Revisiting Marketing

We went through a little bit of viral marketing below in this post. I promised we'd revisit it, so in between races at the Meadowlands, here we go!

I popped into my inbox and found a neat email. Susan from Scarborough Maine emailed to say she agrees that harness is a tough sell. She also believes that generic commercials that are used don't work too well either. She happens to be the one-woman marketing director for the Downs.

As far as I know Scarborough Downs is not Woodbine, nor is it the Meadowlands. It is a smaller track, with a small budget, so we can surmise that a commercial ain't gonna happen there, right? Don't tell Susan that. She tells me she "wrote, directed, produced and scripted a spot" all by herself. She says that she is proud of it. She should be. And we have it for you here!

Way to go Susan.

What else is happening out there in terms of racing ads? I judge ads different than most. I am a fan of writer Seth Godin, who wrote one of my favorite marketing books, Purple Cow. There are a whole lot of brown cows out there. They are kind of boring. According to Seth, it is all about being different, being memorable, and being remarkable - being a purple cow.

Anyhow, let's go through a few. Judge them for yourself. Are they purple cows?

California has a set of TV ads. They are trying to brand racing as a good, exciting alternative to Vegas. It seems to work actually. They are a bit different and somewhat edgy. Maybe half a purple cow? What do you think and think?

This is a little more like it. A TVG commercial to racing fans. About what we expect right?

The largest campaign I have ever seen is for the V75 in Sweden (the huge pooled sweep bet). Once again, cash is needed. This thing must have cost quite a few bucks. But of course, Sweden actually has an association who puts money back into the sport. Oh my head.

The commercial, 32 million years in the making, is a dandy, so have a look. That's a purple cow. To change a brand (like the Cadbury commercial in the post below) you have to allay fears that people have about your product. You have to be the opposite of what they think you are. That's the strategy anyway. To get the harness brand away from "old, tired, cheating, boring", that ad does the trick. Watch that and tell me if that makes harness racing look anything like the stereotype.

It is accompanied by a print ad campaign. "Two millimetres can be worth 20 million"
"Horsepower", "0-100000 in 118 seconds", "32 million."

Now, that's cool. Holy cow! Purple cow.

So there you have it. How do we brand racing? A few ideas for you. What do you think?

By the way, if we ever want to hire an agency for our off track betting facilities, here's the one I am picking. This ad for racing kicks some serious butt. With the speed the powers in racing move at it makes me think that this was produced last summer.