How A 75 Year-Old Business Connects with Next Generation Customers

How do you keep long-standing companies, products and brands top-of-mind and relevant, especially to a new generation of customers?

It requires dedicated attention and a solid understanding of company/brand positioning; a willingness to experiment and deploy creative ideas and smart tactics; and strong execution. For success, focus on what you can do to make the end-user experience better (easier, faster, more fun, new benefits, etc.), which should, at least in the long term, help your company achieve and/or sustain profitable revenue.

There are numerous options to consider implementing, depending on the particular situation and objective, such as, for instance:

• Upgrade product or service performance
• Enhance packaging
• Create special promotions or events
• Add/highlight secondary usage
• Expand distribution channels
• Launch new products
• Reposition

Consider this new example from the world of professional sports. Some might say it’s a gimmick, yet it’s grounded on practical marketing discipline, with important takeaways for marketing teams.

The National Basketball Association (NBA), a United States-based professional basketball league, began operations in 1949.

Of course there have been changes over the years to rules and playoff formats. A transformative change was the 1976 merger with the American Basketball Association (ABA), which added four teams to the league. The NBA didn’t keep the ABA’s red, white and blue basketball, but three years later did adopt their three-point shot.

This year, the NBA launched the In-Season Tournament, which began November 3rd and concludes on December 9th with the champion capturing the NBA Cup along with $500,000 to the winning players and coaches. Basically, the league created a tournament within the structure of existing games and the regular schedule. There are no added games and all “tournament” games are part of the regular season standings. It’s too long to summarize here, but you can read the details.

There are multiple reasons why this is informative and applicable from a marketing standpoint:

• It’s a low risk way to gain attention during the early part of a very long season when many fans or potential fans are more interested in the National Football League (NFL) and/or college football
• It’s a fun way to cater to younger fans, particularly teenagers and those in their 20s
• It demonstrates a willingness to creatively experiment with a mature, valuable, branded enterprise
• It features fun activations: super colorful court designs and special Nike NBA City Edition jerseys
• It reflects an understanding of the visual nature of the business, given that every game is watched on some device (i.e., consumed) and the vibrant-colored courts will immediately generate attention to find out what’s happening

According to the NBA, the special, unified courts are “the first time that the league has implemented an alternate court for all 30 teams.” They “showcase a bold and distinctive design scheme league-wide, making it instantly clear to fans when a game carries NBA In-Season Tournament implications.”