Applying Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to understand why sport marketing is so unique.

Applying Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to understand why sport marketing is so unique.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs suggests that humans need love and a sense of belonging to thrive. He presents to us a 5 tier model of human needs. The first level is basic needs like air, food, water and sleep. The Second level would be safety and security. The third level is the sense of belonging and love or also known as psychological needs. The fourth tier would be self-esteem. If all four tiers of needs are attained, the person could finally reach the last tier, self-actualization and reach their full potential.

source:http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow-pyramid.jpg

The third tier allows sport to fit in perfectly. Sport provides us the sense of belonging needed to thrive.

Sporting teams provide fans a sense of belonging. Supporting your favourite team allows you to interact with other fans, with similar passion. This allows you to be a part of a community. No other industry sparks a huge amount of loyalty and devotion from its consumers. Therefore, the sport industry has a unique group of consumers. This provides the sport marketing a comparative age over other marketing and therefore becomes a unique feature of sport marketing

On top of that, Maslow’s theory can explain why sports marketing has higher levels of Fan engagement and media involvement than other industries. Once again, everyone needs a sense of belonging. Therefore, sport fans will always keep up with their sporting teams in order to be up to date and prevent feeling left out. This translates to a high level of fan engagement. Since there is a high level of interest by sporting fans to be involved, the media is constantly active in sports as compared to other industries.

Lastly, Sport products and services, especially team-related, can continue to be of interest to consumers and have relatively no ceiling. Many products and services from other industries has a maximum level of frequency that when reached, no further consumer of that product or service is needed for a while. However, due sporting fans would constantly want to be updated about their sporting team, attend their games and also have their sporting goods. They would want to be constantly in the loop. For example, if Liverpool releases a new season kit, it is undeniable that fans would rush and join long queues for it despite having already a Liverpool jersey. On top of that, when it comes to merchandises, many sport fans would buy the merchandises according to different seasons. All of this in order to belong in the community and support their team.

Therefore, a psychological theory, in this case, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can explain the unique features of sports marketing. The sport industry provides us this sense of belonging. Other industry falls short in meeting this need. Therefore, sport marketing have unique features that gives it an edge over the other industries.

References:

1. Hoye, R., Smith, A., & Westerbeek, H. (2005). Sport Management: Principles and Application. Burlington: Elsevier. 

Applying the sport marketing framework

Applying the sport marketing framework

After understanding what is sports marketing and the sports marketing framework, we can now apply our knowledge to real life examples and assess the effectiveness of their sport marketing strategy. Let’s use sporting goods stores in Singapore. There are namely these few sporting goods stores in Singapore; The Royal Sporting House, World of Sports, Weston, Decathlon and our neighbourhood stores. For this blog post, I will be using Decathlon as the prime example and the basis of comparison.

 Decathlon is a newly emerged sporting goods shop that I feel have a good sport marketing strategy and concept that will allow Decathlon to survive in the long run.

Let us firstly identify the sport marketing opportunities for Decathlon. When analysing Decathlon’s internal environment, we can see that:

Strengths	Weaknesses
Variety of products ie. Horse-riding, skiing, hiking, skating	Number of outlets- 2
Online services ie. Online shopping, self-collection of online items in store	Location of outlets Bedok outlet less accessible by car, no outlets available in the west and central area
In shop services provided by workshop technician; ie. Repairs, personalization

Note: We are assessing their capabilities and resources.

Moving on, when analysing their external environment, here are the findings:

Opportunities:	Threats:
Singaporean’s rising interests in keeping active	Other sports good shops- ie. Royal sporting house, world of sports, sportslink, Weston
Rise in middle-income consumers
Rising interest in online shopping

Now let’s analyse the competitors of decathlon. It is especially important to assess the competitors as they definitely have a large impact on Decathlon’s strategy. This allows Decathlon to exploit the weaknesses of the competitors and also learn from their strengths. In this case, we are looking at direct competitors of Decathlon.

Despite Decathlon being a fairly new player in the sports goods market, it seems that is has been doing relatively quite well. I believe this is due to good analysis of their competitors and acknowledging its strengths and weaknesses.

Firstly, it has a few advantages over its competitors. Decathlon provides online shopping which is a good strategic move as it can be seen that there is a rising trend in online shopping in Singapore. On top of that, Decathlon variety of products under one roof. This provides Decathlon an edge over its competitors and definitely improves its sports marketing position. Decathlon carries all the type of goods of its 3 competitors. Hence, Decathlon can target more segments of consumers as compared to its competitors. Lastly, its pricing and services strategies also allow Decathlon to have an effective marketing strategy. The pricing of products in Decathlon are relatively way cheaper as compared to its competitors. On top of that, Decathlon provides on the spot services by their technicians. Decathlon provides repairs and personalisation in all their shops. Both online shopping and repair services on the spot cannot be seen in Royal Sporting house, World of sports and Weston.

Furthermore, as seen in the image above, Decathlon strives to increase participation in sport and easier access to sport. In my opinion, I believe Decathlon is on the right track in achieving its intended aims. Beginners can try new sports without worrying about the high cost of gears. Hence, it might increase participation in sport. On top of that, Decathlon makes access to some sports easier. For example, Decathlon provides Horse-riding, snow-boarding and skating products under one roof. Not much retailers carry products for these sports in Singapore. Hence, these examples suggest that Decathlon’s sport marketing strategy is on the right track as their plans and actions are focusing towards their intended aims and objectives.

