The Liu Xiang Story

As our social networking tools are developing fast, media spread things immediately all over the internet, the internet has been a platform for communication all over the world and it became crucial to our daily life. Discussion boards, chat rooms, social networking sites such as the popular Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, they create online spaces that people browse and discuss and comment on whatever they want.

Good news transmits fast, so do rumours. How did the media become a pressure to the atheletics? There is this well-known Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, he has been a target of attention as well as attack since the 2008 Olympic Games. As a Chinese nation of glory that he won a gold medal in 2004 Olympics, he himself has been a big attention throughout the country. The major story started from his performance in 2008 Olympics that he was not able to finish his 110m hurdle competition due to his legs injury. After months of recovery, he started his hurdle again and has won awards in hurdle competitions. And soon in 2012, people in China put extra ultimate expectation and support to him but he fell down during the 110 hurdles first round after clipping the first hurdle.

The story went like :

“More than 38 million messages have been posted on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, with most critical of Liu and suggesting that he had "cheated" the public and that he had co-starred in a "world class farce" with CCTV.”

Where Sina Weibo can be described as a Chinese Twitter that people put status on it that they can repost and comment. 38 millions! 38 millions of critiques on an national athletic after not winning anything from a competition and been commented that he was acting to fall down during the competition? In a personal point of view, why did athletics make themselves injured because they do not want to finish the competition after million years of practices? How does it make sense to everybody? Doesn’t he deserve respect rather than a situation like this that he has to face millions of people’s attacks? Especially when it comes to the internet platform, story could not be easily controlled because of its fast speed of sharing and reposting stuff on everywhere.   

Liu Xiang soon spoke to the media after seeing such over raging condition on the internet by his own nation. He said that he had really tried his best in the game that he tried to start the game even he knew that he had foot problems at that time, he thought he could do it. Unfortunately situation didn’t go like what he has expected. And he described that ‘I felt like I was lashed by a whip."

When everyone on the internet saying that Liu Xiang was cheating the public in his Olympics performance, Liu Xiang claiming that he was really in pain with his foot injury and wanted to try his best to finish the game. Who’s saying right, who’s saying wrong. No one knows. But it has obviously been a big pressure to athletics that they had to face such negative comments over the internet, BY THEIR OWN NATIONS. Serious huh?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9497212/Anger-at-Chinese-hurdler-Liu-Xiangs-staged-Olympic-race.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrnkNoZpoyA

"Mission Control" -- a new Media Platform for Fans, Sponsors and Money!

The expanding use of social media platforms is making big changes on how sports fans interact with their sports idols and the way sports teams raising funds. "Mission Control" is the online fans club of the New Jersey Devils, and it is looked after by fans themselves. This social media platform not only engage fans better, it provides more space for advertisements, and way of presell tickets.

A group of 25 volunteering fans are taking turns manning the Mission Control office, monitoring social media conversation around the team and replying information to other fans. It is believed that fans understand those who are in the same side of sports interest more than others. Devil's fans who were luckily been selected for running mission control centre were in a great mood to work in a room stuffed by a bunch of latest technologies devices. Furthermore, fans are more than happy and could provide the most cohesive answers to those questions from other fans online. 

It is a two ways interaction, because mission control dose not only work to engage fans, but also engage the team. A live 20-minute phone call follows during which staff and generals learn more about what is expected of them that day.

Mission Control Centre is staffed about six hours a day during the offseason, and as long as 12 hours on game days. Since Mission Control launched in February, the Devils’ Facebook following has nearly doubled to more than 192,000 fans, and the Twitter audience has grown to more than 28,000 followers.

The rapid increasing numbers of fans on each social websites brings New Jersey more sponsors as well,    more website spaces for tickets, merchandises and advertisements. Among the elements under exploration for Mission Control during the next hockey season are an expansion into location-based social media and daily online deals for tickets and merchandise.Two ticket promotions that were run through Mission Control sold more than 850 tickets and generated nearly $18,000 in incremental gross revenue.
  
Krezwick, president of Devils Arena Entertainment, stressed, "This is a business initiative. This is all about conducting business in an organized fashion."

At the time more tickets are promoted online, the social media platform also helps Devil provided a better service to those customers by allowing everyone post any wrong information on website. Krezwick said, "We made sure everyone was versed in all the details of it...so they're able to respond to it immediately" if someone asks a question or posts incorrect information about the ticket offers. "If there is a call-in to a radio show that is incorrect or derogatory, our generals are going to be all over that. And noting they are being trained to correct misinformation via Twitter and other social platforms."


Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek Said, “This new social media platform gives our fans the opportunity to get even more deeply invested in the team they love.”

If you are a sports nerd, in love with The New Jersey, and defenitely do not want to miss out any thing new about your loved team, then you cannot miss out "Mission Control"!

However, The New Jersey is not the only one created their online space centre for their fans, Dell and Gatorade, that have also built similar on-site social media centres.

