing strategy doomed to fail.

The overwhelming majority of kids do not take up sport to be great: they take it up to make friends, to have fun, to learn, to enjoy themselves, to be part of “something”, to get fitter….

The “every kid should aspire to be an Olympic champion” type thinking is what’s got us into this mess to begin with!

The whole sports industry is based on the ridiculous pathway model which is at the root of many of the erroneous philosophies of coaching, officiating, sports administration and parenting that’s led us to this global sporting crisis.

And thirdly and most importantly – and I realize this is shouting (sorry) – ANY MARKETING CAMPAIGN MUST BE DELIVERED IN CONJUNCTION WITH AND IN HARMONY WITH A GRASS ROOTS SPORTS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM SO THAT THE SPORT CAN ACTUALLY DELIVER THE EXPERIENCES PROMISED BY THE NATIONAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN.

Starting up a new web page, recording a few videos of super star athletes and sending out a bunch of resource kits to Clubs is not the answer.

You have to invest serious time, energy and resources helping, training and educating people to deliver quality sports experiences.

It is so simple. So fundamental. So clear. So obvious.

National sports marketing campaigns are a complete waste of time and money unless you’re prepared to invest at least as much or even more on training, educating and developing the coaches, officials, parents and club administrators delivering the experience of your sport.

Summary:

1. We know sport is struggling to turn around the disastrous drop-out rates being witnessed all over the world.
2. In response, so many sports are wasting millions and millions of dollars on misguided sports marketing campaigns which promise everything – but in the end – will deliver nothing. The Marketing Myth is very real.
3. Invest in your grass roots. Focus on improving the consistent quality of the experience your sport deliverers – coaches, officials, parents and administrators are delivering then – when you’ve got the experience right – invest in your national marketing campaign – when you’ve actually got something wonderful to tell people about.

Wayne Goldsmith

Want to know more about how to fix the problems and challenges sport is facing?

Read my new book NEW SPORT: WHY SPORT HAS TO CHANGE.