The Answer is Marketing....

[Side.Show.Joe]

We are not Rice. We have a huge alumni base that has forgotten about their alma mater. Our issue with attendance and TV viewership should be a quick fix if we are smart.

Why do I say this? Because at this moment, UNT football actually has a product to sell that the DFW community and our disenfranchised alumni base will get behind. 

So here is the plan... 

Get our athletic department media team to create a commercial promoting the game at FAU and have it run on the local stations all next week. Our game got picked up for ESPN2 in primetime on Saturday. The commercial needs to include imagery of some of the local communities... Signs and water towers type stuff (Denton, Dallas, Fort Worth, and some of the smaller towns too). Highlight our offense stats, and include our most explosive plays this season. Make sure everyone in DFW knows we have the most explosive offense in all of college football. We also need to get the commercial out on X, and have our celebrity alumni retweet it to their fans.

It will cost some money, but it can only increase our viewership, which would make it worth the expense. If it works, do the same thing for our Memphis game, should it also get picked up for broadcast 

Or we can just sit around and keep doing what has yet to work.

[C Rod]

1 hour ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

We are not Rice. We have a huge alumni base that has forgotten about their alma mater. Our issue with attendance and TV viewership should be a quick fix if we are smart.

Why do I say this? Because at this moment, UNT football actually has a product to sell that the DFW community and our disenfranchised alumni base will get behind. 

So here is the plan... 

Get our athletic department media team to create a commercial promoting the game at FAU and have it run on the local stations all next week. Our game got picked up for ESPN2 in primetime on Saturday. The commercial needs to include imagery of some of the local communities... Signs and water towers type stuff (Denton, Dallas, Fort Worth, and some of the smaller towns too). Highlight our offense stats, and include our most explosive plays this season. Make sure everyone in DFW knows we have the most explosive offense in all of college football. We also need to get the commercial out on X, and have our celebrity alumni retweet it to their fans.

It will cost some money, but it can only increase our viewership, which would make it worth the expense. If it works, do the same thing for our Memphis game, should it also get picked up for broadcast 

Or we can just sit around and keep doing what has yet to work.

As someone who makes commercials for a living and has worked with ad agencies and media buyers, what you're proposing will cost BIG money, not just "some money." Especially during a Presidential election year where TV airtime comes at a premium. 

For a marketing campaign to work you need both reach and frequency. The DFW metro is the #5 DMA in the country so you're going to spend boat-loads of cash to reach the DFW metroplex. Next is frequency. In order to make an impact in the minds of viewers, this ad would need to run multiple times, not just once.

So now take the reach costs and multiply it by the frequency costs and you're looking at one helluva investment (mid six-figures) for a single FAU game. Unfortunately the math doesn't make sense because the ROI isn't there. 

[Sig381]

Marketing has been good...a lot better than the past. 

 

The Answer is Winning....constantly 

[Side.Show.Joe]

1 hour ago, C Rod said:

As someone who makes commercials for a living and has worked with ad agencies and media buyers, what you're proposing will cost BIG money, not just "some money." Especially during a Presidential election year where TV airtime comes at a premium. 

For a marketing campaign to work you need both reach and frequency. The DFW metro is the #5 DMA in the country so you're going to spend boat-loads of cash to reach the DFW metroplex. Next is frequency. In order to make an impact in the minds of viewers, this ad would need to run multiple times, not just once.

So now take the reach costs and multiply it by the frequency costs and you're looking at one helluva investment (mid six-figures) for a single FAU game. Unfortunately the math doesn't make sense because the ROI isn't there. 

Production costs will be minimal because we can create the commercial in house. Air time is expensive, but we can target certain times (5 & 10 o'clock news), instead of all day long. That should reduced the cost some. The cost may still be high, but the cost of continuing our current plan will be falling further behind. UTSA, Texas State, and now SHSU are all gaining more relevancy as we make excuses for not marketing our athletics. 

[C Rod]

13 minutes ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

Production costs will be minimal because we can create the commercial in house. Air time is expensive, but we can target certain times (5 & 10 o'clock news), instead of all day long. That should reduced the cost some. The cost may still be high, but the cost of continuing our current plan will be falling further behind. UTSA, Texas State, and now SHSU are all gaining more relevancy as we make excuses for not marketing our athletics. 

My friend, winning consistently is the answer. Winning cures all. 

