Influencer marketing is not a new phenomenon. It hasn’t just sprung out of nowhere to become the new ‘in’ marketing buzzword. It’s mass adoption across businesses and brands hasn’t been as widespread as social or content marketing were, though. As a general rule of thumb, the business of sport tends to lag behind the corporate world when it comes to adopting new innovations. With a little bit of attention and a smattering of savvy though, it’s got plenty of opportunity to jump ahead of wider businesses and truly embrace the world of influencers.
Category Archives: In Depth
Jordyn Smith – Scotland’s Next Top Sportsperson
Today, Sports Marketing Scotland is delighted to introduce you to Scotland’s next top sportsperson. Jordyn Smith is 15 years old, but has been involved in taekwondo for over a decade already.
What Leadership Lessons can we learn from Sir Alex Ferguson?
The idea of consistency can directly relate to how leaders and managers should conduct themselves in the workplace. In an interview with Sir Alex Ferguson by Nick Robinson, he states how “In the 26-and-a-half years I was there, I never changed my conviction or my philosophy or my attitudes – and I think the players recognised that. Every day it was the same guy… That consistency created players who were consistent.”
As a manager, if you always maintain the same philosophy and attitude throughout your career, you will create this reputation for yourself that shows you are respectable, able to conduct yourself professionally at all times and that people can rely on you. If you want your team to be consistent, you have to be too.
Greenock Morton: An Own Goal
Greenock Morton released their new home kit for the 2016/17 season yesterday. If you aren’t quite sure of how Morton kits are supposed to look, here’s a snapshot of the club’s most recent efforts on the home kit.
Images taken from the brilliant HistoricalKits.co.uk
Marketing the SPFL: Creating New Traditions
Making his Sports Marketing Scotland debut is Duncan McKay, a lifelong Scottish football fan. Duncan works in communications and is talking about SPFL branding and opportunities. You can hear Duncan regularly on Terrace Podcast or read his blog where he visited every SPFL ground in one season, 42 Grounds.
The Business of eSports in Scotland
eSports is coming to Edinburgh, with the Insomnia Gaming event taking place this weekend (29th April – 2nd May) at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Ahead of the event, we wanted to take an in-depth look at the business of eSports and the eSports scene in Scotland. Can eSports be classified as a sport alongside the likes of football, tennis or golf, and should we be sitting up and taking more notice of eSports in Scotland?
The Sports Marketing Scotland Awards
While the end of the season isn’t the same for all sports across the country, the end of the Scottish football season is almost upon us, which means it’s almost time to find out who’s winning the awards for player, young player and manager of the season. While this site takes a keen interest in what’s happening on pitches, dugouts, courts and courses, we’re just as interested as what is happening behind the scenes. What the marketing, media, PR and commercial managers, executives and interns have been working on over the last year or so. With this in mind, we’re looking for you to answer the following question.
Snapchat and Scottish Sport
Even if you don’t fall into the ‘Millennial’ category, you’ve probably heard of Snapchat. It’s not new in the slightest, but brands, and more relevantly for here, sports organisations, are still in the infancy of adopting the platform as part of their regular social media activity.
Add us on @Snapchat for exclusive first content from today's press conference & announcement. 'officialdafc' pic.twitter.com/qOZ7IG1Txu
— Dunfermline Athletic (@officialdafc) May 8, 2015
If you aren’t quite sure of what Snapchat is all about yet, it’s a messaging app that focuses on moments. Users can take a photo or a video, add a caption or emoji to it, and choose what friends to send it to, or upload it to their ‘story’ to share it with all of them. You can choose for each individual photo or video to appear for a maximum of 10 seconds, but once your selected time frame is over, that snap disappears (that is, if you haven’t taken a screenshot of it). Snapchat is the epitome of the current short form video trend sweeping through marketing.
Crest-fallen
Scottish football clubs are falling foul of an ancient, heraldic law relating to their crests. A number of clubs have been forced to change their crest in the last couple of seasons, and now the same issue is facing League 1 club, Ayr United.
The crest in question
Ayr’s current club crest has been in use since the 1950’s and if they were forced to change it, costing the club thousands in having to switch to a new badge on all merchandise. Crests are a huge part of the identity of a club and undoubtedly so, fans feel protective over their club and it’s crest. However, out of every perceived negative, a few positives can also be found. A change of crest can be one of those positives.
Capitalising on Christmas Retail
The UK Christmas retail market contributed around £70bn of sales last year. The month countdown is on and so begins the most important period of trading for retail businesses across the country. It also gives football clubs the opportunity to fight head on against these retailers for their fans hard-earned money. Celtic have gone down the John Lewis route in producing their own advert, aside from featuring Scott Brown as a young Celtic fans imaginary friend (or ghost of Christmas present depending on your opinion of Brown and Celtics season so far!), it very cleverly showcases a vast range of Celtic merchandise. We take a look at a selection of clubs and investigate what they’re doing to capitalise on the Christmas retail rush. The three main things we’re looking out for here are:
- Christmas jumpers – sales of these previously embarrasing-to-wear jumpers started to rise in the early 2000s, and they’re now as much of a Christmas tradition as leaving carrots out for Rudolph. They’re also a piece of merchandise that can be easily customised with any clubs colours or crest. Instant profit is really a no brainer.
- a retro or vintage collection of merchandise – it was recommended in the October issue of FC Business magazine that introducing a vintage range near to Christmas would really drive sales and give fans the ideal thing to put on their Christmas list.
- all products can be easily purchased and delivered – improving fans experiences shouldn’t just be happening in the stadium on a matchday. If the online and ordering experience isn’t of the standard fans (/consumers) expect these days, they won’t buy.