Branding Insights from the Marketing Guru

It’s unlikely that the Fuqua School at Duke University will invite me over for an erudite discussion on brand building. The Minor League marketing model is decidedly un-corporate.

Our brand has been built on a lovable mascot, the ever popular nightly sumo wrestling match, the renowned Dancing Grounds Crew, forty varieties of ice cold beer and Rita’s frozen custard. (And with all of that you get a baseball game!)

It’s a privilege to be in a job where one’s body of work is creating fun and spreading a little joy.  

So, here’s the latest branding idea to come out of the Sports Group at Capitol Broadcasting Company…

The humongous heads were succesfully tested at Sunday's 
NCSU-Clemson game. WARNING: Small children 
may find this disturbing!!!

Those giant heads closely resemble our afternoon sportstalk hosts Adam Gold and Joe Ovies. (Heard daily, 3-7p on 99.9 The Fan.) This cutting edge promotional apparatus has been fabricated to get them face time on ESPN’s College Game Day…which originates Saturday in Raleigh at the NC State-UNC basketball game. Hopefully, they will be an unavoidable, major presence in the background of the ESPN set at PNC Arena.

Spying on the Ballpark

Sunday's high was 63 degrees. That kind of weather reminds one of baseball. (The Bulls home opener is Monday, April 8th against Gwinnett, 6:05 pm.) The weather is bipolar - literally - with snow on the field Friday, springtime temps over the weekend and Tuesday's high forecast at 36. A meteorological roller coaster!

Friday morning at the DBAP w/a bit of Instagram enhancement.

To keep baseball top-of-mind during the winter, I just downloaded the TrueLook app. It’s tied to our ballpark webcam. You will find it at the App Store. When downloading is complete, enter Durham in the Account Name box. 

Keep an eye on the DBAP. Watch the grass green-up for spring, or choose your seat for the 2013 season.

Webcam shot, January 18th.

Fallen Hero

Suddenly, I'm feeling self-conscious at the Y in my well-worn LIVESTRONG Nikes. They are pretty beat up...just like Lance Armstrong's legacy.

My shoes aside, I recommend this poignant blog from the Bulls' former marketing chief, Matt DeMargel, on the subject of heroes. 

Lance Armstrong inspired Matt to take up cycling, to lose 100 pounds, to help organize cycling events that raised tens of thousand of dollars for Habitat. 

...if there was never a Lance Armstrong story, I am likely a type 2 diabetic today. I never discover a love for cycling. I don’t lose all that weight. I prepare to turn 40 as my body starts giving out on me. I’m another casualty of obesity. So how am I supposed to feel?

Click here for Matt's blog:  Thanks, Lance. Now please go away.

Chapeau Nouveau...or Retro?

The UPS guy delivers pallets of new apparel daily as we restock the Ballpark Corner Store for the upcoming season. Bulls retail manager Bryan Wilson was unpacking boxes today, and I herein unveil three new ball caps. The pinstripe model in the middle was actually worn by the team in the mid-1990s.

The DBAP store is open during week-day business hours if you want to get a jump on the 2013 season. Use the ballpark office entrance on Blackwell Street.

I noticed these iconic Durham tees on the sale rack. Only a few women's styles are left from the 2012 collection. Designed by Durham's School House and manufactured in NC. On top of that, they are made of recycled X-ray film, plastic containers and glass beer bottles. This shirt is high fashion and a conversation piece! 

Holiday Hoops

The 41st HighSchoolOT.com Holiday Invitational Tournament is underway in Raleigh. The boys (20 teams) are playing at Broughton HS in Raleigh and the girls (8 squads) are encamped at Cary Academy through Saturday.

After four decades this has become one of the top prep tourneys in the country, and local ACC fans turn out to watch Duke, Carolina and NCSU recruits on the hardwood. The atmosphere is electric for the evening games in a jam-packed Holiday Gymnasium at Broughton.

Friday night in the Broughton HS gym. Photo by Bryan Hanks, tournament media coordinator.

Back in October MaxPreps/CBS Sports named the HighSchoolOT.com Holiday Invitational a MUST SEE prep tournament. 

Everything you could possibly want to know, from brackets to blogging, from game stories to video clips, can be found at our HighSchoolOT.com website. 

As Capitol Broadcasting Co. assumes the event's title sponsorship, I want to publicly thank PNC Bank and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC for signing on as advertisers. They appreciate prep sports as a grassroots proposition - kids playing sports, families, their schools and neighborhoods. And this tournament is a significant holiday event in our community that generates $50K in college scholarships each spring. We're all proud to play our part! See ya in the gym...

Top Talkers at 99.9 The Fan

The sports radio business is exploding! CBS and NBC are rolling out radio networks in the new year to rival "the mothership" ESPN. Fox and Yahoo! are in the business, too.

Even though we have these national brands in the space, the best sports talk radio is LOCAL. And I proudly report that our own Adam Gold and Joe Ovies, heard from 3-7pm weekdays on 99.9 The Fan, have been named among the Top Thirty Local Sports Talkers in the country. The honor comes from Radio Ink magazine in its current issue.

Adam and Joe weighed in at #26 between stations in Tucson and Omaha. They are celebrating with Santa...

Faces made for radio: (from left) Adam, Santa, Joe 

and their producer, Shannon Penn. 

Season's Greetings from Tobacco Town

Way far back in the dark ages (30-40 years ago) two gigantic tobacco companies were rollin' two major cigarette brands in the Bull City - Lucky Strikes and Chesterfields.

Today, it's hard to believe these holiday magazine ads were ever considered legit marketing. 

The old tobacco ads with Hollywood leading man Ronald Reagan were dredged up during his presidency, but I did not realize that Santa Claus had been so terribly compromised.