The math doesn't make sense if you spend $500K+ to spread the word for one football game. That's madness. Single game promotions (what you're describing) are done by the TV networks to generate buzz and increase viewership so they can in-turn generate more ad sales revenue during the game. 

Universities don't promote single-games for a reason and it boils down to money and ROI. When universities do advertise on TV it's always to promote the entire university because new 4-year student tuitions do generate a positive ROI. Single game advertising does not. 

[meaniegreenie]

I appreciate your attempts to think outside the box and propose something that will work to get more interest in our games.  A lot of what you suggested is great and will eventually help if we start winning, especially given EM's offense which is much more exciting to fans.

However, marketing has little effect on people that simply aren't interested in your product.  Of the nearly half a million alumni (300k+ in DFW area) probably 80-90% just don't care.  They didn't care when they were in school and they don't care now. 

The ONLY thing that will get people interested in UNT football is WINNING and doing it CONSISTENTLY and I suspect the majority of people that eventually start coming to our games if we start winning aren't even alumni.  They'll be our own version of T-shirt fans, but that's okay.

But we have to start WINNING and not $%&* the bed every time we get close to breaking through.

In our 42 seasons of FBS from 1970 to now, we've only had 12 winning seasons, with 6 of those coming in the 12 seasons before the 1983 drop to I-AA and 6 in the nearly 30 seasons since the return to FBS in 1995.

Our 12 seasons of I-AA had some of our best success, with winning seasons in 6 of the 12: 1983, 1986-1990, which included two teams going to the I-AA playoffs.

Those 6 winning seasons of I-AA encompassed the entirety of my attendance at UNT, so I'm pretty familiar with the FB atmosphere at the time, and despite it being enjoyable, attendance was still a problem. 
There were attempts to get the frats involved, but they mostly attended for a half while spending most of the time not even watching the game.  Then there were the T-shirt fans for other schools.  You couldn't swing a dead cat w/o hitting a AtM, UT, or OU, etc. shirt when you walked around campus.  You know they weren't interested in UNT FB.

We've seen a couple of times how we can actually get a great crowd to show up, e.g. bowl games, but the bottom line is to get that enthusiasm, you have got to put a WINNING team on the field and it can't be once every 8 years.

[MeanGreen22]

13 minutes ago, meaniegreenie said:

Of the nearly half a million alumni (300k+ in DFW area) probably 80-90% just don't care.  They didn't care when they were in school and they don't care now. 

I would do back flips if 10-20% of DFW based alumni cared. Would have no problem selling out if that was the case. The truth is closer to 5-10%. But you are spot on with the point that they just flat out don't care.. and only will mildly care if we have a consistent winner.

Just like Mosley said on the NTE pod, it's easier to get people to buy in when they are students than trying to get them after they graduate. I feel like they have been doing a good job trying to cultivate that relationship.

[Coffee and TV]

29 minutes ago, C Rod said:

The math doesn't make sense if you spend $500K+ to spread the word for one football game. That's madness. Single game promotions (what you're describing) are done by the TV networks to generate buzz and increase viewership so they can in-turn generate more ad sales revenue during the game. 

I know you're the ad expert but it's really 500k for a small ad campaign on some local news networks? 

Shit, can we afford to at least send out a postcard reminder to every mailbox in the DFW alumni network? 

[GoGreenBeans]

36 minutes ago, C Rod said:

My friend, winning consistently is the answer. Winning cures all. 

The math doesn't make sense if you spend $500K+ to spread the word for one football game. That's madness. Single game promotions (what you're describing) are done by the TV networks to generate buzz and increase viewership so they can in-turn generate more ad sales revenue during the game. 

Universities don't promote single-games for a reason and it boils down to money and ROI. When universities do advertise on TV it's always to promote the entire university because new 4-year student tuitions do generate a positive ROI. Single game advertising does not. 

Spending $500k+ to market a game against a lackluster opponent at that. Someone could see “UNT vs FAU this upcoming Saturday!” 1,000 times and every time go “Who cares about Florida Atlantic?” 

[Side.Show.Joe]

I get that it would be expensive, but we have never been in a position to promote our football team as the most explosive in the entire FBS, and we may never be in this position again. We don't have to wait a decade for students to graduate and fill the home side. Damn the cost. We need publicity in DFW and among our alums and community, more than we need to save $500K. Make it a two week run and promote the Memphis game too. Maybe we see a major spike in attendance when we return to DATCU. We'll never know if we don't try.

