Player Blog

A personal favourite of ours at the moment, Brewer is a one-man highlight machine. Robin Lopez shall henceforth be known as Robin Brewer.

Becoming a sports ‘brand’
We were happy to see that FIBA has stressed the importance of ‘brand’ in the strategic planning of building a sporting organisation (in particular, a national governing body) in the National Federation Manual. It rightly mentioned defining brand values, considering visual and verbal elements of the corporate identity and that, by considering brand from the beginning, rather than as an afterthought, value is created, both emotionally and financially.
However in order to generate such value and encourage loyalty, sports clubs and governing bodies must think beyond ‘who we say we are’ to concentrate on delivering the brand at every touchpoint. Bombarded with marketing on a daily basis, consumers have understandably become both more savvy to brand expression and more skeptical. The experiences your customers have with your brand are the only real interaction they can truly trust and as such, each of those experiences should reflect your brand consistently.
As daunting as this might sound, sports teams in particular have an inherent asset that many brands spend a lifetime building. At the heart of a sports fan is the wish to follow their favourite team with an unrivaled passion. By putting brand at the centre, you transcend the performance of your players or the results of a single game. The FIBA manual correctly states, “The advantage of promoting the league [over teams] is that even if one or the other teams suffer a crisis, the brand value of the league can be retained, which is crucial for a league such as the NBA, for example.”
Leagues should consider how the services they offer make an impact on supporter loyalty. The NBA has built and managed much of this online, providing constantly updated content, interactive blogs, polls and forums as well as offering high quality video highlights, all for free. Forums are a great tool for measuring what fans really think about your organisation; leagues should be brave enough to take fan’s comments on board and respond to them directly where appropriate.
But think about how this experience translates to games; there’s a similar expectation of value for money and the NBA deliver that, with games packed to the brim with live entertainment that separates an NBA game from almost any other sporting occasion.
Whilst most leagues can’t compete with the NBA’s bank balance, considering your customer’s journey throughout the season and making small adjustments based on real feedback can make a significant difference.

cia_abstract

Becoming a sports ‘brand’

We were happy to see that FIBA has stressed the importance of ‘brand’ in the strategic planning of building a sporting organisation (in particular, a national governing body) in the National Federation Manual. It rightly mentioned defining brand values, considering visual and verbal elements of the corporate identity and that, by considering brand from the beginning, rather than as an afterthought, value is created, both emotionally and financially.

However in order to generate such value and encourage loyalty, sports clubs and governing bodies must think beyond ‘who we say we are’ to concentrate on delivering the brand at every touchpoint. Bombarded with marketing on a daily basis, consumers have understandably become both more savvy to brand expression and more skeptical. The experiences your customers have with your brand are the only real interaction they can truly trust and as such, each of those experiences should reflect your brand consistently.

As daunting as this might sound, sports teams in particular have an inherent asset that many brands spend a lifetime building. At the heart of a sports fan is the wish to follow their favourite team with an unrivaled passion. By putting brand at the centre, you transcend the performance of your players or the results of a single game. The FIBA manual correctly states, “The advantage of promoting the league [over teams] is that even if one or the other teams suffer a crisis, the brand value of the league can be retained, which is crucial for a league such as the NBA, for example.”

Leagues should consider how the services they offer make an impact on supporter loyalty. The NBA has built and managed much of this online, providing constantly updated content, interactive blogs, polls and forums as well as offering high quality video highlights, all for free. Forums are a great tool for measuring what fans really think about your organisation; leagues should be brave enough to take fan’s comments on board and respond to them directly where appropriate.

But think about how this experience translates to games; there’s a similar expectation of value for money and the NBA deliver that, with games packed to the brim with live entertainment that separates an NBA game from almost any other sporting occasion.

Whilst most leagues can’t compete with the NBA’s bank balance, considering your customer’s journey throughout the season and making small adjustments based on real feedback can make a significant difference.

flinder_bball247

Basketball 24/7 speaks to Flinder Boyd

Joe Hewison of Basketball 24/7 caught up with Great Britain International Flinder Boyd this week who spoke frankly about the progression of British Basketball and the importance of grassroots development.

You can read the full article here

The Great Britain Basketball website also caught our eye this week. The Game On GB website features a considered design which fully embraces social media and promotes the Men’s and Women’s game equally. We’d go as far as to say that it’s the best promotion of the British game we’ve seen so far, hats off!

You can visit their website here, follow them on twitter here or join the facebook group here.