Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.

Baseball's Bright Light

"It's the fans that need spring training.  You gotta get 'em interested. Wake 'em up and let 'em know their season is coming ... that good times are gonna roll." -- Harry Carey

Checkout the enclosed from CNNMoney.com on how Arizona Diamondback executives are battling the slump.  With spring training just beginning here in sunny Arizona, it's worth noting that this whole industry is now coming face-to-face with the issues of managing their business through the downturn. Most were tuning out when this all began in earnest in September and now they're tuning back in to a reality of shrinking sponsorships, losing season ticket buyers and uncertain outlooks for their main source of revenue ... TV.  

A bring light in all of this is the preparation that Diamondback's CEO Derek Hall has made to ensure that his team is doing the right things to maintain momentum going into the new season. His focus (in fact the focus of the team's entire front office) is remarkably tuned in.  Some of the highlights for those of who you who want the cliff notes from the article:

1. Service-first -- one of the hallmarks of Tuned In executives is that they prioritize customer service at the top of their lists. Hall and team are notorious for quick, personal responses to requests from customers and going out of their way to interact in the community. They solve the problems their customers need solving and don't get stuck in their own bureaucracy. 
2. Put your best talent on the front lines -- sounds simple but most of us keep it in the back office. The Diamondbacks put their best executives focused on player recruitment, player development, and customer service vs. business management. 
3. Ensure a great experience -- Hall hired a firm to ensure that every fan walking into the ballpark could experience the old time feel of going to a game, complete with unobstructed field views,  the smell of fresh grass and the sounds of hitting and catching. They eliminated the carnival like atmosphere that dominates most modern stadiums. 
4. Work early and often on long-term loyalty of stakeholders -- the Diamondbacks had an 83% renewal rate on season ticket sales (vs. 60% for some of their competitors) because they didn't wait until seasons-end to start the process. TV rights have been secured for the next 10 years. 
5. Know your market and adapt -- the team knows that Phoenix actually has the lowest per-capita income, $35,010 of any MLB city so they offered lots of incentives to entice lower and middle income families ... from $5 tickets to free tickets at local schools to special kids and family pricing on food and beverages. 

Being a Phoenix-native, I can speak to the quality of the experience and the high regard locals have for the organization. It's a sense of pride you don't see everywhere.  Best of all, the net of all of this is a well-aligned organization that is expecting a slight uptick in revenue in 2009 vs. 2008 while fielding a competitive team that can make a run at the World Series without a $200m payroll.

The Diamondbacks and Hall have done a great job of focusing on what matters most. By tuning in, they've got a big leg up on their competitors. 

Who runs your Marketing?

 "The problem with marketing is that everyone thinks they're an expert". -- Everyone outside of the marketing profession.  

Anyone notice that there is a new marketing expert in our midst? It's called the government and the related public opinions around where the stimulus funds should go and how that money should be spent. I'm not going to belabor the slippery slope we're traveling down here but it does warrant a conversation about who's now running marketing.

Just this week, we saw four examples of what the bailout 'golden handcuffs' look like:

1. Citigroup paid $400m for the naming rights to the new Mets stadium. The decision was a coupe for all parties involved when they won the rights but now not so much for anyone. This week, several US congressman are suggesting they sell these rights. 
   

2. Bank of America takes heat for sponsoring a $45m Super Bowl party for it's customers. While this has been a tradition for the company every year, the fact they just received bailout money draws into question whether or not they used public funds frivolously.  

3. Wells Fargo cancels partners club in Vegas. Many companies offer incentive trips and yearly business outings at resorts for top performing sales reps, partners or agents. Wells Fargo's 4 day junket was business as usual until it met a public outcry against it. 

4. Executive pay limits imposed by Obama administration. $18 billion in bonuses paid out to top executives in 2008 was a bit too much for the administration to bear given the need for a bailout to avoid bankruptcy. Now the maximum is $500,000 a year. 

The merits of each of these initiatives run the full gambit from debatable to stupid. There is so much tuned out behavior going on here that we've lost track. That's not really the point though.

What's important is that it surfaces an interesting perspective that I've always wanted to talk about with regards to marketing. One of the reasons  that marketing isn't trusted (and there are at least five others) is that it's motives are not pure. Far too often, we spend money on things that fall into this general category of 'awareness of the brand'. Hard to argue with the need but it creates an opening for programs that are ego-driven, notoriety-driven, personal fulfillment-driven, and creativity-driven.  

Whatever happened to being market-driven? 

I'd be truly concerned if I was a marketing executive on the back-end of a bail-out. Marketing strategies just got a whole new controlling interest group dictating the wisdom of any investment that doesn't contribute immediately to the bottom-line. This is in many ways even worse than the typical public company scrutiny. And it's liable to create the kind of self-fulfilling failure outcomes because of it. When cost is your only governor, revenues tend to follow them down. 

But, in truth this problem is of our own making. If our motives were pure from the start, there would never be the kind of programs in the public eye that everyone can point to as a non-essential waste of money. There are so many disciplines that are undergoing a transformation right now. This smells like the beginning of marketing's. And it starts with realizing that our motives need to be more authentic.