Edited 14 hours ago by Side.Show.Joe

[Coffee and TV]

13 minutes ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

I get that it would be expensive, but we have never been in a position to promote our football team as the most explosive in the entire FBS, and we may never be in this position again. We don't have to wait a decade for students to graduate and fill the home side. Damn the cost. We need publicity in DFW and among our alums and community, more than we need to save $500K. Make it a two week run and promote the Memphis game too. Maybe we see a major spike in attendance when we return to DATCU. We'll never know if we don't try.

If ads on The Ticket during the afternoon drive for the week leading up to the next home game is too much for our athletic dept then just close up show now. 

[Udomann]

Another issue with television marketing... the age group that watches live tv or news is unlikely to be the target audience. It's a lot of money to reach a few older and disinterested individuals. Whereas the 30/40 year old career focused folk have already cut cable and moved to add free streaming.

We could advertise more on espn, but that group is probably already contributing.  It's all about 15 minutes of fame now. Win, do something crazy, get on everyone Facebook shorts or tik toks. Generate buzz and then you can commit to a wider campaign. 

[untjim1995]

4 hours ago, Side.Show.Joe said:

We are not Rice. We have a huge alumni base that has forgotten about their alma mater. Our issue with attendance and TV viewership should be a quick fix if we are smart.

Why do I say this? Because at this moment, UNT football actually has a product to sell that the DFW community and our disenfranchised alumni base will get behind. 

So here is the plan... 

Get our athletic department media team to create a commercial promoting the game at FAU and have it run on the local stations all next week. Our game got picked up for ESPN2 in primetime on Saturday. The commercial needs to include imagery of some of the local communities... Signs and water towers type stuff (Denton, Dallas, Fort Worth, and some of the smaller towns too). Highlight our offense stats, and include our most explosive plays this season. Make sure everyone in DFW knows we have the most explosive offense in all of college football. We also need to get the commercial out on X, and have our celebrity alumni retweet it to their fans.

It will cost some money, but it can only increase our viewership, which would make it worth the expense. If it works, do the same thing for our Memphis game, should it also get picked up for broadcast 

Or we can just sit around and keep doing what has yet to work.

I'd venture a guess that this season, more UNT students and alumni watched us play on TV against Tech than will ever attend a game this season in Denton...because they know Tech students and alums. And they saw us losing at halftime by about 40+. 

Similar to the last several seasons against SMU, the one game that UNT students and alums act like they care about football every year, we would just get annihilated. I mean, not even competitive. So again, we know how it is here in the DFW Metroplex. People care a lot about old SWC teams not named Rice. And when we play them and get manhandled, we lose 90% of the people for the season. Playing Wyoming and Tulsa at home aren't gonna get UNT students or alumni rushing up I-35 to get to those games, in Denton or not. SFA did better because we know people who went to SFA, we don't now many students or fans of Wyoming, Tulsa, or most of the AAC's teams. 

What I've come to is that bitching about attendance is a losing proposition. If fans don't care to follow our teams, sobeit. But Grant McCandless found a way to win with support that averaged about a third of the Pit's capacity. And he went on to a bigger job. No reason that Morris can't do the same thing, too. But Littrell didn't care about the fans because he was an introvert, McCarney went insane trying to figure out why people don't care about UNT football int eh middle of the most fertile hotbed for the sport in the country, and anyone else before this had to deal with the decrepit toilet known as Fouts to get people to come to a game, while being a mile away from the action.

[C Rod]

31 minutes ago, Coffee and TV said:

I know you're the ad expert but it's really 500k for a small ad campaign on some local news networks? 

Shit, can we afford to at least send out a postcard reminder to every mailbox in the DFW alumni network? 

Market size, time of day, and competition are critical factors in the cost of TV ad placements.

Market size: DFW is the #5 DMA in the United States, so it costs significant sums of money to advertise here because of the dense population. 

Time of day: The daily news draws in reliable, recurring viewership and bookends primetime television watching hours. If you want your ad to show multiple times during these highly competitive hours, it's going to cost you $$$.

Competition: There are only so many available TV commercial slots that can run in a single day, so scarcity is created. Competition is fierce for the times when most people are watching TV. Desirable commercial inventory is scooped up by national brands, car makers, insurance providers, Harris & Trump political ads, etc. Then, local spots are bought by local service providers like A1 Air, Baker Brothers, Jim Adler TX Hammer, or by Cruz & Allred political ads. This scarcity and competition drive up the cost of advertising significantly. 

