Reflection

4/5/2013

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Sport writing for marketing and promotions has taught me a lot about the marketing world and has helped me understand promotions.  I have not taken a marketing class in about 2 years; but I have learned that marketing your product is a big part of the sport industry.  In order to market your product you have to evaluate, describe, and develop information about your product and know your goals of where you want this product to be in the future.  Get to know your target market and understand what they want instead of what you want. 

I think I learned the most about the promotional side of sport.  Being able to promote your product to your target market is the key to getting fans or customers attracted to your product.  Sports promotions have to be short and sweet and something that will catch the customer’s eye.  Writing about all of the different sports organizations and ways they have promoted their company or product has been very interesting to learn about.  Being creative and innovative with promotions will set you apart from other companies or organizations.  

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Sports Industry Future Marketing

4/3/2013

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My sport sector that I chose was fitness centers.  Now more than ever, fitness has become a main focus for the current generation and the future generation.  More and more fitness centers are popping up all around communities.  I have thought about some ideas to market these fitness centers to draw in more customers.


  1. Don’t make visitors pay for the first time they “visit.”  Sometimes people just want a trial run of the gym to see if they like the equipment, environment, and atmosphere of your fitness center.  Give the customer a trial week of your fitness center or if you can’t afford to have free weeks, charge a small fee of $1.  
  2. Have a loyalty program.  Some fitness centers get wrapped up about getting new customers.  Why not look at the customers you already have?  Set up a loyalty program for your current gym goers that visit you 4 or more times a week.  Give out free t-shirts for the first month, free bags, water bottles, etc. for the first 6 -8 months.  Bump up the incentives with free gym programs, protein shakes weekly, etc.  Once you show that you appreciate your current gym rats, word of mouth will kick in and help you gain more and more customers that want to stay loyal to you.
  3. Promote events.  Have different activities set up that are led by your trainers such as; boot camps, bicycling/spinning classes, kick boxing, Zumba, etc.  Find exciting things that people will be interested in.  Recently the new kick is P90X or Intensity.
  4. Have an easy to use website.  With technology today it is easier to reach out to people.  Make sure your website has what your fitness center has (equipment, smoothie bar, trainers…), prices, availability.  Websites can be very useful to your gym rats, especially if you put up helpful services like, diet trackers, workout trackers, and biggest loser competitions.  This will help the customers be more involved in your center.  Make sure there are a lot of pictures, be clear on prices, and be sure to advertise any promotions.
  5. Create a blog.  Creating a blog about the fitness center will keep customers up to date on what’s going on.  You can put up daily exercise tips, diet and nutrition tips, wellness, weight-lifting workouts, new sports updates, ANYTHING!  This is also another way to communicate with your community.  
  6. Create a Facebook page.  Technology is taking over whether we like it or not.  People are always online looking for new and interesting things.  Creating a Facebook page for the your fitness center can help you communicate with your gym members or interested gym members.  You can also put up promotions on this page.  For example; 30% off protein shakes if you say the word “I love my fitness center” for today only!  Simple promotions that will attract your members to your page every day to see if there are any new promotions they can take advantage of.
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Phelps & Moral Clauses

4/2/2013

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Kellogg

The Kellogg Company’s stock took an immediate dive following its decision to drop Michael Phelps after the news of the swimmers bong hit photo came out to the public.  Come to find out, drug reform organizations make up a big amount of the Kellogg stock. What began as a coordinated boycott, quickly escalated into full-blown media frenzy as major news outlets picked up the story.  Digg.com (a pot friendly website) began directing massive traffic to news coverage that was critical of Kellogg’s anti-marijuana posturing; which increased the campaigns visibility among likely supporters.The negative publicity has impacted the company.  Before Kellogg got rid of Phelps, it was ranked ninth out of the 5,600 Vanno Reputation Index monitors; now it’s ranked 83.  Dropping Phelps has hurt their company a lot more than Kellogg had expected, and I believe it was a decision on a business side; but for the reputation and the “good name” of Kellogg, I think the decision was good.  If Kellogg would have kept Phelps with their company it would have sent a bad image to children about drug use.

Speedo

Speedo decided against dropping Phelps after his marijuana incident.  I think this was a good decision for the Speedo Company because it is a big force in the swimming world, and Michael Phelps is the best swimmer in the world.  To drop one of the biggest swimmers would have been drastic drop for the Speedo name.  Speedo understands that Phelps is at an age where he is going to experiment.  Phelps is more in the spot light than the average college student; but he is still a human being who is going to want to go out and party and have a good time.  Mistakes will be made and it would be difficult to look at Phelps any different during the off season.  

Moral Clauses

Olympic athlete’s sports contracts do have moral clauses which attempt to keep athletes in line while under contract.  This gives the endorser of marketer the right to break a contract if an athlete acts up in some way.  How contracts work when an athlete messes up is that they with-hold payments to the athlete.  Armstrong was with-held $5 million after winning his sixth Tour following allegations of doping.  US Anti-Doping Agency has stripped Armstrong of his titles.  The implications that are put on Olympians are made so that those athletes can be looked at as idols and models for the younger generation and place good morals to young athletes around the world.
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