Marketing Campaigns in the Sports Industry

There have been a number of notable Heisman Trophy campaigns throughout the years. Some were inherently more successful than others. It appears that the most successful sports campaigns were actually fueled by a winning football team. Quite simply, there are not any Heisman winners on teams that went under .500 for the season—or which were not in contention for their respective divisions or even a national title. The following quotation readily attests to this fact. “…the Heisman has become… an honor that almost requires being on a top team. Since 1999, every Heisman winner played for a school that was ranked in the top 10 at the time. Six of the last seven were on a team that was on its way to appearing in the national-title game” (Everson, 2011).

Therefore, it appears that the most successful campaigns combine that propensity for winning with innovative marketing efforts. For instance, Oregon’s football program spent $250,000 on a billboard in Times Square promoting Joey Harrington before the Ducks were a powerhouse: they went 11-1 that year and Harrington finished fourth overall in the Heisman voting (Everson, 2011). Despite the fact that Harrington did not receive the trophy, the success of the team’s campaign for him can still be measured in other ways. Oregon’s aggressive marketing campaign helped to spawn its status as a football powerhouse for the next several years (they are continually top-ranked today)—a fact which is due in no small part to the exposure and recruitment gains its Heisman campaign for Harrington received.  

Ineffective campaigns assume that simple electronic media promotion is enough. For instance, Middle Tennessee devoted a website, Hicks4Heisman, for candidate Dwone Hicks (Everson, 2011). The school did relatively little else in support for Hicks: the site did not build much support and the school finished 4-8. Considering the fact that winning is essential to getting a Heisman candidate accepted, Middle Tennessee would have needed to corroborate its team’s on-field performance with additional promotions demonstrating Hicks’ prowess. With such a poor showing, the school should have supplemented its website with weekly promotional materials and highlights. 

If I were creating a Heisman Trophy Campaign of my own I would not only build a website, but also use effective marketing communication strategies such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter account with multiple updates and new information demonstrating the daily efforts of my candidate. This methodology was employed by Baylor during Robert Griffin III’s Heisman win in 2011 (Burnsed, 2012). Some have posited that this was “one of the best” promotions for this award in years (Lassan, 2012). I’m pretty sure the YouTube account would be most effective, since it would enable fans to see my candidate’s highlights and to comment on them. YouTube allows a Heisman candidate to receive maximum exposure. Not only will he benefit from the written words, updated instantaneously, of adoring fans, but the website functions as a viable medium to deliver convincing graphic images, nearly in real-time.

A little-used strategy I think that would work to promote a Heisman candidate would be to have fans design specific cheers (and possibly even gestures) to deliver after a candidate did something worthy of approbation during a game. That way, viewers would understand the effect of the candidate on the team’s performance. The excitement of a Heisman candidate scoring a touchdown, for example, would multiply with the uniformed gestures and chants of a crowd going wild. Such a spectacle would almost assuredly build up “the hype” that promotional campaigns are based upon. That amount of positive energy, when combined with solid statistics and a winning record, would be tough to defeat when it comes time to voting for the Heisman trophy winner. 

References

Burnsed, B. (2012). Video and stats — not gimmicks — drive current Heisman campaigns. www.ncaa.com. Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2012-09-14/video-and-stats-not-gimmicks-drive-current-heisman-campaigns

Everson, D. (2011). Enough with the Heisman campaigns. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512610342372014.html

Lassan, S. (2012). College football’s best Heisman campaigns. Athlon Sports. Retrieved from http://www.athlonsports.com/college-football/slideshows/college-footballs-best-heisman-campaigns#1