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Marketing Archive

Corrective

What CMO Peter Land said during a Blood-Horse chat when asked about using standard saddle cloth colors in the Breeders’ Cup:

There are some within our organization that support your point of view and others who believe the tradition of the purple saddle cloths is one that separates us out from every other event and is core to our identity. Frankly, the solution is Trakus, which would allow the wagerer/fan to track the horses without worrying about the color of the saddle cloth.

What Brooklyn Backstretch said in response over on Green but Game:

Frankly, the solution is the end of your relentless and ineffective self-promotion at the expense of race fans’ most basic and fundamental interest: where their damn horse is!

I couldn’t possibly improve on that statement, although I will admit that I agree with Land that to have Trakus would be tremendous. Too bad Santa Anita doesn’t have the system installed, though, so using Trakus isn’t an option next week and fans will have to suffer through yet another year of purple saddle cloths. Frankly …

Posted in Breeders' Cup, Marketing on October 17, 2008

In the Stretch

– A reminder: Deadline for entry in the SAFC DIY marketing presentation contest is two days* away! All the details, including that of our amazing prize, can be found here. And keep those submissions coming …
– As Patrick notes, the online horseplayers task force presentation for the NTRA marketing summit next week is done, a big relief for all involved. Since there’s so much to talk about, and we only have 90 minutes on Monday, I’ll be posting a couple items here later this week related to some of the issues we’ll be discussing out in Vegas.
– This really is a year of amazing distaff talents: Across the Atlantic, Zarkava is the overwhelming early favorite for the Arc next month, with British bookmakers slashing ante-post odds on the super filly with the killer kick to anywhere from 6-4 to 2-1, following her track record-equaling performance at Longchamp on Sunday. Despite missing the break, stumbling, and trailing the field into the final turn, Zarkava won the 1 1/2 mile Prix Vermeille drawing away:

So good was her win, talk now is that only heavy ground might prevent her taking the Arc. “We would be reluctant to run her if it came up very soft,” said Zarkava’s owner, the Aga Khan. Let’s hope for little rain.
– The MassCap draws near and Whitney winner Commentator has been made the 122 pound highweight for Suffolk Down’s signature race (won last year by Brass Hat). Entries will be drawn Wednesday.
* Deadline may possibly be extended, per this comment.

Posted in Marketing on September 15, 2008

The Latest Meme

… promoting racing to sports fans. Bob McNair, recently divested of his thoroughbred holdings, on the idea:

“We don’t have enough sports fans in racing,” he said. “It’s frustrating because racetrack operators cling to the notion that they have to cater to the gambling audience. I think they are wrong and you can go to racetracks and see the empty seats. They have to increase their fan base and make sports fans develop an interest in racing.”

And John Sabini, recently appointed chairman of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board:

“I don’t propose to be the person who solves the nation’s Thoroughbred ills, but I want to help it along,” he said. “We need to get people who are sports fans more interested in horse racing.”

Fairplex tries out the approach:

“We have to promote this as a race meet,” said White. “This isn’t a fair. We’ve tried to target sports fans more. We’ve run all our ads in the sports sections of papers, and we ran ads in the programs at Cal Expo and San Mateo.”

The challenge of promoting racing is that it’s both sport and game, and the game is what fuels the sport. Pursuing sports fans is a fine starting point, but it can’t be the end point.

Posted in Marketing on September 5, 2008

The More, the Merrier

Feeling left out of the NTRA marketing summit fun? Have some great ideas of your own about how to market racing to a new generation of fans? Put together a few slides then and enter the Self Appointed Fan Committee DIY Marketing Presentation contest! All the contest details can be found here. Hurry, though, deadline for submission is September 17, followed by a round of voting for the “favorite,” with the winner announced September 22.

Posted in Marketing on September 4, 2008

Great Idea

… not so great execution. NYRA announced today the launch of Curlin’s Corner, a “multimedia site” that “will give fans an interactive experience” as they follow Curlin to the Woodward. Here’s how Curlin’s Corner appears in Firefox, the second most popular web browser, on both Mac and PC:

Note to the NYRA web developer: The broken images can be fixed by changing the backslashes to slashes and then this table-based, non-standard, usability-unfriendly, bizarrely pop-up and PDF laden, cutting edge for 1999 page will look (mostly) the same across browsers and platforms.
Related: Constructive criticism from Green but Game.
Tangentially related: I’m a fan of PEB, but what’s up with this commemorative Curlin poster? Not only does the image not make sense, it’s kind of offensive.
11:45 p.m. update: Images are fixed and now appear in Firefox! Thanks, NYRA. Now about the un-embedded video, pop-ups, and the importance of web standards and functional, usable web design …

Posted in Marketing on August 27, 2008

The Fundamental Problem

“Between 1990 and 2000, the North American parimutuel handle increased from $10 billion to $15 billion, due not to some emergence of star horses with long careers but to the convenience of full-card simulcasting and an explosion of new betting opportunities. Since then, the figure has not budged, despite all the feel-good stories…. Instead of thinking like 21st century business operators competing for market share, racing prefers to imagine that some old-style publicity … will suddenly make it become 1957 again” (DRF).

Posted in Marketing on June 29, 2007

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