Source:http://www.decathlon.sg/img/cms/About%20Us/about.jpg

However, it should be taken into consideration that sport consumers are unique. Sports consumers’ brand loyalty and passion for sporting teams might make them less attracted to Decathlon. Decathlon do not carry major brands like Nike, Adidas and Salomon like its 3 competitors. These major brands had already established good brand loyalty and have a large pool of loyal consumers. The brands in Decathlon are relatively unknown in Singapore. On top of that, Decathlon doeso not carry sport products of any major sports team as compared to Weston or Royal Sporting House. Loyal fans will still turn to Weston or Royal Sporting House to purchase products of their favourite sports team. 

However, despite these loopholes, I believe Decathlon still has a firm marketing strategy and a good marketing position. It has advantages over its competitors due to its pricing, product and service strategies. On top of that, Decathlon manages to create a sport mix that can target numerous segments of consumers. And Lastly, its marketing strategy seems to be in line with its aims and objectives. 

What is Sports Marketing and the sports marketing framework?

When the term marketing is brought up, one might assume that marketing consists of sales gimmicks, promotions and advertising. However, marketing is more than that. Marketing aims to create and exchange with consumers. Consumers will exchange something of equal or greater value for a product or service. This notion of marketing can be applied to sports marketing. Hence, it can be said that when a consumer relinquishes something for a sports product or service, it is called sports marketing. However, sports marketing is unique. Sports marketing involves more than just merely marketing of sports product or services. Marketing through sports can also be labelled as sports marketing. In other words, Sports marketing can be viewed from 2 major perspectives. Firstly, the marketing of sport. Secondly, marketing through sport.

For example, the Formula 1 Grand Prix held annually in Singapore. The F1 race markets the sport of motor racing. The Formula one group manages the Formula One Grand Prix races. They help to transform the motor-racing sport into a multi-billion dollar business. This is an example of marketing of sport. On the other hand, the red-bull Formula 1 team provides us with an example of marketing through sport. The European beverage company owns has 2 cars in the Formula 1(F1) Grand Prix. The team in sponsored by the company and have the company’s logos all over the car. It can be seen as an example of marketing through sport. The company is promoting their beverage through the Formula 1 cars and the Formula 1 racing scene. Hence, in general, Sports marketing can be rather similar to other forms of marketing. They all have a same underlying philosophy, which is to satisfy consumers’ needs.

To understand deeper what is sports marketing, we can refer to the basic sports marketing framework. The framework consists 4 stages of sports marketing; identifying sports marketing opportunities, developing sports marketing strategy, plan the sports marketing mix and lastly, implement and control the sport marketing strategy. This framework ensures effective sports marketing.

When identifying sports marketing opportunities, there is a need to analyse the internal and external environment. To effectively do so, one should turn to the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and threats) framework. When examining the internal environment, one should identify the strengths and weaknesses of the internal environment of the organisation. On top of that, one should also identify the opportunities and threats while analysing the external environment of where the organisation is placed in. Analysing the organisation’s mission, vision, objectives and stakeholders are also pertinent. Organisations should review these 4 points in order to make sure they are clear on what they intend to achieve and which path they should embark on. Lastly, examining the market and consumers is also a poignant step. By examining the market and consumer, company or organisations knows who are they competing with or who are their customers. This ensures their sport marketing strategy can be as effective as possible.

Moving on, when developing sports marketing strategy, one should also strive to develop a sport marketing position. When developing a sports marketing strategy, organisations should have a clear marketing objective and good performance measures (KPI).  Objectives should be achievable, realistic and in line with the organisational objectives. To establish an effective sport marketing position, the organisation should firstly segment the market. For example, demographics, socio-economic, lifestyle and so forth.  There are endless ways to segment the market. Segments could also be combined and targeted at the same time. Once the market is segmented, organisations will devise a positioning strategy for the segments before creating a marketing mix for these segments.

When coming up with the sports marketing mix, one should take note of the concept of the sport product and product strategies that can be used in marketing it. Sport products are not only limited to physical items like sporting goods and apparels. Sport products can also be intangible like sports coaching and participation. Sometimes, sports products can also be both tangible and intangible, like a sports event. There are numerous other strategies that help to establish a good sports marketing mix in order to effectively target the intended group of consumers. For example, product strategies, pricing strategies, promotional strategies, distributions strategies and services strategies.

Lastly, once the first 3 steps are achieved and carried out, organisations can finally implement the sports marketing strategy. To ensure the successful implementation of the sports marketing strategy, good leadership equipped with an effective team is needed. Leaders need to be responsible and committed towards the implementation while the team needs to be constantly working and communicating when carrying out the projects. Rewards and incentives should be placed by the organisation to further motivate the team and therefore, increasing the success of the strategy. Lastly, the organisation and team should be receptive towards feedback and constantly review and evaluating the outcomes of the strategy on a regular basis. Organisation and their team should make sure that the strategy is achieving its intended aims. To ensure it does so, organisations can use the performance measures, identifying poignant success factors, analyse the results and alter the strategy to make it more effective.

In Summary, the sports marketing framework is as shown in the table below. We will be using this framework to understand a company’s sports marketing strategy for the next blog post.

                      

References:

1.  Smith, A. (2008). Introduction to sport marketing. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.