They’re so cute on the soccer field, but kids are also attractive to market researchers who want to gauge their attitudes about grown-up sports.
Among the promotional sponsors of next month’s NCAA Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis is Nabisco’s Oreo brand. So along with the typical links to beer, sneakers, pickup trucks, and other products aimed at hoops-crazed guys, there will be Oreo Munch Madness.
Even though hoops-crazed guys aren’t averse to adding a few cookies to their Budweiser-and-Doritos viewing menus, this campaign is specifically targeting little boys and girls.
The program comprises themed packaging for Double Stuf Oreos that includes cookies with basketballs embossed on them and orange filling. Wal-Mart, Kmart, and other mass merchandisers are carrying related displays and conducting in-store free-throw contests; supermarkets will also feature P-O-P materials.
Why is a cookie maker using a man-dominated sporting event to hype its kiddie brand? It may be a slam-dunk strategy for East Hanover, NJ-based Nabisco – which happens to be the official snack-food sponsor of select NCAA championships – to associate its relatively grown-up Planters and Air Crisps brands with the Final Four. But what’s telling them to “young-down” and sweeten the deal with Oreo?
The answer, of course, is market research, the type conducted by and for Nabisco and lots of other companies looking to attract kids through sports. Supplementing the corporate probings of the vast youth market is research generated by sports leagues and teams, TV networks that broadcast sporting events, and independent research firms that can segment kids in their canvassing.
Among some of the more intriguing findings of late are that, in the seven-to-11 age group, the majority of girls prefer to play and watch basketball, while boys go more for football. And kids six to 17 say the Olympics are their favorite sporting event – over the X Games, the Super Bowl and the World Series. (So much for a youthful trickle-down effect from the host city bidding scandals that have rocked the quadrennial Games.)
“We do our own targeted research and rely on outside sources,” says Ann Smith, Nabisco media relations director, remarking on Oreo’s present and past alignments with the NCAA, NASCAR, the NFL, and other sports entities.
One of the external sources is the NCAA itself. “We conduct patron analyses at select NCAA championships,” says Donnie Wagner, corporate marketing manager. “We also obtain TV ratings of games from the networks, which are sent to our marketing partners.” Plus, the NCAA is planning to maintain a proprietary research database which corporate partners can access.
CBS, the NCAA’s basketball broadcaster, compiles ratings numbers of kids two to 11 for the basketball games, as well as for its telecasts of NASCAR races, the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and NCAA and NFL football. (In 1999, the NFL rated highest with a 4.0 rating, with tennis lowest at 0.6).
In making sales presentations, says Tom Delaney, vp of CBS Market Resources, the network can add product-usage numbers gathered by Simmons or MRI. On occasion, a potential sponsor will request custom research. “Advertisers more and more want this type of information,” Delaney explains. “We’re very busy in this area. It actually makes the job more fun, because the information is scientific and empirical, so they’re not just buying from gut reaction.”
The NFL has become especially ambitious in promoting itself and the sport to kids six to 11. The theory is that getting them to actually play and understand the game at an early age will foster a lifetime of loyalty to the league’s multifaceted brand, from attending games and watching them on TV to purchasing licensed merchandise endorsed by players. It’s a theory, naturally, backed by research.
“Among our most avid fans, 69 percent said they were fans of the NFL by the time they were 12,” reports John McCauley, the NFL’s senior director of planning and communications.
The whole youth initiative operates under a Play Football umbrella, which includes flag football clinics, Pass, Punt and Kick competitions, a Web site, and in-school programs – all bankrolled by a $100 million Youth Football Fund. Those exposures, says McCauley, create “access points” through which kids’ opinions are registered. For example, TV ads that aired last August and September directed kids and parents to playfootball.com, where they could sign up to play and coach in various programs. The effort not only increased overall participation from three million kids in 1998 to five million last year, but in the process bulked up the NFL’s database. The site has also paved an interactive avenue to kids for sponsors. “It can be a platform for product information and promotions,” says McCauley.
Elsewhere, the league reaches kids through focus groups and at its annual NFL Experience, a fan extravaganza staged at every Super Bowl.
The NFL teams with external sources, too, in particular the ESPN Chilton Sports Poll, Horsham, PA, a six-year-old service which conducts phone surveys 360 days each year, querying nearly 24,000 consumers about leagues, teams, sponsors, endorsers, sporting events, and consumer products. The poll checks on attitudes about everything from the All-American Soap Box Derby to the World Cup. The industry buzzword is “fan avidity.”
In applicable cases, pollsters ask to speak with participating family’s children ages seven to 11, and at least 1,200 youngsters are surveyed each year. “We ask them what sport they like most to play and watch on TV, who their favorite athletes are, and their interest in [the major sports],” says Dr. Richard Luker, the poll’s founder and now a consultant to the company. “We don’t ask about specific events.
“I’m an adolescent psychologist by training,” adds Luker, “and I’ve never found another topic that kids are as articulate about as sports.” The dominant theme is about playing, Luker asserts, with girls gravitating toward basketball and boys toward football.
The poll’s information is purchased by a cross-section of leagues, marketers, and media. “They use the data as a barometer – sometimes to augment their own, though for some customers we do all their research.”
Another finger on the pulse of kids’ sports interests comes from Harris Interactive and its monthly Youth Sports Report, part of a larger Harris Sports Poll first launched last fall. Instead of reaching out by phone, Rochester, NY-based Harris intercepts about 500 kids a month via the Internet, sending e-mail invitations to names mostly culled from a total database of six million respondents. Harris’s names skew a little older. “Our youth poll goes to 13-to-17-year-olds,” reports Shawn Rife, manager of sports research. “We focus on things like sponsorship, media, and sports equipment purchases.” For a $35,000 annual subscription fee, Harris clients receive the youth poll, as well as a bevy of other specific data on industry trends, individual leagues and sports, online sports activity, women’s sports, and up to 5,000 customized interviews a year.
Among the findings in the Harris Youth Sports Report for December 1999 was that NFL fan level is identical across the youth and adult populations, with 42 percent in both groups considering themselves diehard or avid fans. When it comes to the National Basketball Association, though, 29 percent of kids say they’re diehards, versus 14 percent of adults – which might indicate a generational divide over baggy shorts and big tattoos.
In October, Harris signed a multi-year agreement with Olympic Properties of the United States to supply market research services for the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee through 2004. A recent poll of 652 kids – in this instance, ages six to 17 – found that 55 percent identified the Olympic Games as their favorite sporting event, ahead of other marquee games.
Whether that means tweens and teens will soon opt for togs endorsed by Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson over ones from Mark McGwire or Deion Sanders remains to be seen, though you can count on research to help determine what’s promoted in the marketplace.
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