If we don't have an aggressive ad budget to compete for eyeballs in primetime ad slots, then we'll be relegated to airing our spots in the overnight hours of 12 AM - 5 AM. 

Also, TV ad spots are sold well before their air date, so it costs extra money to bump someone else and take their ad time slot. It's not financially practical to say, "Hey, we're now 4-1 and have a game next week; let's bump A1 Air's commercials that run during the 5 o'clock and 10 o'clock news!" 💸💸💸

[Coffee and TV]

18 minutes ago, Udomann said:

Another issue with television marketing... the age group that watches live tv or news is unlikely to be the target audience. It's a lot of money to reach a few older and disinterested individuals. Whereas the 30/40 year old career focused folk have already cut cable and moved to add free streaming.

I think the chord cutting estimates are way overblown when those sorts of things are measured. Sure people are watching less network TV and regular cable channels because of Hulu/Netflix/Pluto and the like, or because AT&T wants to charge you $125, but the only options still out there for live sports are cable. Call it youtube TV or Hulu Live or Fubo, but it's still just cable by a different name. 

[NT80]

What if instead of TV commercials we targeted the target audience = lost NT Alumni with direct mail or phone contact?  Is that cheaper and more effective than commercials to random viewers who most won't care anyway?

 

[Coffee and TV]

1 minute ago, NT80 said:

What if instead of TV commercials we targeted the target audience = lost NT Alumni with direct mail or phone contact?  Is that cheaper and more effective than commercials to random viewers who most won't care anyway?

 

Yeah that's what I asked in my earlier post. People don't like junk mail but they still have to sort through the mail to see what is junk. A little postcard with our logo on the front and a schedule on the back can't be too expensive? Or can we do giveaways at the gates so people from the SFA and Wyoming games have a schedule magnet or koozie for a quick reminder/reference? The times of games change a lot or might say TBD, but the dates rarely do. 

[C Rod]

16 minutes ago, NT80 said:

What if instead of TV commercials we targeted the target audience = lost NT Alumni with direct mail or phone contact?  Is that cheaper and more effective than commercials to random viewers who most won't care anyway?

 

The problem with direct mail is two-fold.

1. It has a response rate of less than 5%. The average is 2.4%-4.4% response rate. Most people instantly sort the mail and anything that remotely looks like junk mail is trashed. 

2. It's really hard to track the effectiveness of mail campaigns and further optimize for better performance which means you're stuck with a below 5% response rate.

With mail campaigns you're doing a bunch of spray and pray.

[untjim1995]

I think the bigger questions are why do the students and alumni not care or loathe the existence of the program, as well as what would it take to make the people change to caring…

We are never going to see a change in the value proposition for the students here. It’s a money making machine. And money that is made today, not many tomorrows down the road that nobody is really worrying about in academia funding. The music and arts window will always be our main focus because it is known throughout the country and world in those circles and it costs very little to run. 
 

So the next question is what would drive people to love this place and want to come back to see a game. I’ve come to the belief that marketing on this needs to be a two-fer—Green Brigade and a game. You gotta meet these people where they are. If this is what the university is, then promote the heck out of it and get the arts/music folks out for shows and concerts that are lined up in the concourse. Have concerts after games. Think of what that does to Denton’s arts and music scene that is beloved by these people.

Quite honestly, if that doesn’t work, nothing will at the point.

[wardly]

At their national sales meeting the sales manager of BOW WOW dog food addressed his reps in a huff saying " I don't understand why we are not selling our dog food! It has more beef,chicken, and liver that our competition and is less expensive. Would someone tell me what the problem is." A good old boy from East Texas stood up and replied, " the dogs don't like it."

[C Rod]

If I were in charge of UNT's football marketing outreach, I would lean heavily toward video digital marketing and away from traditional marketing verticals like TV, radio, and direct mail:

- Have the in-house football media team create action-packed fifteen-second and 30-second video ads for every home game promoting the game and with a time-sensitive call to action to buy tickets.

- Create an advertising budget to run these digital video ads on 1. YouTube, 2. Facebook, 3. Instagram, because of its mass adoption, powerful targeting tools, and valuable backend analytics for continued optimization. 

- YouTube is currently the 2nd most viewed website in the world. The only website that receives more traffic is Google, YouTube's parent company. Click here to see stats that will blow your mind.

- 239 million people in the USA use YouTube, and around 77.7% of the US population aged 18+ are YouTube users.

