El Camino College's Fall 2020 Marketing Highlights

What an amazing semester we've had in ECC's Business 14 - Marketing course.  As the professor and lead marketer, its been my pleasure to lead a journey that has featured multiple professional athletes, actors, and marketing executives participating in the course and helping relate marketing principles to the class.

While we've had to work remotely via online Zoom classes and Canvas, the marketing students have learned about the principles of marketing, explored case studies from the world of sports and entertainment, including my actual samples from the NFL, ESPN, CBS, FOX, FX, NASCAR, and more.  Our semester Marketing Plan is based on launching a new streaming television service and what better way to kick-off the assignment than have the star of the original drama series Coyote Hills present the assignment to the class?

Here's a quick highlight video of this semester's efforts!

ONLINE MARKETING LESSON - Session 7: Digital & Social Marketing (PT 1)

Being able to reach current and future marketing leaders across the globe is an amazing opportunity and with advanced online technology, the pandemic lockdown hasn't limited students' ability to learn.  Having presented countless in-person lectures for universities including USC, UCLA, CSULB, ASU, San Jose State, and many more, I am confident my sports and entertainment marketing seminars based on real-world cases really drive home the art and science of today's brand marketing.   And as a recent graduate student having achieved my MBA online exclusively, I also understand that a combination of relevant content, high engagement, and easy accessibility can create dynamic opportunities to learn and grow.

Here's a segment from my recent online marketing session regarding Digital and Social Media Marketing.

Social Media Marketing

CASE STUDIES
What does it take to win in the social media space?  While content is king, there are several key components to ensure that your communications across social and digital hit the right audience, provide an actionable message, and most importantly drive ROI.

Earning a "like" isn't a KPI that any true marketer will value and while affirmation is nice, our perspective when utilizing social media is to approach the results similarly to traditional platforms, albeit one that is fluid and dynamic.  Simply put, we want to reach an ever increasing audience, provide content that serves a concise message, and has a CTA that is both actionable and measurable.

I use the "Three E's" when creating social media content. Entertain, Engage, and Educate.  They are fairly self explanatory but we want to ensure all three areas contribute to a post that serves a purpose.  If it becomes a viral hit, fantastic.  But more likely, a follower should want to be compelled to view your post, find a positive connection quickly, and understand the process to consume more of the desirable content.  Combine that with previous tips like star-power (see the chapter on STAR FISH), influencers, funny, shareable video, graphics and instant 'wow' factors, and topical relevance, and your posts should work to tell a story.  The Three E's work for developing online content and overall, we add a forth "E" for Evaluation.  Making sure the tactics resonated, have metrics we can compare and analyze, and determine best practices for future success.

Here are a few award-winning case studies I've championed that integrated social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and others) with celebrities, influencers, engaging content, and most importantly, ROI to drive a successful, measurable campaign.

CASE STUDY #1
With the launch of streaming service Rivit TV, I created a digital campaign that focused on driving users to the new platform via social media, search, and digital.  The campaign exceeded all expectations by utilizing a "reverse engineering" process to identify distinct clusters of demographics that most likely would engage in the various Original series.  Creating hundreds of bilingual assets including video, promos, BTS, and more and then seeding a paid campaign across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and other platforms drove over 40M impressions and over 1M unique site visits.  With an engaging influencer effort, we had an unheard of 50% full :30 trailer view and record-setting conversion with 4.6M followers.  Check out the recap video for more.

CASE STUDY #2
Utilizing social media and digital to support a larger-scale marketing campaign, we took to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms to drive awareness for former New Kids On The Block boy-band star Joey McIntyre's new series Return of The Mac.  To promote the show, we had a multi-city tour featuring meet-n-greets, in-store appearances with Comcast, and lots of media.  Utilizing NKOTB social fan groups, bloggers, micro and macro influencers, local radio, and other partners, we drove social media buzz with event pages, calendars, posts, tweets, videos, live streams, and other sharable assets.  Garnering millions of impressions via social media, the Return of the Mac tour was a huge hit.

CASE STUDY #3
On the Record with Mick Rock was an Ovation TV series that had the rock photographer dubbed "The Man who Shot The 70s" as the host of an artist-filled interview series.  In order to reach a younger crowd and make the show as relevant as possible, we created a social media video series "Minute with Mick" for our partner Verizon FiOS.  The goal was to engage followers in the classic debates of music including "best live performance," "best artist." and even a few age-old standard discussions like "Paul vs. John."  With a targeted push exceeding 10M impressions targeting a key FiOS demographic, dynamic graphics, music and quick-cut editing, partnering with social media influencers and music bloggers, and of course the larger-than-life Mick Rock, we exceeded all KPIs and drove viewership for the series by 1,600%  Social media can be an incredibly effective tool when done properly and as a marketer, the results I merchandise aren't just the likes, follows, or shares, but rather how we drove the bottom line for the company!

