A Breakdown and Analyzation on the Four P’s of Marketing
The current research paper provides the description and analysis of sport marketing. The research question is represented by the explanation and discussion of the Four P’S of this marketing. This analysis was performed by using the following tools: product, price, place, and promotion. For this purpose, the information from specialized books, journals, and web-sites was used. It reviled that sport marketing had numerous similarities and differences compared to traditional marketing. The marketing of production is the same, while the marketing of events, sportsmen, and services can differ because the product is represented by the benefit that the customer can obtain during its consumption. Marketers pay more attention to the creation of appropriate environment, atmosphere, and entertainment. Unlike price in traditional marketing, the one in sport marketing can be composed of several elements. In the same time, the convenience and attractiveness of place is rather important in both forms of marketing. Moreover, both of them are promoted by using means of mass media. However, the sport product can be considered as the means of promotion of other company or non-sport product.
A Breakdown and Analyzation on the Four P’s of Marketing
Nowadays much attention is paid to marketing activities because they play the significant role in the process of attraction of new customers. The current work will be focused on the depiction of sports marketing in modern world. The major emphasis will be made on the breakdown of this term and analysis of the Four P’s components. The components of Four P’s are product, price, place, and promotion. The ideas presented in this paper will be supplemented by the great variety of examples to achieve better understanding. During analysis of Four P’s, the major concepts of sport marketing will be compared to the major concepts of traditional marketing for determination of similarities and differences. The precise description and consideration of various sides of sports marketing provides comprehensive knowledge of this term.
Sports Marketing
Marketing can be defined as the means of promotion, advertising, and delivering commodities to consumers and businesses. One of the major functions of this activity is creation of demand for the products and services. Thus, marketing aims at making the audience consider the proposed commodity as something valuable and necessary.
Sport marketing is oriented on meeting the needs and satisfaction of desires of sport consumers. Fullertom and Merz (2008) noted that the development of this form of marketing is based on the combination of thefollowing thrusts: marketing of sport products and related services together with marketing non-sport products and services through promotion of sport products and services. The discussed form of marketing has numerous distinct features, which will be discussed in the breakdown and analyzation of 4P’s marketing mix analysis.
4P Marketing Mix Analysis
4P’s marketing mix analysis is the combination of tools for obtaining of favorable response from the targeted audience. These tools are the following: product, price, place, and promotion.
Product
In the 4P’s marketing mix analysis, the product represents the commodity that is sold to the consumers. This commodity has the set of characteristics that is considered to be relevant by the target audience. Sport marketing is selling a great variety of commodities, which are represented by products (for example, sport equipment and apparel), services (participation in sports), entities (for example, sport teams), and recruitment and retention of volunteers.
The tool of sport marketing has numerous similarities and differences compared to the traditional marketing. For example, marketing of equipment and apparel in both forms of marketing is the same. At the same time, marketing of event, service, and sportsman have distinct features. While marketing these commodities, the core product is considered to be the benefit that can be obtained by the consumer from it, for example, like viewing the event. The additional emphasis should be made on the fact that audience usually cannot take part in the event. Actually, the audience can only observe the event. At the same time, marketers cannot predict, who will win the event. Thus, they devote significant efforts for bringing entertainment into the observation before, during, and after the sport events. That is why the marketers promote the possibility to view “something spectacular”. These efforts are also reflected in the emergency and extreme development of such professions as sport caster, who not only comment the events, but also make viewing the event to be interesting, even when the audience is not satisfied by the game of their favorite team. Thus, one of the major differences between sport and traditional marketing is the fact that marketers have almost no control over the product and, thus, they focus on the “extensions surrounding the game that can be managed” in the first form. In fact, people consider sport, related events and commodities as the inherent part of their life.
One more distinct characteristic of product in sport marketing relates to actual consumption. Usually, the product is consumed by the group of people. For example, hundreds of viewers on the stadium watch a football match. Thus, personal satisfaction from the product depends greatly on the feelings and emotions of others. In contrast, personal satisfaction in traditional marketing is usually based on personal feelings.
