Market Spark-It
Strategic Marketing Plan for USA-Ultimate
Elizabeth Blanchard
Patrick Bucher
John McConie
Daniel Thompson
Benjamin Treister
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................pg. 3
Introduction/Background..............................................................................................pg. 5
SWOT Analysis...............................................................................................................pg. 7
PEST Analysis.................................................................................................................pg. 12
Competitive Environment/Market Analysis.................................................................pg. 18
Strategic Marketing Objectives.....................................................................................pg. 20
Communication Plan......................................................................................................pg. 25
Competitive Strategy and Advantage...........................................................................pg. 27
Branding..........................................................................................................................pg. 28
Target Market/Segmentation.........................................................................................pg. 33
Buying Behavior..............................................................................................................pg. 35
Marketing Mix................................................................................................................pg. 38
Promotion Planning........................................................................................................pg. 40
Financial Analysis...........................................................................................................pg. 42
Methodology....................................................................................................................pg. 45
Appendix..........................................................................................................................pg. 46
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Executive Summary
Market- Spark-It
Market Spark-It is an experienced and professional marketing company that
works/partners with businesses of various sizes to create and attain objectives and goals.
Furthermore, Market Spark-It’s team of professionals is committed to their clients and is with
them throughout the process of obtaining and implementing the stated goals and objectives. In
this strategic sport marketing plan, Market Spark-It will be partnering with USA Ultimate. The
Market Spark-It team is composed of Elizabeth Blanchard, Patrick Bucher, John McConie,
Daniel Thompson, and Benjamin Treister.
Market Spark-It will partner with USA Ultimate to provide USA Ultimate with insight
and propose a strategic sport marketing plan.
S.M.A.R.T Objective
The S.M.A.R.T objective that Market Spark-It will explore and plan to accomplish is; to
increase USA-Ultimate Youth Membership (all ages up to 18) from the 2013 statistic (11,233)
by 10% (1,123) for each of the next 4 years. (Annual Membership by Level (Chart), n.d.) The
themes that will be followed throughout the efforts of the strategic plan are; “Spirit of the
Game”, sportsmanship, safe environment, and emphasizing the niche sport appeal.
The team will be tackling this from various angles. The team will look at the marketing
mix, the marketing situation analysis, position, branding, market segmentation, the escalator
concept and much more.
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The Break-Down
Teaming up with anti-bullying campaigns will support the themes of our strategic sport
marketing plan and serve as a positive and solid base for the plan.
In the social media “call to arms,” -Creating a social network for only Ultimate players
will create a “VIP” appeal and perhaps create the desire for other’s to want to be part of it. Creating newsletter monthly called “Disc-uss” will encourage all leagues to subscribe and keep
up to date with national/international news, players, results, as well as new brands/sponsors. In
the attempt to increase interaction with local/national news outlets, visibility of Ultimate and its
players will surely skyrocket. Awareness is key in the sport marketing plan.
In the Gatorade “Points of Sweat Campaign,” AUDL, pro-players will be required to do
community service/awareness which will bring players to local levels to speak/coach/clinics in
order create awareness for youth and allow players to become role models. Frisbee freestyle
performers will, catch the attention of those that perhaps were unaware. This angle could prove
effective due to the “young and hip” age range of our target audience
Giving elementary schools around the country, the opportunity to buy frisbees to start
teaching sport at young. The schools would buy discs from Discraft in bulk, thus making the
price reduced. This expands the sport to the target market while teachers teach the sport with
emphasis on the “spirit of the game” to give children a safe outlet for play. Creating fatherson/daughter leagues would also increase awareness while gaining parental support, acceptance
and perhaps a new passion.
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Creating mixed Ultimate and Lacrosse tournaments, and the Kan-Jam sponsorship will
allow for participants gained from the previous two years efforts and already existing in the
market to engage and involve themselves.
For the last year, the marketing team will evaluate the past years efforts as well as
continue those effort through the year. This year for feedback is necessary to evaluate and
determine the next steps for USA Ultimate.
Take this journey through the competitive but safe and positive sport of Ultimate frisbee
and the Market Spark-It’s endeavors to increase the participation numbers of USA Ultimate.
