How Not to do Marketing

The clubs in Allsvenskan were rewarded with a better TV deal than ever when they signed with Viasat before the start of this season. The clubs are rumoured to recieve something in the region of SEK 1-1.2 million for the rights to broadcast the games.

Viasat in turn has an agreement with the Schibstedt Concern, who among other publications owns Aftonbladet, the biggest tabloid in the country (the paper is also the most visited website in Sweden). Schibstedt has also a fairly new online pay-per-view sports channel in S24.se, the Viasat agreement allows S24 to broadcast a number of games from Allsvenskan on their portal. Viasat has their own PPV service with viasatondemand.se, this unlike S24 is however geographically resticted to Sweden (and possibly Finland - but I am unsure of this).

This has worked well, or at least as well as expected from live online TV broadcasting.

However, last week S24 announced that, due to the economical difficulties faced by AIK, they would donate SEK 10 per ticket bought by AIK fans to view the away game against Bofors IK (AIK won 5-2).

For a media company they do surprisingly not seem to understand the impact of this action - they probably thought they'd come across as nice and helpful with this token gesture. Bofors was of course incensed by this move. AIK supporters who might have come to watch the game are now told they will help the club economically by watching it on the web, hence Borfors losing money from the gate and sale of refreshments. Other clubs and fans are asking how a company supposed to cover the games unbiased are allowed to sponsor one team and not the others.

Supporters from Växjö has rallied around calling for a boycott of the channel, and as Växjö fans are apparently buying most tickets for the online games, this can have unwanted implications for S24.

A supposed representative for S24 has posted a message on different boards explaining their decision. The amusing thing is that some of the claims in the message do not add up.

1. This is part of an ongoing drive to help all individual clubs.
2. Other teams are occasionally given five free codes to offer fans.
3. Other teams has been offered this type of arrangement before, but none have as yet been inclined to accept.

Blahblahblah. Corporate bullshit at its worst! Let's look a bit closer. 

1. That sounds all good, but uncharacteristically  charitable for a profit making company. But hey, each to their own! 

2. It is a slightly different matter to give consumers a freebie than to pay money into the account of the club they support. The clubs provide S24 with a good channel in which to directly source customers. I can't see the clubs rejecting this (unless they are hosting the game and might lose money on people staying in) and it increases the awareness of the company as far as S24 would be concerned. This 'cost' would fall under marketing - this is a known and tried formula they use. Normal marketing - no problem. 

3. This is where it sounds odd. Are they asking people to believe any club would have turned down the prospect of getting free money? I can bet you both my balls and a bluberry pie that this has never happened. I make a good blueberry pie by the way.

The facts are very simple. S24 are not making money and need to sell more than they have so far. AIK has many fans (that few care about ice hockey is another issue) and as so few go to watch the games, S24 simply see this as an untapped part of the market that they want in on. The general idea was most likely that they would get some publicity through this move - at least Aftonbladet ran with it (surprise!) and AIK fans knowing the club is needing all the money they can get, might just start watching the games online - and hopefully more than just this once. I can't see that this move put more than a few hundred in the AIK coffers, why this is in practical terms means that S24 just shat in their own handbag for no good reason.

The clubs have sold the TV rights and should not be expecting any more money than they have already received. But maybe due to the ill thought out move by S24, they might be in line for a small additional contribution as they will be forced to do this for the other teams as well. Thank you!