2011 Indians Promotional Schedule Announced
Two that I'd like to point out:
August 13th vs. the Twins: Mike Hargrove "Human Rain Delay" Bobble Head, Presented By Meritech | All Fans.
But easily the best, and the FO/marketing dept. deserves some credit for it. Basically, there's a Bob Feller Day, with a bronze statue giveaway. The best part about it? It's on the Fourth of July, and it's against the Yankees; no doubt how Rapid Robert would have wanted it.
over 1 year ago
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When is puppypalooza extravaganza?
by xrickx on Feb 15, 2011 3:45 PM EST via mobile reply actions 3 recs
For the Bob Feller 4th of July event the Tribe should invite the Gates Mills village parade down to the stadium, as Feller presided for years and years, and the celebration will be complete.
by MTF on Feb 15, 2011 5:48 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Wouldn’t that require clearing the stadium of all of the people who earn under seven figures as to not make the Gates Mils crowd uneasy?
Furthermore, who would play 3rd base?
Don’t know if everyone saw the tweet in the little box over there, but Kenny Lofton’s return to the team will include serving as a “Team Ambassador” for a couple of home series.
And in response to Barfield, his B-Ref page says he reported early to Phillies camp, with buddy Ben Francisco!
"Spring Training wins are good for the soul."
They just play Tom Waits Emotional Weather Forecast on a loop throughout the game
by APV on Feb 16, 2011 1:44 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
It’s great that Bob Feller can be honored on the 4th of July, but a) the 4th of July always does well attendance-wise, and b) the Yankees are in town. Maybe I’m being too bottom-line here, but the Feller giveaway will draw and I would have put it on a different weekend. Right now I imagine July 4th and Opening Day are the only two likely sellouts.
Steel Nick
…And Bob Feller is sort of ours, you know? Yankees fans travel. I don’t want to give 5-10,000 of them a miniature Feller statue. But I do understand the “how Bob would have wanted it” angle.
Steel Nick
I feel, largely, the same way. I don’t think it makes sense to put the fireworks, the 4th, the Yankees and Feller all on the same day.
I haven’t looked on the schedule but something closer to Memorial Day would’ve also been a potential fit.
The Yankees ticket is higher priced than most other games. They’re maxing out attendance at a high-priced game.
Don’t they sell out the fireworks/4th game, anyway? Maybe I’m being too optimistic about people’s love of fireworks.
I think July 4 against the Yanks should sell out if it was Midge Day. Midge bobbleheads. Do midges have heads?
by kennesawmountainwahoo on Feb 16, 2011 7:29 PM EST up reply actions
Dear Indians Marketing Department:
Your promotional list is Exhibit A on how not to attract customers. You are competing against seriously fun and exciting stuff in the marketplace. I know this is just tactical execution of basic promotions, but still, it shows the flaws in your attitude to attract customers.
Take Kids Fun Days, for example. Kids don’t read that list and say “Wow, Kids Fun Days!” It’s pandering, even they can see it. Your move seems to be get the parents to drag the kids to the game (“It’s a kids promotion. I can keep him occupied and off of Ritalin for a few hours…whew”) .
The more powerful move is in the opposite direction, to get the kid to harangue the parents to take them to the game. What’s fun about having your Dad drag you to something he wants you to go to. What’s fun for the kid is dragging his Dad along to something the kid wants to do! Have you no idea of how this parent-kid thing works. There is probably hieroglyphs in Egypt which point this out. APV, help me out here. Tell me Margaret Mead didn’t find drawings of kids in Samoa dragging their fathers to participate in the coconut communication system to follow Indians game before radio.
And once you accept this more effective premise, you don’t say “Kids Fun Days”. It’s lame and weak. You say “Mobile Suit Gundam Night!” or “Popsicles to you Drop Night” or “Giant Photo Night!” where all the kids in stadium come out onto the field together and one big shot is taken, ten thousand kids with the Indians players and staff mixed in. You could even do a “find the player in the mob” contest. Oh, and you collect e-mail addresses so you can send the photo to them personally as a keepsake. (Did I say I’d sell the e-mail addresses to a SPAM company…well, I thought about it.)
Kids will decide if its fun or not. You just tell them what it is, and don’t bore them.
Marketing baseball, like marketing movies, should be the funnest thing in the world. But you’ve made it look dull.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 18, 2011 10:53 PM EST reply actions
I think you are way over-thinking this.
I think the parents are supposed to look at the list of promotions and say, “Oh, hey, here’s the games where they have extra activities for the kids. Perfect excuse to go to the game with them.”
That’s what I’d do. And I could really give a crap whether my kid likes the idea in advance. He’ll like the idea once we get there.
Nope. That’s not how marketing to kids is proven to work at all. It’s all about getting the kids involved, they are the emotional drivers.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 18, 2011 11:07 PM EST up reply actions
But they aren’t the ones who make the decisions and they aren’t the ones watching the TV shows where advertising would be played and they aren’t the ones visiting the website to inquire about the schedule.
"Spring Training wins are good for the soul."
Just talking about getting kids to come to kids night. and parsing the market. Not the TV side.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 12:09 AM EST up reply actions
But you can’t attract them with anything without appealing to them on some advertising level. And there are absolutely no marketing avenues for a baseball team that would lead directly to the children, they all must go through the parents or at worst an older sibling.
"Spring Training wins are good for the soul."
