Sports advertisers and marketers: 3 tactics to stay in the game in a tech-centric world

There are often as many interpretations and distractions during a live game as there are viewers. As a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program and an avid sports marketing observer, I have found two articles and three takeaways you will find interesting. 

In Ben Shields' Fortune.com article, "Tech Could Soon Take Over All the Sports You Watch," the MIT senior lecturer shares how the sports broadcasting industry is changing. The National Football League will be broadcasting 10 games on Amazon, which will be accessible to Amazon Prime members. He goes on to illustrate how tech companies can help sports leagues increase reach and revenue through their channels, such as capitalizing on the Amazon bundle. In addition, Shields shared one way in which brands will have to keep up with Amazon: "Amazon should test new user interfaces and experiences that will make fans want to watch games on Amazon over traditional TV." 

Photo credit: Tech Crunch. 

While Ben Shields discussed tech companies in this space, Wall Street Journal reporter Mike Shields addressed advertiser opportunities in his article, "Amazon’s NFL Streaming Deal Could Shake Up TV Advertising." Shields noted that with the Amazon streaming deal, brands will have an opportunity to go even deeper with targeting. "Because the games will only be available to Amazon Prime subscribers—who pay $99 a year for free, two-day shipping and access to music, movies and TV shows—viewers will likely need to be logged into their accounts to watch." The reporter also gae light to the idea that there is an infinite amount of data tied in to each Amazon user, and if the company unleashes it to brands, that provides an opportunity to learn more about the consumer. "Amazon could enable advertisers to run ads during NFL games designed to prompt viewers to take actions using Amazon’s voice-controlled home assistant Alexa, such as ordering a pizza," Shields said. 

From my graduate experiences in the Northwestern Medill IMC program and my review of the above articles, here are three action items to help you better build a stronger brand presence in these new game-watching experiences: 

• Think action-oriented -  Use consumer research and findings to determine how customers could respond with your content - whether that is buying a product, learning more or sharing their experience. 

• Observe other industries – Similar to the case of Amazon streaming NFL games and looking to e-sports for fans to communicate, look at how other industries are encouraging consumers to join the conversation or take action with your content.

• Enhance customer experiences – Aside from trying to sell your consumer something, determine how your company or brand can enhance the customer experience for the better so they walk away with a sense of loyalty or want to experience it again.

And lastly, don't get too comfortable. Tomorrow is a new day, full of technological advances and another brand that is ready to combat your new idea. 

Abby Liebenthal is a graduate student in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School at Northwestern University.

Follow her on Twitter @AbbyLiebs and connect with her on LinkedIn.

As a CEO Concerned with Technology and Social Media, Focus on Interactions with Consumers

As a CEO or an executive engaging in how a company converses with its consumers, it is important to monitor how emerging technologies can help improve customer interactions and relationships. As a graduating senior from the Medill School of Journalism and IMC program at Northwestern University, I have found two articles that provide key insights and action steps on how companies can better engage with their customers with the world’s latest, and most popular, technology. With e-commerce transforming the way consumers purchase, and sites such as Twitter influencing how consumers view businesses, it is essential that companies take note on these two emerging trends and know how to successfully utilize them.

The first article was released by Market Watch via PR Newswire stating the latest trends in global B2C e-commerce trends, which shows in the coming years consumers will expect a more personalized experience, ideally through mobile phones. For any company looking to expand their e-commerce business, operations through a mobile phone, customized to the buyer experience, will be necessary. The article highlights the following points: m-commerce (mobile commerce) is expected to play a larger role by 2016; worldwide B2C e-commerce growth will increase mostly in Asia-Pacific regions, which is expected to account for more than a third of global B2C e-commerce revenues, but the USA is projected to remain the largest B2C e-commerce market worldwide in 2013.

The second article, written by Paul Chaney, was distributed by Practical ecommerce, revealing the top 25 ways for e-commerce companies, or really any company, to successfully use Twitter to connect with customers, build relationships and “influence conversations to meet business objectives.” The article touches on Twitter basics, such as ensuring businesses have a recognizable Twitter username, but in my opinion the best tips included a cohesive, brand relevant profile; engaging effectively with the Twitter world in that you know what consumers are saying about the market, your competition and your company; and finally, make sure Twitter is used to strategically interact with consumers.