- YouTube (with the help of Google Analytics) can target specific desired audiences with pinpoint accuracy. I don't want to get into the weeds, but how many ways desired audiences can be targeted and tracked via YouTube is unbelievable. Click here to read all about it.

- Facebook and Instagram are also digital advertising behemoths with similar targeting tools and analytics, so what is done on YouTube should be replicated on these two social media platforms.

- Apply all the digital marketing lessons learned from football to basketball. 

There is no reason why UNT can't become a leader in the digital video marketing space. It's targeted and trackable and will continue to be the way of the future.

[NT80]

3 hours ago, C Rod said:

If I were in charge of UNT's football marketing outreach, I would lean heavily toward video digital marketing and away from traditional marketing verticals like TV, radio, and direct mail:

 

That's fine for the under 50 age crowd, but for over 50 (which is the older alums, potential larger donors, and longer-time overall NT supporters) you will not make contact with them.  

I would guess the crowd in DATCU stadium is 40% over age 50, 40% under age 25, and 20% in between.

[C Rod]

58 minutes ago, NT80 said:

That's fine for the under 50 age crowd, but for over 50 (which is the older alums, potential larger donors, and longer-time overall NT supporters) you will not make contact with them.  

I would guess the crowd in DATCU stadium is 40% over age 50, 40% under age 25, and 20% in between.

My 72 year old father is on Facebook all the time and so is my 67 year old mother. My 73 year old and 64 year old uncles watch YouTube DIY videos all the time. The older generation needs to embrace technology and expand their horizons.

The biggest opportunity of growth is with Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. That’s where the focus need to be. 

Edited 7 hours ago by C Rod

[BigWillie]

10 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

I'd venture a guess that this season, more UNT students and alumni watched us play on TV against Tech than will ever attend a game this season in Denton...because they know Tech students and alums. And they saw us losing at halftime by about 40+. 

Similar to the last several seasons against SMU, the one game that UNT students and alums act like they care about football every year, we would just get annihilated. I mean, not even competitive. So again, we know how it is here in the DFW Metroplex. People care a lot about old SWC teams not named Rice. And when we play them and get manhandled, we lose 90% of the people for the season. Playing Wyoming and Tulsa at home aren't gonna get UNT students or alumni rushing up I-35 to get to those games, in Denton or not. SFA did better because we know people who went to SFA, we don't now many students or fans of Wyoming, Tulsa, or most of the AAC's teams. 

What I've come to is that bitching about attendance is a losing proposition. If fans don't care to follow our teams, sobeit. But Grant McCandless found a way to win with support that averaged about a third of the Pit's capacity. And he went on to a bigger job. No reason that Morris can't do the same thing, too. But Littrell didn't care about the fans because he was an introvert, McCarney went insane trying to figure out why people don't care about UNT football int eh middle of the most fertile hotbed for the sport in the country, and anyone else before this had to deal with the decrepit toilet known as Fouts to get people to come to a game, while being a mile away from the action.

I agree with this a lot. Winning those big games we seem to always sh*t the bed will do wonders. 

Its like has always been said. "Build it and they will come".

Btw, I hope this was just a typo and you were not trying to take a swipe at Grant.

[NM Green]

We all love Grant. Think it was a typo. Tough name for GM and auto correct. 

I don’t know about the dormant alumni. They seem like lost causes to me. A buddy last weekend who never goes to a UNT game though a grad, was happy to send me pics from smu where he went to see his beloved Noles. No connection to FSU but he was there. He doesn’t disparage UNT but doesn’t care either. And the silly alums on sports radio apologize for speaking about UNT or giving an update about a G5 team. Spineless. 

Go after the young families moving into Denton. Make it the Mean Green Village Fairgrounds for 7 Saturdays a year with different themes. October fest, funnel cake fan fest, food drive game in November, summer sizzling barbecue bonanza for a September game. 

Have a Mariachi Mean Green crew like they do at Texas Rangers. The mariachis on mariachi Monday walk around the concourse in their Ranger red outfits smiling taking pictures with fans. Then they play a few sets on the big screen and boom you get a unique group of peeps you look forward to seeing. The coolest thing this season was all their close ups of their championship rings as they strung their instruments. Could be a nice link to our Denton Hispanic community. 

Do some fun things the community would come out to and get them into the stadium. Jared is doing some creative things this season. Like Oktoberfest and tickets and tee promotion. Sellout game push and more to come for November. Keep creating interesting unique and different because UNT definitely is creative unique and interesting. 

GMG