WE’VE ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY.
Prior to the start of the NBA season, there was an announcement that the league would hold an In Season Tournament, where the winner would win the HIGHLY coveted NBA CUP. (note slight sarcasm in HIGHLY). The internet, being the loving and kind place that it’s known to be, immediately jumped on the announcement with largely critical response on Twitter…or X…or whatever.
A month and a half into the season, the early results are in…and surprisingly, the tournament has achieved several of the KPIs it targeted.
- Tanking: the practice of losing on purpose to get a higher draft pick in the following year’s draft is down; with the top 12 teams in each conference playing at a competitive level.
- Making the regular season matter: Both fans and players found the long season lethargic and have tuned out in recent years. This year, players are invested (each player on the team that wins the NBA Cup gets $500k – even at an NBA salary, that’s a nice bonus.), and ratings are up. Per the Sports Business Journal, six ESPN tournament games airing on Fridays are averaging 1.58 million viewers, a 24% increase from five regular season Friday games last season. Four Tuesday tournament games on TNT are averaging 1.32 million viewers this year a 7% increase from last season’s Tuesday night average for November games.
- Money: The most important reason for creating this tournament was revenue generation. This will give the NBA the opportunity to sell this tournament as a stand-alone offering in future years. Imagine the “Blackened Whiskey: In Season NBA Tournament” broadcast exclusively on Apple TV. You scoff, but it’s coming.
This whole NBA innovation got me thinking about brand innovation as a whole, and how it’s sometimes perceived in general public.
Microsoft’s Zune, Apple Newton, Sony’s Betamax, New Coke, Life Savers Soda, Google Glass…all considered colossal failures in innovation.
Microsoft Zune
Cut to my starting out doing some freelance work early in my career for a client that was advertising in local print. When I brought over some digital and social options, I was told by one of the folks on the board “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” I paused for a second. Took a breath. It was the most mature thing I had done in my life up to that point, because EVERY part of me was itching to explode in response.
Can you stay relevant for a short time without evolving? Yes.
Can you stay relevant for a long time without evolving? Doubtful to no.
Marketers and brand leaders need to spearhead innovation both in-house and with external partners. Innovation that is not just “Hey, we’re going to create a new flavor for Pepsi.” It’s about exploring new markets, distribution models, points of engagement, and fresh messaging.
- When Blockbuster was innovating, it didn’t consider Netflix (streaming) as a threat. It was worried about about other mom and pop shops and eventually, Redbox.
- When Barnes and Noble was innovating, it didn’t consider Amazon was lurking around the corner. It was worried about Walden’s and Virgin Megastores.
- When cable companies were innovating, they didn’t consider high speed internet/streaming as a competitor.
These brands were simply focused on their immediate competitors. Comcast was more worried about Charter’s pricing and channel offerings (and vice versa) without taking a top-down look at the business and realizing that there was a huge chord-cutting shift in the marketplace coming that would change the way things are done as a whole.
In the advertising space, marketers are much more concerned about KPIs like ROAS, CvR, CPM, CTR, and Impressions, all of which are obviously important, but another high value consideration should always be “How and Where is my brand being engaged with?”
For instance, if you’re an early stage to mid-level brand and have a $100k - $300k marketing budget, should you run a streaming video/audio or display campaign with a low CPM where your audience will interact with you on a :30 second basis while the reason they’re really there is being interrupted? Or is it perhaps better to create an event, or a PR Happening or a long-form video and turn it into content, and just use a fraction of that budget to push it out on social media, where people will actively look to consume it? Should you become the content machine rather than try to piggy-back on one?
And if you run traditional forms of advertising, is your messaging about general brand awareness? Or does it drive to an opportunity for engagement and social sharing? Does your website act as just a company business card and store? Or does it invite users to engage with the content? Building your brand’s community. If it’s the former, the advertising better be the most arresting piece of creative on whatever platform you’re running on, because otherwise, it will get lost in the noise.
Going back to the failures of Microsoft, Apple, SONY, Coca Cola, Lifesavers, Google, et al. What the mainstream considers failures, I salute as being the definition of a culture of innovation. These brands were willing to take risks to branch out into areas, markets, and media that were foreign to their intrinsic business. To be truly innovative, you have to encourage a culture of risk and failure. That risk should of course be well planned, thought out, and considered in terms of business opportunity, but you should certainly not just say “We’ve always done it this way.” and be done with it.