Products get a lot more activity if parents are merely gate keepers. They passively decide if something is ok or not. But the kid is the one driving the bus. Pokemon or any kids product doesn’t get popular because parents say so. It does because kids believe it so. And then kids get the parents to open their wallet. This is the reason there are laws in kids programming against certain types of advertising (well there used to be, at least, don’t know if still). The appeal to the kids was so powerful against the parents that the government had to step in.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 18, 2011 11:16 PM EST up reply actions
This isn’t a toy, it’s a baseball game. I honestly think the idea that the Indians are naive about marketing to families is more than a little naive. It’s a huge part of their operation, and the Jake was considered an innovative place in kid-friendly activities. I don’t see how the Indians can market directly to children the way that Pokemon does.
It could be lots of products, not just toys or baseball. And yeah, they aren’t good at it. They were supposedly good at it 15 years ago when they had a tailwind of new stadium, good economy, fantastic iconic players, and no Browns. It was just some anecdotal stuff that somehow they were good at it.
Whether it’s a huge part of their operation isn’t here nor there. Lots of huge enterprises lose their marketing ways, operations many times bigger and more sophisticated than the Indians. It happens. Times change. Markets change. This whole site critiques the baseball side of the operation all the time, yet somehow this huge part of their marketing operation is without fault?
I mean, if you drag your kid to the game, the Indians get one extra customer for their trouble. And maybe an unhappy one who just remembers his Dad dragging him to the game whether he liked it or not. If the kid wants to come, he tells his 20 best friends and his 100 Facebook contacts and you’ve got 200 customers (with parents). Just more efficient and effective.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 12:06 AM EST up reply actions
What, Slider dolls aren’t good enough to draw the kiddies? Maybe he needs to guest star on Elmo’s World.
The Indians have in recent years (coincidentally after the attendance dropped like a rock) really pushed the Kids Fun Days. I think the kids can run the bases every Sunday, with a couple players at home plate to give them a high five. That’s a relatively new thing.
I’m cool with Slider Dolls. Just sayin’ in this era Slider’s gotta compete with Call of Duty Black Ops.
Chernoff in that Sabre talk alluded to the the Indians at a loss as to how they have lost so many fans versus even the lowly Pirates, who haven’t been good since Desert Storm.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 8:15 AM EST up reply actions
It has to do with marketing to fans, and people who will be fans. I actually did kids marketing for several years. This is pretty basic stuff in the industry, so I’m trying to think how controversial it is.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 6:36 PM EST up reply actions
I’m just thinking that event marketing is not the same as product marketing.
Also, that an event that isn’t specifically aimed at kids, but has kids promotions, is not the same as a kids product or a kids event.
Basically, Kids Fun Days aren’t Pokemon and also aren’t a Wiggles concert. They are marketed to parents who like going to baseball games, because there probably is no cost-effective way to market them to kids. (Commercials on local Sprout?)
Should the Indians be marketing baseball obsession in general to all children? Yes. But I have no idea what they may already be doing in that area.
I’m cool with Slider Dolls. Just sayin’ in this era Slider’s gotta compete with Call of Duty Black Ops.
Do they? They seemed to target different demographics.
The persuasion is not inherent in the lobster.
Yeah, I don’t get this comparison either.
Where's your crown, KIng Nothing?
by Turkmenbashi on Feb 20, 2011 6:06 PM EST up reply actions
Chernoff in that Sabre talk alluded to the the Indians at a loss as to how they have lost so many fans versus even the lowly Pirates, who haven’t been good since Desert Storm.
PNC Park opened in 2001.
I wonder if, despite the logic of thinking otherwise, having other good sports teams in town can actually boost attendance for bad teams.
Where's your crown, KIng Nothing?
by Turkmenbashi on Feb 24, 2011 7:19 PM EST up reply actions
Seems like a project someone could work on…
Where's your crown, KIng Nothing?
by Turkmenbashi on Feb 24, 2011 7:19 PM EST up reply actions
They do lack a relatively recent good team as a basis for unflattering comparison. The last couple of owner/GM regimes didn’t “wreck” anything as the Dolans and Shapiro are accused of doing, because there was nothing to wreck.
If the kid wants to come, he tells his 20 best friends and his 100 Facebook contacts and you’ve got 200 customers (with parents). Just more efficient and effective.
I think you’re vastly overestimating how much affect what their kids see one time on Facebook has on how parents spend their money. One kid who likes baseball tells 120 friends and suddenly 200 extra tickets are sold? Highly doubtful
The persuasion is not inherent in the lobster.
Facebook just an example. Lots of ways to reach kids.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 6:37 PM EST up reply actions
Facebook doesn’t even allow accounts below age 13, and the great majority of parents observe that limit. Certainly advertisers have no ability to target anyone under 13 through Facebook.
I think, just maybe … you’re out of your element.
i agree with Bomber that the club’s marketing and promotional activities have generally been pretty uninspired. I think, however, that Snow Days and, to a lesser extent, Puppypalooza Extraveganza, show that the org still has a capacity for marketing creativity.
This is shocking when you really think about it. $6 a game? Low-A tickets in my hometown cost the same thing
by Gradyforpresident on Feb 20, 2011 10:00 AM EST up reply actions
As I mentioned above, Facebook just an example. Lots of ways to reach kids. You ought to get out a bit more. Big world out there outside of baseball. And I’ve had hours and hours of meetings with lawyers about just such issues that are allowed and not allowed because I was spending millions of dollars to make marketing reach target audiences and get purchase. You must be joking if you think kid aren’t reached. Now that is naive.
by Bogalusa Bomber on Feb 19, 2011 6:44 PM EST up reply actions
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