Case Studies

Bavarian Beer

The Dutch beer firm Bavaria, ambushed the 2010 world cup as the official beer sponsor was Budweiser. 36 women were allegedly paid by the Bavarian beer firm to strip of their clothes and reveal their orange branded dresses in a match between the Netherlands and Denmark. 

Although they got kicked out, the video went viral in an instant. So without paying millions of dollars to be an official sponsor, Bavaria beer sneakily got their brand into the major event and formed an association and gained awareness – even from the news! The ‘ethics’ of the association is questionable.

Check out the Bavarian Beer Ambush!

Adidas versus. Nike

Nike is the ultimate Gold medal winner for Ambush marketing! 

In this year’s London Olympics 1034 US consumers were surveyed to identity an official Olympic sponsor (TolumaGlobal Omnibus Survey). The survey revealed that, 37% identified Nike as an Olympic sponsor, compared to 24% for real sponsor Adidas.

Nike’s “FindYour Greatness” campaign landed first place on the Viral chart (4.5 million views), while Adidas’ “Take the Stage” campaign took third place with 2.9 million views. I sympathize with Adidas as they paid 100 million pounds for EXCLUSIVE marketing rights and to be an Olympic Partner. 

We can see  here what a strong tool social media is for brands to POSITION themselves around a sports event without being an official sponsor. 

Nike used similar tactics to ambush the World Cup two years ago with its "Write the Future" campaign and again stole buzz from Adidas and Nike arguably benefited more than any other brand from the World Cup tournament. 

MichaelJohnson's famous shoes were one of Nike's many attempts to ambush Reebok's 1996 Olympic sponsorship.

It seems like Adidas always settles for second place, BUT will this change, with their Social Media Barricade shoe concept for the Rio 2016 Olympic games?

Adidas is working on concepts with track shoes that have built in LCD which can receive instant twitter updates! 

Social Media = Game Changer!

Check out the Social Media Barricade

  

Subway - The 'Official Training Restaurant' 

We all know that McDonald’s is the official sponsor of the Olympic Games, however this year Subway signed an endorsement with Olympic Athlete Michael Phelps and was therefore labelled an ‘ambusher’. 

Although in the Ad no specific reference to the Olympic Games were made, Subway positioned themselves as the ‘Official Training Restaurant’ and because of the timing of the release debates were sparked and Subway was accused for hitching the McDonald's brand. 

I think the timing of the endorsement was crucial because the ad did suggest a connection to the event. However famous athletes, and sports teams sign endorsements with brands all the time and it’s not a problem. 

 

This raises questions such as when does Ambush marketing become unethical?

What strategy is acceptable what not? 

Is Ambush Marketing just Smart Marketing? 

Problem Addressed and Newsworthiness of our Feature

Brand sponsorships play a crucial role in major sports events such as the Olympics, F1, World Cup, and Superbowl  and without the funding of millions of dollars by multinationals these events cannot take place. Brands spend millions of dollars for the exclusivity to be the ONLY brand in a category. The goal of sponsorships is to form brand association with the event and ultimately boost revenue.

However today, social media threatens this traditional model of sports sponsorship. Since the last Olympics (Beijing), Facebook has grown 9 times bigger and twitter has 494 million more users therefore it is no doubt that social media is the big business and a game changer. Through social media brands can find ways to make a presence during these events (ethically or unethically) and therefore create audience awareness.

With 80, 000 tweets being tweeted per minute around Usain Bolt’s victory in Olympics this year arguably leads to sponsorship firms becoming more interested in number of followers than victory. This raises the question whether spending up to 100 million dollars for a sponsorship is worth it, if 100% exclusivity for the brand is not guaranteed. 

Are sport events too saturated with sponsors now that it takes away from the purity of the game?

Social media platforms such as twitter and Facebook has created structures for communication, twitter for more fast breaking news and Facebook for communication.

Social media reporters are now replacing sideline reporters. Blogs are replacing newspapers.

Sports sponsorship are now venturing into social media and companies are constantly looking to for ways to get their name out there and are now ‘forced’ to change their business models to adapt to the new emerging business environment. Organizations must find a way to co – exist with sport events and sponsorship.

The reading from week 2 ; Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable by  Clay Shirky (2009) (http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ )is particularly relevant to our feature because it highlights the newsworthiness of the topic. Shirky argues that Instead of resisting and trying hard to preserve the current institutions (like newspapers) we must embrace the changing business models and be open to find not a replacement but something new and different that will improve our society. This means that other institutions including sport’s industry must tackle and embrace the rising power of social media.

He states,  “it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it” (Shirky, 2009). The emergence of the printing press in the 1400-1500 was an era of uncertainty and experimentation. What was unclear at that time is clear now because the revolution led to the establishment of newspaper organizations. Much like that era we are again living in a paradigm shift and we are anticipating how social media will change the traditional business model of democratic journalism .

ethical issues fro athletes using social media platforms

Athletes use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to promote their personal sponsors in ways such as taking photos with brands’ products during the competition of which there are official sponsorships is unethical, some people is arguing.

