Compulsive Blabber

YOU ARE WHAT YOU PUBLISH.

I’m interested in expressing a thought thread that is in contrast to my previous marketing and tech mutterings. I want to profess: I’m a cycling enthusiast, an evangelist even. With that said, I’m caught in a confluence of interests; my marketing musings on web video and the current state of affairs in cycling.

Let me explain...

I worked in the world of ESPN; cliqued fast cars and fast motion. I saw and helped to produce content that was truthfully entertaining, but it was content that had established consumer relationships. Ferraris and Girls go down pretty easy for the ‘American Male’.

So my metaphor begins with an observation of the current US sports market - why do I care that A-Rod is opting out of his contract with the Yankees? Because people and organizations have spent a lot of time and money trying to get me to care.

Now I don’t want to sound too terribly cynical, but this is our cultural marinade, to care for things that we are directed to care about.

But, I want to propose an idea that takes this mode of consumption and bank rolled force feeding, as a fantastic opportunity.

Until recently, Olympic sports and non-major sporting enterprises: cycling, track, sailing, rowing, swimming, etc...haven’t had an opportunity to spread their information and content through traditional mass media. But the Internet came along and rescued the non-stick and ball crowd.

HORAY! Come on let’s all celebrate! HORAY!... we have a platform to gather and commiserate, share our experience, generate a community and focused economy.

So how does the A-Rod bit and the internet vehicle for the Olympic sports - for my particular focus the cycling crowd - share any relevance. I’ll get there; promise.

When a company sponsors a cycling team, he team as a whole takes on the brand name of the sponsor, and it is the team and the team management’s responsibility to create an environment that reflects positively on the sponsor.

This is where the afore mentioned A-Rod comment comes into play. Scott Boris, A-Rod’s agent is a PR and focused content machine. Now PR campaigns are fantastic, and generating positive content to associate with a company or an entity (A-Rod) is the PR holy grail. And with the internet, we have the largest platform to generate and distribute focused content. So here sits the Internet, a dinner table to lay your offering on.

Ok enough with the hyperboly and crappy metaphors. Cycling needs to take more advantage of the Internet. Pure and simple. It is the best place to get your sponsor exposure.
There is a quote by a really smart Marketing guy, who I believe rightly claims: YOU ARE WHAT YOU PUBLISH.

Races are important, and for a team sponsor the races are a huge part of the end goal of perceived success. But a team has the ability to graph public perception to a much higher degree than they are currently doing, through their own focused content generation as a Marketing tool

Cycling teams, and truthfully all sponsored teams of any sort, need to take the responsibility of generating brand visibility for their sponsor and their team EXTREMELY SERIOUSLY.

Your team is a brand. Create a brand strategy. Drive that strategy and identity with your own content. This focused effort will aid in developing an identity, create characters, and ultimately be a more enriching experience for your sponsor.

The time and money to generate your own content is truly priceless. No one else gets to decide how you portray your athletes or the team or the sponsor’s brand, if you do it faster and with more force. This allows anyone generating clear content to create a public perception of whatever you choose.

This isn’t dishonest, it is the advantage of the internet. Allow your consumers to digest your recipe. Because if you don’t bring it to the table, a far fewer number of people will be able to buy into your offering. If you generate a consumable quantity, someone is going to take a bite, and the better it looks and the better the ingredients there are, the more likely people are going to eat it up...the ultimate goal of a sponsored team.

So, again, Your Are What You Publish!

Innovative Media Solutions?

Ok, so the decision to start a blog has been made, and even though all bloggers try to have some witty or wry blog launch post, I'll just be honest and claim the need for practice. So if you read this, know that you are reading blog practice...

The actual reason I decided to start a blog, was to provide an opportunity to wax in a semi-rhetorical manner. I'll talk media, video, video integration, brand enhancement, and some other geeky stuff that I think about. So welcome. Glad to have you.

As far as a real topic for the first blog post? Well how about: market positioning of a brand.

I'll admit, I started working in TV and saw how people twist and prepare their entire news and programming to pimp their sponsor. That's how I started on this path of brand articulation. TV people go through great pains and money to make your viewing experience follow their ad-dollars. But the internet is a totally different animal. The web provides a totally different canvas for marketers and ad-people to broadcast their brand.

The critical distinction with the web, is the ability for marketers to cut through all the interruption tactics; be explicit - target exactly your audience with exactly you need to pitch them. The internet establishes a forum for self selection. Those who frequent community sites, news sites, and individual company sites, have done so voluntarily. That means they are already to digest a certain type of information.

Take that opportunity sincerely, it is a shift in the way information can be dispelled to it's intended consumer.

I hope to talk more about the ways in which brands can properly articulate their brand, those channels, web presence, and media developement in the future posts.

For now, cheers.

Matthew
Innovative Media Solutions