After analyzing these two articles, I recommend these three actions are implemented to better discover the potential of these two emerging technology trends:

• Remain current: Stay up to date with what your company's consumers are doing. It is imperative that companies recognize and adjust their brands to fit in these emerging, and long-lasting, trends consumers are actively engaging in.
• Be accessible: Make sure your company can appease any and all types of consumers by becoming accessible across platforms, because as shown by e- and m-commerce it is obvious consumers like and want control, as well as various options to receive what they are looking for.
• Match Tech to Business Objectives: Once business objectives have been developed, select the technologies that will best serve as a strategy to meet them.

In summary, ensure your company not only engages with its consumers, but follows their lead. Dive into the technologies they are not only using but the technologies they find important, easily accessible and necessary in some way for daily life. By paying attention to one's consumers and merging what is technologically important to the customer to what is technologically important to the company, there is now a possibility for great success.

Aja Edwards is a graduating senior at Northwestern University with a major in journalism, minor in religious studies and a certificate in integrated marketing communications. For questions or comments, she can be reached via Twitter at @aedwards19.

How to Hear the "Silent Majority" of Customers

For CEOs and CMOs, it is essential to gain a representative sample of your customers' opinions in order to best align product, service, and business strategy with their needs. As a graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill IMC program, I have been studying segmentation and feedback techniques and found these two articles to have valuable managerial implications.

As anecdotal evidence from Yelp! or customer reviews can attest, it is usually the more extreme reactions to one’s products/services that motivate customers to comment. For better or for worse, social media amplifies the voice of those who are expressing their sincere appreciation for a product or seeking revenge for poor service with a blistering critique. The majority of customers expects satisfaction and won’t make the effort to remark on the commonplace. In fact, according to authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Groundswell, the majority of Americans can be described as “joiners” and “spectators” (see table 1 below). “Joiners” are those individuals who “visit and maintain a profile on a social networking site” while “spectators” are engaged with others’ content, (e.g. posts, podcasts, videos) but rarely contribute their own. While both “spectators” and “joiners” are active and receptive to the opinions of others, they are not demonstrably participative. The concern is that the opinions of this “silent majority” will be underrepresented while the active users with characteristically polarizing opinions will be overrepresented. This may in turn pervert the company’s marketing strategy in a direction that alienates the silent majority who are content with the current state of affairs.

Indeed, in a recent article from the Harvard Business Review, the company ForeSee charts how remarkably different the opinions of what Groundswell would label as “conversationalists” and “critics” are from the opinions of “spectators” and “joiners”. In the graph below, ForeSee draws a normal distribution curve as a point of comparison between the blue opt-in customer feedback curve and a randomly-sampled survey shown in orange. Although the Harvard Business Review is quick to admit how valuable customer feedback is as a point-of-contact, they may give companies a false impression of actual levels of satisfaction.

For customers who prefer not to provide feedback, companies have been using “cookies” as a way to better track and understand customer’s online behaviors on their personal computers. However, as a recent article from the Wall Street Journal explains, despite an increase in U.S. mobile ad spending from $1.5 billion in 2011 to $4.1 billion in 2012, companies are still having trouble pinpointing mobile users’ online activity. As a growing number of customers supplement their desktops’ online activities with mobile, the risk of overlooking the “silent majority” without these behavioral metrics increases. 

Based on my experience in Northwestern's IMC program and my interpretation of these two articles, I have made three recommendations which can be applied immediately. 

1.     Incentivize your Customers- From Groundswell, the authors recommend incentivizing your customers to comment with a built-in reputation system that rewards customers with greater status. This will encourage more active participation from those who may not otherwise feel compelled to do so and recognize the valuable contributions of loyal customers.

2.     Just Ask- To ForeSee the answer is simple, just ask! Returning to Figure 1, when ForeSee randomly surveyed their site’s visitors, they found a much wider distribution of opinions that skewed towards the positive and complimentary. Impromptu surveys gave the company a more precise impression of customers’ opinions.

3.     Collect and Aggregate Data- Although the Wall Street Journal admits that mobile tracking technology will certainly improve in the future, the current method is to triangulate users’ mobile and desktop through downloads, apps, and/or cookies. This aggregate data gives companies’ a more holistic understanding of customers’ online behavior.

By applying one or all of these tactics, CEOs and CMOs can listen to the full range of customer experiences and gain a more accurate depiction of the current satisfaction landscape. This in turn, will enhance business strategy.

- Margaret Kamraczewski, is a full-time Masters of Science candidate at Northwestern University's Integrated Marketing Communications program at Medill. Her previous experience was in market research. Her focus is on brand and advertising strategy. Follow her on Twitter @Margaret_Kam.