Introduction/ Background
USA Ultimate Mission and Vision
In this strategic sport marketing plan, Market-Spark-It will be partnering with USA
Ultimate. USA Ultimate is the governing body for the sport of Ultimate frisbee at all levels. The
mission of USA Ultimate is, “To advance the sport of Ultimate in the United States by enhancing
and promoting Character, Community, and Competition” (About USA Ultimate, n.d., para. 1-2).
The vision of USA Ultimate is as follows; “Ultimate is widely known, played, and respected in
the United States as a sport that inspires athletic excellence and integrity among participants and
fans” (Strategic Plan, n.d., para. 3).
More about USA Ultimate
USA Ultimate headquarters is located in Boulder, Colorado. The governing body consists
of 12 members that each serve for 3-year terms (About USA Ultimate n.d., para. 3-4). These
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members work to achieve the core values of the association of respect, integrity, responsibility,
leadership and teamwork (Strategic Plan, n.d., para. 4).
What is Ultimate Frisbee?
Ultimate is defined as, "Player defined and controlled non-contact team sport played with
a flying disc on a playing surface with end zones in which all actions are governed by the 'Spirit
of the Game™"(About Ultimate n.d., para.3). Ultimate is played at all levels including local,
national and internationally (para.7). The sport as it is known today was introduced as a “frisbee
football” type of game by a man named Joel Silver and friends. They experimented with the
rules in this time at Colombia High School in Massachusetts. He eventually got it introduced into
their curriculum there. Joel Silver and friends wrote the “first edition” of the rules to a sport they
now called Ultimate Frisbee. Joel’s friend Johnny Hines started the team at Princeton. The first
college game ever was Princeton vs. Rutgers in 1972 with over a thousand spectators (Iacovella,
n.d. para. 1-4). Ultimate frisbee is often simply referred to as, Ultimate.
Ultimate Culture
Ultimate, tends to get described as combination of sports, but the sport in itself is unique.
This is because the sport, as previously stated is governed by the concept of “Spirit of the
Game.” The game is self-refereed thus calling for diplomatic behavior and keeping the overall
atmosphere, competitive and demanding, but controlled. This is “due to the founding hippies’
acid-inspired dream of egalitarian harmony, so all disputes must be settled by the players
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themselves” (The Spirit, n.d., para. 1). Jason Lucero stated it best when he wrote, “Leave it to a
bunch of weirdoes to invent the perfect game” (J. Lucero, 2013, para. 3). Ultimate still retains
much of its “pick-up” game feel thanks to the concept of “Spirit of the Game” and the
welcoming mindset, but the competitiveness and fast-paced excitement is increasingly everpresent. “With no one in black and white to make the final, the teams are obligated to talk to out
civilly until they reach an agreement or compromise.” In society today, people tend to shrug
Ultimate off and not take it seriously but there is no doubt the emotions are changing. Some have
referred to the addiction to Ultimate, “Ultimate Fever.” Professional Ultimate player for the
Rochester Dragons, Skylar Brunner, says “When I started, I didn’t take it seriously… Now it’s
my life” (Laluk, 2013).
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
The unique culture and atmosphere of Ultimate Frisbee and it’s trademarked “Spirit of
the Game” coincides with the increased focus on protecting the athlete, as well as to deter
athletes and their parents away from other sports more prone to serious injury and questionable
locker room atmospheres/values. The ‘spirit of the game’ culture is a great way for youth to learn
normed values and lessons at a young age and transcend them into their normal life. Through
decades of self-policing play and mutual respect for the game and opponents, Ultimate has
consistently shown the importance of respect, courtesy and honor while still competing at a high
level. Ultimate is also considered a niche sport. This means that there is a very strong culture
among participants/consumers. Athletes who play Ultimate, on the norm, dress up in certain
fashions pertaining to the sport and have a strong community feel with each other. This creates a
great sense of belongingness and affiliation to young athletes who maybe have not necessarily
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thrived in other sports or been accepted among past teammates. This is a great opportunity to
find their niche and reap the benefits both athletically and socially.
