When the curtain goes up in Hollywood for the 2002 ESPYs on July 10, the audience will be filled with celebrities and athletes. But they won't be the only VIPs, as ESPN's local ad sales crew and MSOs make the most of the marquee event.
Cox is bringing the winners of its ten-market ESPN 2-Minute Drill contest, while AT&T Broadband gives its 50 top local clients the star treatment. It's all part of ESPN's full-court press to add value to the increasingly expensive sports network.
MSO executives appreciate the effort in local ads and affiliate marketing but say it doesn't take away the sting of steady 20% increases. ?We are not in the business of running our ad sales simply to pay for increases in programming costs,? says Jerry McKenna, Cable One VP-strategic marketing. ?We look at our ad sales business as a profit center. It's just that simple.? McKenna says ESPN alone accounts for approximately 20% of the MSO's programming costs.
Still, it's a dramatic turnaround for a network that just six years ago had two people in its local ad sales department, one of whom was Jeff Siegel. Today, as VP-affiliate advertising sales and new business, Siegel supervises a staff that includes 18 people in the field and a full-time promotions director. ?We didn't support ad sales as we should have, didn't support growing businesses,? admits Siegel. ?We realize today we're in a much stronger position, and we have many more assets at our disposal to help our affiliates. Today it's a much more sophisticated business, which is beneficial for everyone.?
?I don't think they necessarily threw people at a problem; but when they did staff up, it allowed us to get more attention from them,? says Richard Steele, AT&T Broadband VP-East markets and sales development. ?It became an interactive relationship instead of one-way.? Before ESPN started to take local ad sales seriously, MSOs got little more from ESPN than contest giveaways and turnkey promotions.
Michael Hargreaves, regional marketing manager for Cox's CableRep Advertising, appreciates the change. ?The biggest shift for us ? and it's very important for Cox ? is that they've shifted from doing only turnkey to working with MSOs to develop exclusive promotions.?
In the case of Cox, the network and the MSO worked for two years to develop an exclusive promotion that became a Cox-branded edition of ESPN's franchise 2-Minute Drill complete with a custom set, ESPN talent and an online version for the Cox.com website. The Web version comes with a reminder that you could play it much faster if you sign up for Cox high-speed Internet.
Cox took the 2-Minute Drill on the road for a ten-market tour, including stops in Oklahoma City; Wichita, Kan.; San Diego; and Phoenix. The winner in each market could pick one of three ESPN-branded trips, including the ESPYs. ?Trip giveaways are a dime a dozen,? says Hargreaves, explaining that what makes this promotion different is the chance to actually bring the ESPN brand into a market and let customers interact with the franchise as well as the talent. ?This has helped us drive more revenue than with any other customer promotion in the recent past. We've exceeded our revenue goals by more than twice what we expected to do and we still have sales coming in.? And, he says, ?The return on the investment has been tremendous. The markets that performed best typically drive about 50 times what it cost in what was truly incremental revenue.?
AT&T's Steele describes ESPN's high-profile programming, particularly the NFL, as a ?magnet? for certain advertisers. He also appreciates the access ESPN provides. ?We're not involved in consumer sweepstakes stuff. We're much more interested in ?inside the rope? opportunities where we give them access to events nobody else can give them. Anybody can take a customer to Jamaica, but it's not unique. It's not branded as an exclusive opportunity. That's why we are sending 50 clients to the ESPYs, and ESPN is opening their VIP post-party to our clients.?
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