Sport Marketing and the other industries

Few brands benefit from a strong community of customers, only great marketers manage to create such an involvement and commitment to their Brand. It is a dream for most of the brands to have such a community not only because the brand can rely on them to always buy their products but also because they are the 1st to defend the Brand when attacked by competitors or media about anything. Apple managed to do it greatly while their phones are not the most high-tech or cheapest on the market. They have such a strong community that some people will defend the brand tooth and nail on forums, to people around us no matter what the issue is.

This commitment and we can say identification to the brand is something very developped in Sport Clubs. Indeed, people might change their habits (eating, drinking, furnishing, banking, insurance…) and not be loyal to their current brands, but there is something that they will never give up on, their favorite sport teams for sure.

The relationship sports brands have with their customers is totally different that other industries’ brands could have. Being a sports fan and loving a team brand transcends a person’s job, family, or social status. Sports fans feel pleasure, excitement, stress that deeply resonates within the identity of the individual fan, such that the effects are likely to be long term. That is why sports teams develop a faithful fanatical following primarily due to high levels of identification. A striking example is, when a sports fan talk about the game his favorite team played, he most of the time uses ‘We should have won’ – ‘we missed the ball game just before the final whistle’.

A Liverpool fan with the tattoo of the Liverpool fan anthem You'll never walk alone

Another point is that unlike some products or even brands, a sports teams never disappear (most of the time), they might go down on division but they will always be alive which is not the case with brands or products that are on the market for a period of time and then disappear for plenty of different reasons. It is true that the results of the team can influence the degree of involvement of a fan but it is really likely that he will keep on watching games of the 3rd of 4th division, go to the stadium or at least check the results. It is the marketers jobs to play on that involvement to monetize the brand : merchandising, ticketing, museums, television networks…

Source and inspiration : 'How sport brands create brands fanatics' by Barry Silverstein on Brandchannel.com