Weaknesses
Ultimate Frisbee has had trouble establishing true brand equity and preference among the
average athletic consumer/participant. It has made strides but there are a few key tools missing in
order to establish this sport as a major market with high consumer demand and popularity. The
lack of a popular major ultimate league in the U.S is the first issue. Not only is there not an
emerged national televised professional league, but there is two competing professional leagues
like lacrosse’s’ NLL and MLL (which has had a slow start emerging as credible). Given that
neither of these teams are more than two or three seasons old they still are competing amongst a
small market with very little consumer preference over other prominent professional leagues like
the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. Without markets and consumption within them; you lack
sufficient revenue to keep a professional league in a very powerful market substantially growing
and evolving. Additionally, there are no major sport icons/figures in the AUDL and MLU to
heavily influence involvement amongst lower level athletes. As marketers, we constantly use
well known athletes to help increase attendance/ticket sales to games, generate high fan
identification levels, and establish a credible image of the sport to the consumer through
frequency and national media coverage. This is a future opportunity that we will discuss in the
next section, but a present internal weakness within the sport.
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Opportunities
There are many opportunities for growth of the Ultimate community. Based on Ultimates
already established consumer loyalty and low share of the participant sport market there is a
huge realm of potential consumers/participants to be acquired. Through environmental scanning
our organization found a few noticeable external trends. According to the Physical Activity
Councils 2013 report on national athletic participation, of all the people born in the year 2000 or
later 63.1% of the total “generation z” population participated in outdoor sports in 2013. Of the
same group, over half of the population participated in a team sport. For sport marketers, this is a
very important statistic to take advantage of because ages 6-12 are the early developmental
stages of athletic participation. In these years, athletes really start to filter out which sports they
find a keen interest and commitment to and which sports are deemed insignificant. If through our
extensive marketing/promotional techniques we can gain a trending interest among youth
participants, we can establish an even stronger following and re-position ourselves as not only a
niche sport but eventually turn into a national priority sport competing with high growth sports
like Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, and Lacrosse.
Another opportunity market to explore and penetrate is Pop Warner football. According
to Steve Fainaru’s article on ESPN’s website, Pop Warner football participation has dropped
9.5% (23,612 players) from 2010 to 2012. This was noted as the largest participation decline the
organization has seen since annual statistical records were first established. This is speculated as
a result of the heightened fear of concussions among parents and the increasing “one-sport
focus” mentality that a lot of young kids are starting to align with. These youth, whether forced
to quit Pop Warner by their parents or not, need to find a substitute for their Fall sport. Soccer
always has been and will continue to be popular but is a very different game than football and
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hardly a sufficient alternative. Ultimate Frisbee on the other hand is similar in hand-eyecoordination, route running, and end zone scoring. It also is a lot safer than football and teaches
similar values of teamwork and sportsmanship. Ultimate is also generally played year around
even though its true season is in the Spring so for those seeking a one sport focus, they can
dedicate more than just one season to their sport with Ultimate. This is a great advantage to our
sports attractiveness because their are very few limiting factors from playing all year around
anywhere in the country, unlike football among other sports. Even if youth athletes still decide to
pursue football they can still use Ultimate in the spring as a training sport to keep in shape or
practice certain athletic moves associated with football. If we can effectively communicate these
similarities and gain widespread parental acceptance of Ultimate, we can take great advantage of
a competing sports faults and participation decline.
It is not just limited to safety reasons why parents are looking for new sports for their
kids to play but the financing aspect of these hobbies as well. Participating in sports is becoming
more and more costly every year, especially in leagues outside of school. Equipment now-a-days
is expensive especially in sports like Hockey, Lacrosse and Football where pads and other
accessory equipment is necessary. Other expenses for these sports include traveling, turf/ice
time, off-season leagues and apparel; potentially costing up to thousands of dollars for
parents/players. Ultimate Frisbee is an inexpensive alternative that needs minimal equipment
upkeep and easily accessible to play almost anywhere there is a field. This is a huge advantage
that through effective marketing channels people will see and help drive them away from these
costly sports. It is a sport that financially struggling families can take advantage of during the
spring and presents the opportunity to play in a structured environment at a low-cost. Ultimate
can also be played informally between groups of friends with minimal inputs (all they need is a
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frisbee, field, and something to mark out of bounds/end-zone). Many families also have frisbees
lying around the house and even more in recent years with the emergence as well as popularity
of Kan Jam. Collectively, these advantages simplify the decision to participate in sport on strictly
interest of it and not financial or accessibility considerations/consequences.
