Q1 2020 Texas CEO Magazine

The Characteristics of a Well-Designed Promotion
Adding value is important to think about in designing any sales
promotion, whether for a sports event or not. But it’s only one of
the factors to think about. Well-designed sales promotions have five
characteristics, which you can remember with the acronym CASES:
Clear target and objective
Adds value
Simple
Experiential
Sponsored
The best way to see how this plays out is to look at an example.
Lexus hits all the above points with a promotion offering Lexus
owners complimentary valet parking at Globe Life Park in
Arlington for all Texas Rangers home games. This promotion:
• has a clear target and objective; in this
case to reinforce loyalty to its brand among
Lexus owners who attend Rangers games.
• adds value by offering a service perceived to be
worth the $30 charged all other car owners (but
does nothing to reduce perceived ticket value).
• is simple to understand: “I give them my car
before the game and I pick it up after the game.”
• is experiential: “Wow, I can drop myself off
at the gate and walk right into the game.”
• is clearly sponsored with prominent signage and
Lexus uniformed attendants at drop-off and pickup.
Over the years since initiating this popular promotion, Lexus
has improved the process by requesting mobile phone numbers
via text and generating social media engagement, as well as
connecting the promotion directly to the local Lexus dealer.
Ideally, a well-designed promotion should also include data
capture. While it’s always desirable to collect customer contact
information (cell phones, emails, or social media), it is not
always feasible. There may be a trade-off between offering a
simple service and adding a complicating factor that aids data
capture. Proper positioning of the data capture request can
assist in the process. For example, attendants could inquire
among new visitors, including non-Lexus owners who pay for
the valet, “May we exchange mobile phone numbers to make
certain we provide you with the best service possible? Here is
our number at the valet station. Check the box on the form if
you want to hear about other great service offers from Lexus.”
Adding Real Value
As you design your own sales promotions, remember that adding
value—the A in CASES—does not mean reducing prices. That said,
the perception of value is in the eye of the beholder. Focus groups
or online panels can help you gauge fan or customer reactions
before you spend valuable resources on ineffective promotions.
Sometimes sponsors and corporate salespeople come up with
ideas that might have made sense on the golf course or at dinner
with perhaps one too many drinks, but ultimately don’t add value
to the experience. Too often these “creative” promotions have
poor perceived value due to a variety of reasons, including low
payout odds and associated low payoff value. Take the time the
Detroit Pistons partnered with Arby’s. The promotion involved
giving away small curly fries if (1) a player scored a tripledouble,
(2) fans printed out the box score from the paper, and
(3) then went to Arby’s to redeem. Fans waited over nine years
until Greg “Curly Fries” Monroe recorded a triple-double. The
point is that marketers must develop promotions that deliver
certainty of positive outcomes and experiences at the event.
Crazy promotions such as this may add some entertainment value,
but they do less to reinforce loyalty to the team and organization.
The promotions that add real value are typically experiential. Shirt
giveaways for a “color-out,” with all fans wearing the home-team
colors, add value to the experience at the event. So do promotions
where sponsoring retailers offer tickets to team practices held
at outside facilities (e.g., WNBA teams practicing at a college to
generate interest), which add value in an experience all its own.
The primary thing to remember about the sales promotion—
and the lesson every CEO can take from sports promotions—is
that the strongest offers add value to the experience. You
want to help your customers create lasting memories they
associate with your brand, not just give them a chance to pocket
the money from a discount and forget about it forever.
Kirk Wakefield is the Edwin W. Streetman Professor of Retail Marketing and executive director of Sports Sponsorship & Sales at Baylor’s
Hankamer School of Business. His research in retailing, covering more than two decades, focuses primarily upon sports psychology, team sports
marketing, entertainment marketing, and fan and consumer response to pricing and promotional tools. He has conducted fan research in almost
every venue in sports, including the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, and NASCAR. Wakefield is the author of Team Sports Marketing, now widely
used in universities nationwide and available online at www.teamsportsmarketing.com.
1
Thomas C. Boyd and Timothy C. Krehbiel (2006), “An Analysis of the Effects of Specific Promotion Types on Attendance at Major League Baseball Games,” Mid-American
Journal of Business, 21 (2), 21–32.
2
Kirk L. Wakefield and Victoria Bush (1998), “Promoting Leisure Services: Economic and Emotional Aspects of Consumer Response,” Journal of Services Marketing, 12 (3),
209–222.
3
Zarontonello & Schmitt (2013), “The Impact of Event Marketing on Brand Equity,” International Journal of Advertising, 32 (May), 255–280.
42 Texas CEO Magazine Q1 2020