This topic is being heated discussed during these months due to the 2012 London Olympic Game.

The International Olympic Committee issued guidelines to all athletes prior to the London Games saying they could be sanctioned if they openly promote other brands. During the event, athletes can only promote official Olympic sponsors, which means many are not allowed to endorse their own individual sponsors.

Dozens of track and field athletes have taken to Twitter, Facebook and personal blogs to demand reform of ‘Rule 40’ which forbids them to advertise their own personal sponsors if they are not approved Olympic partners.

Runner Nick Symonds tweeted “#Rule40 can kiss my temporarily tattooed butt. I wouldn’t be in London today without my sponsors!”

“While we consider representing our country at the Olympics the highest honour, every day we face the reality that achieving the dream requires financial support. This support requires that we be able to effectively market ourselves and acquire sponsorship, a process that is part of an ongoing journey, 365 days, every single year," the association said.  

Indeed, athletes have rights to use social media to express their emotion and expose their personal lives, just like other publics. It is so hard to define using social media to thank their personal sponsors is a right or wrong thing for the athletes. Athletes are only doing a thing that all human should do: be thankful to the people who helped us. Social media can help athlete proclaim their love for brands and is a direct way for athletes connect with their supporters and fans. In most of the time, athletes using social media just to share their happiness after winning a game with their fans and friends.

But it is a common knowledge that “wherever celebrities go, fans follow”. Increasingly, an active social-media profile has become one of the most important deal-points for brands, talent agents and even PR agencies to consider when negotiating contracts.

"Advertising agencies are asking more and more, "How many fans on Facebook do you have? Are you on Google+? '" said George Ruiz, head of digital media for International Creative Management. "These questions are being asked on every single deal that comes from the ad world as they're asking, "Are we hiring the right person to get our message out?'"

Once the athletes make the space for their personal sponsors appear in the sport game, they can get revenue immediately. And this is not fare for the official sponsors who invest a load of money to get the same effects.

The USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said the athletes should appreciate the investment of official sponsors.

He said: "While the athletes are the heart of the Olympic Games, and the Movement more broadly, without the support of our official partners, the Games would not be able to happen.”

"Our partners provide 40 per cent of our budget. If the value of those sponsorships declines because we can no longer provide exclusivity, then our level of support for athletes overall will decline."

Every sport event has its own official sponsors, and every sponsor wants to have the privilege that only it can promote its brand during the event. However, this privilege can be easily taken away because athletes’ personal brands can spend nothing to promote themselves with the helps of athletes’ social media platforms. Therefore whether allowing athletes using social media during the sport events becomes one of the most important ethical issues within the sports industry.

Design/layout and tools/services

What design or layout we like in our features?

I hope to develop a good perceptual fluency / the visual information quality for our SportsNerd blog, so that it would be attractive, elicit the sense of pleasure, and increase favorible future behavioral intent. I think it is important to have a clean/ user friendly interface that would encourage a simple navigation within our blog.

Also:

- Good quality imagery incorporated  (like in sportsbusiness.com or news.com.au/sport)

- A nice consistent banner (related to our topic) across all pages

- Tabs at the top indicating “Home”, “About us”, “Case studies”, “Gallery”, “News” etc

- a clear, symmetrical layout (perhaps 2 or 3 columns in the middle with the main story magnified on top/above, videos on the right)

Tools and services that we might like to build our feature?

We will be incorporating RSS feed, FB, Twitter that will help us reach our target audiences/users

Features that inspire, how we are different

What features inspire us?

-    ABC GrandstandSport

-    The 4 Olympic Episodes of Gruen Sweat

-    www.sportsnetworker.com (Sports Articles / Resources)

-    www.news.com.au/sport (local)

-    http://sportsprblog.com/blog/category/sports-pr/ (quite good content wise but poor visual value)

-    http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com (Especially SportsBusiness Daily Global)

-    http://www.sportbusiness.com (It has great Free Downloads that are Surveys on “The Sports Sponsorship Market”, “Mastering the Business of Sport” etc; also the website is visually appealing and rich in content)

How our feature will be different to existing features on the same or similar topics? What types of content we might like to include?

The major difference from the existing features is that we will aim to make it FUN to users, ENGAGE them, DRAW them in the conversations. We will strive to not only produce the content but also facilitate it further through the participatory activities.

Where is the FUN ??? :

-    commentary section after each and every post, video, imagery

-    we will be asking opinions, maybe even creating polls

-    we might even consider giving out prizes in exchange of a correct completion of a quiz

-    we will try to foster our content on culture jamming, more provocative issues prevailing in sports marketplace (We were inspired by pun and fun on the Gruen Sweat shows, so we can hopefully replicate a similar witty approach online)

We will be producing case studies, news, videos, pictures that would all relate to sports marketplace in the context of media convergence