Threats
Our biggest and most preliminary threat is simply consumer preference of other sport
brands over Ultimate. Many of our nations popular sports have been around for decades and
viewed to many as a tradition or past-time like baseball. Another threat is the low number of
older participants in the Ultimate community. According to USA-Ultimate’s membership
statistic, adult participants are the lowest category after college aged then youth, respectively.
This number comes as no surprise based on athletic trends and traditions but is a negative
consequence of this late blossoming sport for our organizations current objectives. A lot of times,
parents either push the sports they played and are familiar with upon their children; especially
during initial youth participation in athletics. Youth also look up to their parents and many times
want to follow in their athletic “foot-steps” as well. With such a low number of parents currently
ex-players or participants in current Ultimate, it is a disadvantage in the aspect of encouragement
to their kin from past experience/lessons. This also results in minuscule Ultimate brand
awareness among the average parent because this sport was not necessarily around or prevalent
when they were younger and therefore is somewhat foreign to their personal knowledge. This is
a contributing factor to why brand awareness of USA-Ultimate is so essential to strategically and
effectively market this sport and correlatively increase membership.
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Another threat is the stereotypical image of the Ultimate player to most; weird. In a
traditional sense, Ultimate players have fell into this category of strange hippy-like guys playing
a sport of their own acceptance but over decades participants have fallen out of this specific
genre of people and into a more diverse group. There is nothing wrong with being different,
strange or weird per se, but we hope to diminish this stereotype associated with the sport to
attract athletes of all kinds.
PEST Analysis
Political
The political concerns of Ultimate frisbee are few but nevertheless present. The main
governing bodies of Ultimate include the World Flying Disc Federation and USA Ultimate or the
Ultimate Player Association. These governing bodies must all abide and agree on everything and
anything Ultimate offers. They must create and enforce the rulings and laws set forth by
themselves. For example the rules of anti-doping and spirit of the game must be upheld in order
to maintain the sport. The World Flying Disc Federation “(“WFDF”) serves as the international
governing body of all flying disc sports, with responsibility for sanctioning world championship
and other international flying disc events, establishing uniform rules, and setting standards for
and recording of world records.” (What is the WFDF? n.d.)The WFDF, as the international face of
Ultimate, also maintains “The Prohibited List” of banned substances for Ultimate players. USA
Ultimate leaves it to the respective colleges of college players for drug testing. The Ultimate
Players Association or the UPA was the previous name of USA Ultimate so in essence they are
one in the same.
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The other legal concern associated with Ultimate would be the liability of tournaments.
Below are the necessary requirements for put on any Ultimate tournament or event.
Requirement
All Events
1. Emergency Medical and Safety Plan
√
2. Medical Area Requirements
√
3. Medical Staff Requirements
√
4. Health and Safety Tips
√
5. Weather Policy
√
6. Lightning Policy
√
7. Extreme Heat and Cold
√
8. Nutrition
√
9. Alcohol Policy
√
10. Minors- requirements for events with participants under 18
√
11. Liability Insurance
√
Key: √ means requirement applies to that event type, multiple √’s indicates an increased requirement
Each section is further broken down within the USA Ultimate website. Section ten
highlights the additional needs in order to run an event holding minors. The additional
requirements include chaperones, medical authorization forms, an alcohol policy, and further
competition requirements. For medical authorization forms, all players under 18 must have the
required form filled out and given to the team chaperone in case of medical emergency. The
alcohol policy is as stated, “Alcohol shall not be marketed, provided, served or sold at USA
Ultimate official, sponsored, sanctioned or affiliated youth events (events where all of the
participants are under 21).” The stricter competition conditions include maximum games in a day
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(3)/ week (6) (If full field, two hour, games to 15.) If you play more than two games in a row,
and hour bye period is recommended (Youth Participation Requirements, n.d.).
Economic
The economic impact of Ultimate comes into play with concern to tournaments and
events. The potential and proven benefits of hosting tournaments are measurable and felt
throughout the hosting area. As seen in Overland Park in Kansas when they hosted a youth
soccer tournament, the revenue stream came in from multiple areas around the town. Restaurants
in particular reaped the benefits. Youth division tournaments mean many family and fans are
present. Generally, tournaments are associated with traveling family, teams and fans, and they all
have to eat which leads to the boost for local restaurants. On the same token, hotels get a piece of
that profit. Additionally, public transportation, such as the metro, benefits as well (Keisling,
2013)
There is a relatively low cost associated with Ultimate as a sport competitively and
recreationally. Ultimate requires any open field, any sport cleat is acceptable, a disc, and people.
