Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Group?

This is the story of my adventure on the other side of group sales.  I was the group leader trying to book lunch for a group of kids.

Over the holiday weekend my daughter’s pee wee hockey team was in a tournament near Patriot Place.  For those outside the Boston market, this is the New England Patriots version of City Walk or Downtown Disney.  At Patriot Place they have shops, entertainment venues, and restaurants.  We all agreed this would be a great place for the kids to have lunch after their game.

The kids wanted to go to Red Robin for burgers. So a week before the event I called them.  The date of our event happened to be Black Friday.  They informed me they could not book our group because they expected a big crowd.  I received the same response from every other family restaurant also. 

I sent an email to Red Robin explaining our situation.  Guess what, they called and made it happen!  Red Robin explained to me that they don’t normally book groups or take reservations. When we got there, they were ready for us at the exact time we asked for.  The service staff was great!  They had all 35 of us feed and out in one hour.  That is very impressive with a group of 12 year old girls.  The kids were happy and the parents only have good things to say for Red Robin.  In the end, we had a good customer experience and I know they will get repeat customers from our group.

You should also know that Patriot Place management was very understanding and tried to help us too.  They get it. They want groups coming to their place. They also tried contacting a few restaurants for us.

Here is what I don’t understand.  Why would any organization turn down guaranteed business if they have the capacity?  All of these restaurants had no idea how much business they would get on Black Friday.  In fact the weather was really bad that day with heavy rain and chilly.  This was predicted.  Patriot Place is an outdoor area with indoor shops. As we walked around the area we saw how low the attendance was due to the weather.  If you can book a group, does it not help you when the walk-up customers stay away?  Is it not better to know what you have versus not knowing?  Why are some people still afraid of group sales?

Expanding The Marketing Business

A trend that has been quietly on the rise is sports teams expanding their business.  More team ownerships are taking the power of the team and expanding into other related business ventures. 

Two great examples are right here in Boston.  The Kraft family owns the New England Patriots.  What they have done over the last few years is brilliant.  Not only have they built a winning franchise, but they have built an entertainment complex that matches.  Around the stadium they have built their version of Universal Walk or Downtown Disney.  They call this shopping, food, and entertainment complex “Patriot Place”.  But they have not stopped with just building the place.  They needed to book and market the entertainment playing there.  They created the Kraft Entertainment.  Now that they have created this business, the marketing opportunities are endless.

Today, I read about the Boston Red Sox expanding their business. Fenway Sports Group has cut a deal to sell sponsorships in North America for the English Premier League.  This is a good deal for both groups.  Fenway Sports can use their brand and sports marketing power and tie-in with an international league with similar brand power. 

Both of these are good examples of expanding the business without going into “left field”. So many times we see organizations trying to expand into a business that just doesn’t make sense. 

All of us in the live event, entertainment, and sports business can expand our marketing business.  With less shows traveling, venues can be a little quiet.  Instead of management cutting marketing departments, why not use the marketing expertise to bring in new revenue. Why not use our marketing resources to expand into other event and entertainment projects?

Post-Holiday Marketing Notes

Brand Packaging

Over the holiday weekend I went to Patriot Place.  For those not from the Boston area this is the new shopping and entertainment complex that surrounds Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots).   The Kraft family built this very cool place to create a year round money making machine.  It reminds me a little of Universal’s City Walk or Downtown Disney.  We went Friday morning between hockey games that my daughter was playing in.  The place has big brand name stores, restaurants, movie theater, plenty of free parking, and even a live event place that is kind of like House of Blues.  One really important item was missing from this, people.  This was Black Friday (biggest shopping day of the year) and the stores were empty except for the Bass Pro Shop.  That was packed. But lets be honest they are an attraction.  Let’s call it the “Red Neck Disney”.  Very cool, interactive and great for the kids.  I believe the reason the rest of Patriot Place was quiet was lack of marketing.  I did see one radio station setting up for what was a mid-day promotion.  A place this size needs more then one radio station to make it work.

More Texting

I noticed that more and more marketers are using mobile text messages as a marketing tool.  I saw both TV and newspaper ads asking for customers to text them to receive something “free”.  This is a good start but how do we take this to the next level?

See I Told You

The numbers are in from Friday and people did spend money at the stores.  Retailers dropped their prices and their pants and the customers came in.  People do need to shop for the holidays.  They want the holidays to be an escape from all the bad news out there.  This leads me to the next topic.

Give The People What They Want

The biggest selling items were the ones with the best prices and the items that consumers want.  As event and entertainment marketers we should take a lesson from this.  Put together an event or show that our customers want and give it to them at a reasonable price.  I know we can do it so let’s try.

Cyber Monday

Today is what is now called Cyber Monday.  This is the biggest online shopping day of the year.  You know which group dropped the ball again this year?  How about the event and entertainment business?  I have already written in the past about marketing tickets as holiday gifts.  How many promoters of events marketed their products around today?  Don’t most ticket sales happen online?  Wouldn’t it be smart to market some shows with even a (God forbid) discount today?  Ticketmaster does most of their business over the net.  Today should be a “really” big day.  If I did Ticketmaster’s marketing I would have had a whole marketing campaign around buying tickets today.