teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Many of my students enjoy sports — and examples of creative marketing by sports teams tends to capture their attention.  This article in the Wall Street Journal, “NBA Game Promises to be a Turkey?  Call In the Turks — or the Filipinos,” (January 19, 2011 – non-subscribers may have to click here)  shows some classic target marketing efforts by the National Basketball Association — and they seem to be working.  For example, the Sacramento Kings, one of the worst teams in the league, are drawing big crowds on Jewish Heritage nights in Toronto, Washington, Atlanta, and Boston.  Why?  They have the leagues only Israeli, Omri Casspi.  Teams have give away yarmulkes and provided kosher foods to further appeal to the Jewish fan.

You might want to show this video in class, and then ask your students what other organizations could offer similar special nights?  How could they increase their appeal to such a target market?   This was also posted over at Learn the 4 Ps.

We are all familiar, at least with the concept, of dynamic (or time-based) pricing.  Airlines are the most common example, raising and lowering fares over time on a particular flight to optimize the number of passengers and profits.  Many services have very low marginal costs — for example it costs very little to add one more passenger to a flight that is not full.  Well now a recently minted Economics PhD has developed models to do this for sports tickets — and the San Francisco Giants (baseball) are using it to adjust prices.  It is nice to give an example that is not from the airline industry.  Check out.  “Pricing Baseball Tickets Like Airline Seats” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, May 20, 2010).

The World Cup is a huge sponsorship opportunity — especially in Spain.  I spent almost a year in Spain while on sabbatical a few years ago — they love their soccer.  This short (2:17) video clips might provide an international example to use when you talk about sales promotion or sponsorship  “Spain a World Cup Favorite for Ads” (CNNMoney.com).

Here is a new ad from Coca Cola that ties into the Olympics.  Does a nice job reinforcing the happiness positioning (see earlier post) — and everyone (o.k., lots of people) like these Olympic athletes have fun together themes.