Grass fields are so accessible whether it is through a local park, state park, or backyard. Most
people have played a sport or currently play one so they probably have cleats accessible already
and if not the generic cleat of any desired sport is completely acceptable as long it does not have
metal tips. The average Ultimate frisbee disc costs ten dollars. The low cost of the sport leaves
the sport open to people of all economic statuses. Compared to sports such as football, hockey,
figure skating or even dance, the cost is considerably lower due to the simple face of the
equipment and space requirements/ expenses.
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The cost of tournaments will vary depending on the size of the tournament as far teams
attending and required field space. In addition, the liability insurance of Ultimate compared to
say football or wrestling are drastically cheaper, as shown below provided by a sport insurance
company. (See Below) (Liability Payments, n.d.)
OPTION 1:
$1,000,000 General Liability Limit with $25,000 Excess Medical Payments
Rates Are Per Player Per Sport Per Year. $300 Minimum Premium
Ages 12 & Ages 13 - Ages 16 - Ages 20 &
Under
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Over
Sport
Baseball / Corkball
$6.11
$10.03
$15.87
$28.81
T-Ball
$6.11
N/A
N/A
N/A
Softball
$5.79
$6.88
$15.87
$28.81
Basketball / Deck Hockey / Field Hockey / Floor Hockey /
Street Hockey / Roller Hockey (quad) / Racquetball /
$5.89
Ultimate Frisbee
$7.00
$14.39
$19.31
Flag & Touch Football / Team Handball
$5.28
$6.45
$8.33
$9.00
Lacrosse / Water Polo
$7.17
$8.20
$9.86
Class A
$3.57
Tackle Football
$17.91
$35.04
$48.28
N/A
Cheerleading / Drill Team
$6.26
$7.54
$16.12
N/A
Soccer
$7.74
$8.94
$10.87
Class A
$3.57
Cricket / Curling /Squash
$5.76
$9.14
$14.18
$25.33
Baton Twirling Frisbee (Non-Contact) / Golf / Kickball /
Swimming / Tennis / Track & Field
$5.62
$5.62
$5.62
$5.62
Volleyball / Archery Teams
$5.95
$5.95
$5.95
$5.95
Wrestling / Weight Lifting
$16.23
$16.23
$16.23
Class A
$3.57
Umpire / Referee Associations
$8.45
$8.45
$8.45
$8.45
Higher Limits are available, see the printable application for additional information.
ALL APPLICANTS - A $10 RPG Fee is Required by the Carrier For All Applications. An RPG fee provides group
purchasing power for similar risks resulting in potential advantageous coverage terms, competitive rates,
risk management bulletins, and rewards for favorable group loss experience.
Optional Coverages Rates*
·
$1,000,000 Directors & Officers Liability $300 per governing board
·
$2,000,000 Directors & Officers Liability $450 per governing board
·
$25,000 Crime $175 per governing board
·
Equipment $2.00 per $100 of coverage (subject to minimum premium of $250)
* Additional taxes/surcharges apply in FL, KY, LA, NJ, and WV.
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Sociocultural
The social cultural aspects of frisbee include the exclusivity, the obesity rates, and the
escalator concept.
As previously stated, the low cost of the sport allows members of all economic groups to
play and participate. The non-exclusivity of Ultimate frisbee means that people of all
personalities and attitudes have the opportunity to play it. This creates a strong social construct
where no one is left out. The only thing contributes to exclusivity is ability, particularly in upper
level Ultimate. As far as youth sport goes ability does not play much of a role unless
participation made it unsafe for the individual to play. Especially with an anti-bullying centered
ideal and with the concept of “Spirit of the Game” driving the movement, having no one be left
out is important.
In today’s society, fairness is a prevalent. With fairness the old “boys versus girls” aspect
comes into play, another aspect related to exclusivity. Frisbee can be played by both males and
females of all ages and the rules for both are exactly the same. This is important to the fairness in
the game. Some tournaments and leagues are “mixed,” in which boys and girls play together
usually four men and three women or vice versa which creates a positive social dynamic.
With the obesity rates on the incline, sport and physical activity has become important
(Percentage Obesity, n.d.). The amount of running in Ultimate is horribly underestimated.
