The Sun Rises On the Creative Catalyst

Oh, to live in this era of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)!  Old school marketers used to spew that “You need to spend money to make money.”  Now we live in a era where we say “You need to INVEST money to make money.”  Then we have to provide the data, KPIs, to prove that the investment worked.  What this has led to is a group of people more interested in staring at excel sheets and dashboards looking for numbers to move.  They justify their existence with the slightest upward movement of the numbers.

Except in Phoenix.

Last Friday, the Phoenix Suns announced that they were giving a “fun guarantee” for their upcoming game against the Dallas Mavericks.  If the goal is to sell tickets, must have worked.  The game is in three days and there are little more than a thousand tickets available.  For the season, their average is just over 15,000 a game, so they will beat that by a mile.

Of course they wanted to do more than sell tickets.  The Suns wanted to create buzz.  News outlets, such as ESPN, picked up on it and ran news stories.  That is tons of free publicity and thus advertising for the promotion.  They had advertising supporting their promotion and a special webpage suns.com/guaranteed. 

But they also gave their fans something to spread on all of the various social media networks.  They gave their fans, their brand evangelists, something to evangelize.  I am sure that from the time the promotion was started until now, the number of “likes” on Facebook and “follows” on Twitter increased.  Now, will the Suns follow through with unique specials (perhaps tickets with meal combo for a upcoming game) for people who check in on Foursquare and Facebook mobile.  Will they have a Instagram picture of the game of people who are having fun and getting their money’s worth at the Suns game?  Will they be grabbing the data of the people who are in the seats?  Will they be remarketing to them?

They also deserve kudos for getting the branding thing right.  Having fun at the game, being entertained is what any sporting event is about.  All of us take a rooting interest and have a passion, but it is important to not let this get out of control.  Sports is the original mini-staycation.  We go to the game, have a dog and a beer, and forget about our troubles for three hours. 

One more compliment to the marketing team at the Suns, you didn’t burn your money.  All teams, all brands produce marketing in various forms.  But, a lack of creativity can lead to money being burned.  Someone doesn’t click the banner ad, avoids the Facebook tab, clicks the radio button to another station, turns the television channel, ignores the newspaper ad your money just got burned.  You didn’t move one KPI.

Before first tip on Thursday, the Phoenix Suns marketing team already won the game.