CASE STUDY #4
FX Networks' original series Light's Out starred Holt McCallany as former boxer Patrick 'Lights' Leary.  With the show centered around a possible comeback for the fictional boxing legend, we wanted to create a social media campaign that had everyone buzzing.  To create excitement, we engaged over 100 celebrities, media personalities, etc. to discuss Leary and his comeback as if the fictional character was doing everything in the real world from dating a Kardashian to attending a Super Bowl red carpet!  With celebrities like Drew Brees, Jordin Sparks, and George Lopez in on the stunt, we built significant social media traffic by "drafting" off of the celebrities' social followings, engaging their fan groups and high profile followers, and utilizing pop culture and lifestyle bloggers to seed the vignettes of talent discussing the character, we had the internet buzzing with a knock out campaign.

CASE STUDY #5
Pop TV (CBS) wanted to drive viewership for the original series Hollywood Darlings starring 90's child stars Jodie Sweetin, Christine Lakin, and Beverly Mitchell.  On the set of their promo shoot for Season 2, we engaged the cast to discuss their favorite childhood '90s toys growing up.  The combination of nostalgia and talent personality, combined with visibility gained from YouTube influencers, was the perfect formula to make the Hollywood Darlings YouTube campaign the highest network partnership effort YouTube TV had seen to date.

LONG BEACH STATE MARKETING STUDENTS AT LIONSGATE

With the recent semester project I championed with CSULB, students were challenged to create digital, social, and guerrilla marketing campaigns for an upcoming POP TV series.  Along with producing sound strategy and creative samples within strict budget and timeline parameters, the comedy pilot project enabled students to get hands-on experience with an actual entertainment property.  And when the aspiring marketing and business students provided professional, final presentations of their concepts to the POP TV executive team including the CMO, Head of Distribution Sales, and other executives at the LionsGate offices, the semester project turned into an experience to last a lifetime!

Integrated Marketing Campaigns

In The Surfer's Guide To Marketing we devote a significant amount of time for discussion around building a multiplatformed marketing camapign.  Utilizing mixed media including on-air, on-site, digital, social, bloggers/influencers, "Starfish" or talent, PR, and more, brands can create a fully interactive engagement that builds awareness, drives branding buzz, and enables fans to experience the brand first-hand.

Having created award-winning multi-city tours with entertainment properties for ABC, FOX, POP (CBS), DIRECTV, and others, I love to present case studies of how bringing talent to local markets and integrating various platforms can drive huge results!  And if you are on a "Pufferfish" budget (trying to make your brand look much bigger than the budget allows) then maybe a grass roots experinetial tour is right for you?

For our new series Return of the Mac starring New Kids On the Block's Joey McIntyre, we brought the NKOTB singer to multiple local markets and rode the wave of "Blockhead" fandemonium to promote the series.   To follow that up, we brought the cast of Hollywood Darlings, including former 90's child stars Jodie Sweetin, Christine Lakin, and Beverly Mitchell as part of the "Go Hollywood" tour where fans could meet the cast, get Hollywood makeovers, and much more.

Enjoy the recap videos and consider an interactive tour next time you paddle out!

Guest Lectures at Long Beach State

This week, I had the honor of speaking with multiple marketing classes at CSULB.  Taking over the week for Professor Tomlin, I set about to engage the students with real-life case studies and examples of successful marketing activations.  Deploying the same philosophy I utilize in other speaking engagements and in the The Surfer's Guide To Marketing book, I strongly believe that my objective should be to educate, motivate, and entertain the next generation of marketing minds.

Lecturing to the class with video and even some POP show-and-tell

Focusing on some of my favorite cases throughout my career and discussing award-winning marketing efforts with brands like FX, NFL, ESPN, ABC and others, I showcased the promotional spots, POP, and collateral materials to allow the students to better comprehend the strategy, activation, and ROI each of these campaign bring.

The last element of the class was to have the students break into smaller groups and create a strategy for ESPN's Monday Night Football campaign and follow it up with brief presentations of their concepts.  Following their presentations, we showed our version of the Legends of Monday sweepstakes with four Hall of Famers including Ronnie Lott, Marcus Allen, Lawrence Taylor and Tony Dorsett, and the fully engaged class was more than enthused to see our version of their assignment come to fruition.