Research has found that the average Ultimate match and the average Ultimate player run about
five miles per match. (Nachman, C., 2011) Multiply that by the average of seven or eight games
per college tournament and in one weekend you are running approximately 35-40 miles. The
youth division would max out at approximately 30 miles.
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Even if at first Ultimate is not chosen as a child’s primary sport but as a secondary then
the potential for progress is increased. The amount of children in multiple youth sport has
increased statistically. According to an excerpt by Ronald B. Woods, “In 2000, the number of
American youth who played on at least one organized sport team was found to be 54% of kids
between ages 6 and 17 (American Sports Data, Inc. 2005). A similar study five years later
showed that among a slightly older age group of 10- to 17-year-olds, sport participation had
jumped to 59% (National Survey of Children’s Health 2005)” (Woods, R., n.d.). As previously
stated, Ultimate becomes addicting to some and if the child were to agree then perhaps over time
then the child would then change their primary sport to Ultimate. This “escalator concept” is
crucial to the success of almost any marketing plan.
Technological
While the game of Ultimate in itself does not require much technology the marketing
process of Ultimate certainly will. Denying the need of social media for marketing would be
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naive. The impact of social media is immense. While you can market on social media towards
your target market, it is not limited to just your target market. The target market that we chose is
very involved with social media in today’s day in age, so there is no question we could benefit
and open up much opportunity. We will involve ourselves with the major social media outlets
with the desire to attain awareness. Additionally, implementing a social media forum and apps
that is just for Ultimate players will give it a “VIP” feel that people will want to be part of.
The Newsletter for all Ultimate players that are members of USA Ultimate that we are
implementing will be electronic which saves money and the environment as opposed to paper
and standard mail. The commercials and advertising will be done through social media such as
television and YouTube.
Competitive Environment/Market Analysis
The toughest challenge to strengthening and broadening our market is the popularity and
high participation of similar hand-eye coordinated sports and other team sports. Quite a few of
these have been staples in our national athletic community for decades now and carry potent
tradition with them. We feel that through expression of our strong player community and strong
positive values our sport encompasses, we can slowly but surely take membership away from
other popular sports and claim a respectable share of our target market.
Since the organization we are working with is non-profit and also the governing body of
U.S Ultimate play we really do not have any true direct competitors. Our goal is to both increase
awareness and membership so any other lower-level Ultimate company or League that is trying
to gain support is actually helping our cause. For instance, the World Flying Disc Federation is
the international governing body of the sport. This organization has very similar if not the same
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marketing goals and objectives as us but over a more widespread platform. They serve as no
threat to us and any awareness or recruitment they accomplish benefits our organizations mission
as well.
The major indirect competition we face can be narrowed down to football and soccer
given that both of these sports are considered the most closely related to Ultimate Frisbee. As
earlier stated in our external opportunities within our SWOT analysis, football participation has
taken quite a hit over the last two season at the Pop Warner level because of injury concerns
among others. Nationally there were 23,612 less players in 2012 than in 2010. This can be
viewed at as a huge parameter of our target market age looking for a new sport to get involved
in. Through our extensive brand awareness and membership promotion marketing over the next
four years, we feel athletic participants will find our sport’s culture and competitive play to be
quite attractive and establish brand preference with us. Very few sports on grass root levels
advertise awareness at a national level other than the NFL’s ‘Play 60’ campaign. The NFL’s Play
60 has been very successful since its beginnings in 2007 in both getting kids back into athletic
participation and maintaining a positive brand image. We feel that we can accomplish a similar,
if not better effect on the national consumer through our own grass root marketing of Ultimate
through creative umbrella marketing with Gatorade as well as attention grabbing demonstration
strategies using top-notch players from our niche community. We feel that teaming up with
Gatorade will focus viewer attention more as well as establish quick perceived credibility of our
product. We also feel that Gatorades strategic marketing mends well with our own organizational
marketing goals and that the collaboration will help build our athletic community while also
attracting these same athletes to their Gatorade product. A projected response of other grass root
sport organizations might be the emulation of our ‘total sport’ marketing after seeing an increase
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in our membership, popularity and participation or a loss in their own correlative numbers.