Price
Similarly to traditional form of marketing, each commodity has its price in sport marketing. However, there can be more than one price for numerous products in this field. For example, the customer also pays for parking, while purchasing the ticket to event. Moreover, there can be additional charges, for example, the access to the restaurant can require payment.
In contrast to traditional marketing, a lot of products cannot be considered to be tangible events in sport marketing. Thus, the price for the product depends not only on the product, but also on the perceived value. The determination of perceived value also incorporates the cost of attending the event, like travelling to the stadium.
Place
In the majority of cases the product is manufactured and used (or consumed) in different places in the traditional marketing. Usually such products have so-called shelf life, i.e. they can be used and resold within some period of time. Sport commodities frequently do not have these features. In fact, sport commodities are produced and consumed in the same locations. For example, the football game is played and observed in the same place. The ticket for this game cannot be resold after the occurrence of the event. That is why, sport marketers should make additional emphasis on the pre-selling procedures.
In traditional and sport marketing, much attention is devoted to the location of the selling. The selling location should be attracting, convenient, and align with the spirit of the commodity. For example, sport equipment and apparel are usually sold near sport stadiums.
Promotion
Promotion incorporates numerous components like advertising, selling, public relationships, marketing, and distribution channels. In contrast to traditional marketing, sport marketing is often realized through the simultaneous competition and cooperation of entities with the aim to attract broader audience. These entities have clear understanding that the result of sport event can hardly predict the success of any of them. Thus, they promote tangible production, like souvenirs and prints in addition. This production acts as the long-lasting reminder about the event that links positive emotions of the customer with the seller.
During the promotion of sport commodities, managers should bear in mind that the majority of customers usually have strong personal identification and the preponderance of information. Thus, the customers should be treated as experts. At the same time, the amount of consumers, who considers themselves to be experts is significantly lower in traditional form of marketing. People tend to rely on knowledge and experience of sales representatives.
Sport events are usually promoted the same way as other common products, i.e. via radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and internet. However, greater emphasis is made on the presentation of the sport event as the entertainment in order to attract attention of mass audience.
The sponsors usually perform the promotion of sport events, programs, teams and athletes. In such a manner, the original product of the sponsor is associated with the major attributes of the promoted sport commodities, like, strengths, success, uniqueness, and etc. Moreover, these companies obtained the ability to “deliver their [marketing] message to a captive audience” (Alliance Sport Marketing, 2016). In contrast to traditional means of promotion, like TV and radio advertising which last for several minutes, sport events provide sponsors with hundreds of minutes of exposure to their brand name and image located on stadiums, sport equipment and apparel. At the same time, sponsors and sport managers focus not only on entertaining and amusing the broad audience, but they also direct their efforts to the stipulation of discussion of promoted production, i.e. they force the creation and spread of word of mouth.
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Conclusion
To summarize, sport marketing represents the combination of promoting, advertising, pricing and placing with the aim to satisfy the needs and desires of sport consumers. The analyzation of 4P’s marketing is based on the analysis of product, price, place and promotion. The product can represent sport equipment and apparel, services and entities. These products may be tangible and intangible. In the majority of cases, a consumer is attracted by the benefit that can be obtained from the sport commodity, like positive emotions from watching sport event. This orientation is also based on the understanding that the majority of sport events have such inherent feature as unpredictability. Thus, sport managers try to attract consumers by the atmosphere and various entertainment techniques. The actual consumption of such product has group character, as the personal satisfaction depends on the satisfaction and feelings of the group of people. The price of sport product usually contains several elements and depends on the perceived value by the potential consumer. The place has significant dependence on the demand, as it should be attracting and convenient. Promotion is performed by using common means of mass media. However, sport events are sometimes considered to represent promotion platforms, where sponsors can place their advertisements that will be viewed for a long period of time.
