NEW YORK — The New Jersey Nets are aiming to pump up their marketing plays at the Continental Airlines Arena with the addition of seat sponsorships by three fashion brands — Izod, Rocawear and Aéropostale — when the team’s NBA season opens on Nov. 2.
Together, the fashion trio, along with courtside advertiser Pelle Pelle, are projected to bring the Nets revenue of roughly $1.25 million this year. The fan seat-back program is a first for the NBA franchise.
The seat-back sponsorships will unfold in what Brett Yormark, chief executive officer of New Jersey Nets Sports & Entertainment, described as branded neighborhoods: sections of seats occupied by season ticket holders, whose demographics, tastes and buying behavior have been researched by the BrandBuzz unit of Young & Rubicam Brands.
For example, the Aéropostale moniker will be featured on chairs occupied largely by older high school students and a young college crowd, while Izod will splash its name across seat-backs in sections populated predominantly by 18- to 34-year-old males. Rocawear will claim some turf in what Yormark dubbed the Nets’ Hollywood section, on seats often used by celebrities, behind the team benches.
Yormark, a 38-year-old marketing veteran whose background includes stints at licensing giant NASCAR, Phillips-Van Heusen and the former Salant Corp., said the Nets began approaching fashion brands when the organization realized the industry was “a big business locally that was underdeveloped” for sponsorships.
Approximately half of the Nets’ fans, or 8,500, hold season tickets for the team, which is projected to draw an average of 16,500 fans a game to the Continental Airlines Arena in the upcoming season. The facility’s capacity for a basketball game is 19,000 people. Nearly one-third, or 30 percent, of the people who attend the Nets games are females, and 39 percent of females ages 12 and older are NBA fans.
The Nets will open their 2005-2006 season with about 85 sponsorships, including 30 new players from the automotive, retail, fast food and fashion sectors, among others, Yormark said. One reason sponsorships are on the rise, he noted, is that they can be structured to stand out somewhat from the clutter of traditional ads in print and broadcast vehicles, in placements such as the seat-back brand treatments. He acknowledged, however, that as entertainment venues themselves become more crowded with marketing messages, the challenge to differentiate via sponsorships — or any other platform — is growing tougher.
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Still, sponsorships afford the chance to connect with people in places they enjoy various experiences, a phenomenon that can be leveraged, as long as it doesn’t detract from those moments, contended Kara O’Neill, senior director of integrated marketing at BrandBuzz. Izod, for one, will seek to connect with fans through the offer of an instant seat upgrade. Fans with Izod-sponsored seats who go to ticket windows at least 30 minutes before a game will be given tickets if better seats are available in their section for that game.
The fashion sponsorships are part of a broader effort to raise the profile of an NBA team, which, Yormark said, “hadn’t been very aggressive, marketing-centric,” when he arrived from NASCAR in February. “We needed to show [advertisers] we’re a best-in-class community,” Yormark related. “We’re seen as underdogs, hard-working guys, so we developed a campaign called ‘Bring It.'”
Additional elements of the Nets Bring It campaign launched this month include:
- TV, radio, outdoor and print ads sporting black and gray hues to complement the team’s red, white and blue signature colors.
- Preseason promotions such as cocktail parties at homes of season-ticket holders and breakfasts at New Jersey diners, where prospective season-ticket purchasers are given a chance to meet Nets players.
- The offer of Vince Carter, Jason Kidd or Richard Jefferson driving kids to school if a family member purchased season tickets by Sept. 8.
Also in the offing: new uniforms for the Nets Dancers, designed by David Dalrymple.