Working with breakout groups on their ESPN case assignment

In all, the students of CSULB were engaging, eager, and more than up for the challenge of becoming the next wave of marketing greats.  And it was my privilege to hopefully enlighten the classes and motivate them to pursue the world of sports and entertainment marketing as a career opportunity.

THE CHARGERS BRAND WAGON

THE CHARGERS ARE BOLTING
They say no one ever wins in divorce (except perhaps the attorneys.)  When a sports team leaves a city it’s called home for 50+ years, you can expect some bad feelings.  But from a marketing perspective, the Chargers organization needs to call the right plays to try to make the best of a new situation.  While you may or may not appreciate the way the Spanos organization runs the team, as someone who has created award-winning marketing and branding for leagues, teams, players and sports properties I can surely lend some insight to how they should proceed with the positioning of their product going forward.

SHOW SPORTSMANSHIP

So far, the Chargers organization appears to have done everything wrong (and I’m not just talking about on-the-field performance) beginning with the instant alienation of the San Diego community.  While the Los Angeles market is a huge demographic and certainly has the numbers to support multiple NFL teams, attempting to keep any loyal San Diego, Orange County, and Inland Empire fans should still be a priority.  They say it takes 4x as much to secure a new customer as it does to retain one and the Bolts should do everything possible to engage those fans willing to jump on team-sponsored caravan buses up the 405.  Even if 20% of the fans carry over, it’s a great base to start with.   Because unlike other past NFL team moves (Browns to Baltimore, Rams to St. Louis, etc.) current Chargers fans are still a viable target market based on proximity.

But swapping to “Los Angeles” and flaunting “LA” on all their social media is like bringing your new girlfriend to the aforementioned divorce hearings.  Embracing all of Southern California is a much better approach and highlighting CHARGERS versus LOS ANGELES is a simple branding direction that at least attempts to create inclusion.

Here's the official statement from the Chargers on, well... bolting.

Remember, there is a rivalry between the two towns between the Dodgers vs Padres and the old LA Raiders vs Chargers (although Dodgers fans claim the SF Giants as their primary foe), so the only thing worse than losing your team is having them relocate to your rival town.  And the OC has had it's share of "LA slighting" with the whole "California turned Anaheim Angeles turned Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim now Los Angeles Angels" thing.  Note: just as I'm suggesting, they wisely limited backlash by focusing on the Angels' "A" logo versus the city name.
 

LOOK THE PART

On the subject of branding, coming into a market as the clear “second team” is hard enough (maybe even the third best pro team if you add USC).  Now, from Day 1, the Bolts have already made it worse with the unveiling of their “me too” LA logo.

Unfortunately, the interlocking “LA” looks like they spent 10 minutes editing the Los Angeles Dodgers’ logo.  The first impression of the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Lightning logos' love child doesn’t appear to have the cleaver, professional look that the NFL has become accustomed to with dynamic branding and marks.  To be blunt, the simple LA-with-a-bolt-emphasis just looks bad. And somehow it has managed to single-handedly upsets THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE by insulting A) current Los Angeles sports fans with a flimsy attempt to side with them via their beloved LA symbol, and B) any San Diegans willing to still support the team, for obvious reasons. 

The NFL is known for the "uniform police" who make sure the players wear their uni's properly so I can only imagine that the league has to be throwing the red challenge flag over this LAme logo.

All OUT BLITZ

If the Bolts strategy is to cut-the-cord 100% and loyal fan base be damned, then they should do it.  With rumors that they will eventually rebrand, a la the Tennessee Titans from the Oilers, and change the name, it’s best to “rip the band aid off” and do the rename at the same time as the relocation.  Start completely fresh, not in waves.  This whole make-shift unveiling adds to the appearance of a knee-jerk reaction when we all know they have been strategically exploring this move for years.

FUTURE GAME PLAN

Winning cures all.  Southern Californians are a fickle bunch and unless the team is doing well on the turf, the team can’t expect to fill the seats.  With all the hype, excitement and years of loyal Ram fans awaiting their team’s return, the team was still only one of two NFL teams with under 90% capacity.   Now, adding a second team with an extremely limited tie to the market (the Chargers did start off as the Los Angeles Chargers after all) they have an up-field battle ahead of them.  If the LA Chargers (Or LA Traffic, LA Paparazzi, LA Smog, or whatever they eventually become) wants to be successful and evoke the passion that the team had during their lone Super Bowl run, they need to perform on the field.  With better marketing, branding, and creating an inclusive environment for shunned San Diegans, the Chargers can make the best of a tumultuous situation.

Or just go sign Antonio Brown, Aaron Rogers, OBJ, Luke Kuechly, JJ Watt and Ezekiel Elliott and bring the Lombardi home… to LA.