Hopefully, by the time any action response by other sport organizations will have minimal
negative consequences on our effect on the consumer. We project that our marketing via
Gatorade umbrella advertising will leave a strong imprint and sway on the target market and
average athletic participant relatively quickly over a 1-2 year span, so any attempt to overshadow
our grass root marketing will prove to be irrelevant to our goals/mission.
Strategic Marketing Objectives
YEAR ONE
Social Media
Since our objective is to increase our Youth Membership, we must find ways to hit our
target market effectively to maximize awareness for our great sport. First things first, we must hit
every social media network possible, from Facebook to Twitter. To do this efficiently we have to
show the spirit of our game, whether it’s highlights from games across the country, a montage of
our star athletes, or promoting future events associated with Ultimate. When trying to connect to
this target market I believe we have to be flashy, edgy, and a step ahead of everyone else. That
means bright colors to draw in attention from everyone, keeping it short and sweet. Along with
our social media “call to arms”, we will be creating a monthly newsletter called “Dis-cuss” that
every new member will be required to sign up for at a no cost. This newsletter will be a great
way to reach Ultimate fans, players, and coaches. We will keep subscribers up to date with
results, stats, national and international Ultimate news, as well as tips to get better or workouts
our professional players use every day.
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Twitter
One way we are going to use social media to increase our youth membership and
participation is with Twitter, it seems like everyone (especially in our target market) today has a
Twitter account. Twitter will give us a superb ability to create real-time excitement in ultimate.
In trying to grow enthusiasm with the youth about our sport, we are going to keep them up-todate on everything Ultimate by tweeting news and connecting with the fans by commenting on
their posts, retweeting, and replying to tweets. Another big part of our Twitter strategy is to host
Twitter Q&A’s with popular Ultimate players and fans. This will give our followers an up close
and personal conversation with the top stars of our league and make fans everywhere experience
the connection and the family feel we have as an ultimate community.
Facebook
When working on our Facebook page, our goal is to make it the ‘heart’ of our social
media community. Our page can be used as a command center for all of our social media
networks, and from Facebook you can easily link to our Twitter page, YouTube page, etc. Here
we can provide the same perks as Twitter but more, we can update our friends on not only games
and news but we can engage them with behind the scenes footage of teams, practices, and
everyday life of an Ultimate star. Also our plan to get everyone involved we will have fans post
videos, pictures, and comments to show how Ultimate is not just a sport to them but also a way
of life. Furthermore we will post great one time offerings only available on Facebook for our
official items sold on usaultimate.org.
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YouTube
The use of YouTube will be a vital part of our social media campaign in the fact that it is
everyone’s go to website to post a video. Our approach to this outlet will not be too complicated due to
the fact that there isn’t much you can do on this site. However, all of our videos posted by us or fans will
be placed on our YouTube page that gives fans easy access to their favorite video that they saw on
Facebook or elsewhere. We will provide our behind the scenes videos, game footage, interviews,
instructional videos, and much more to our fans from YouTube. The use of the discussion board on our
page the is key slice of our plan because the fans will let us know what we missed. It will let us know if
any videos aren’t working and most importantly how we can improve with our videos.
Tumblr
We here at Market Spark-It believe that Tumblr is a great channel for us to connect with
fans, and have fans get connected with each other. This social media outlet is a blogging website
that allows people to connect by posting video, pictures, articles, quotes, or anything that
interests them. In other words this combines Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all into one place.
But I believe there is a bigger picture to this network; through Tumblr I have confidence that we
can connect our Ultimate community. Tumblr will allow fans, players, coaches, and teams link
up through their passion for our great sport. It will not only give the people the ability to show
off skills to fellow athletes, but it will allow players and fans to connect to one another. Our
vision for Tumblr is that people will unite through their pages that will get them together to form
a team, play pick up Frisbee, and eventually get friends, family, and fellow students interested in
and to play our beautiful game.
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Anti-bullying Campaigns
In our first year, along with our social media campaign, we will also team up Pacers
National Bullying Prevention Center. In this mission to help prevent and possibly stop bullying,
our main purpose to position our brand with this great cause to gain awareness and better our
brand image. Teaming up with this credible organization will greatly help our credibility and
cause people and possible participants to see us as a remarkable league that will cause them to
want to be a part of it and play this great game. To make sure everyone knows that we are
teaming up with them, we will have Pacers National Bullying Prevention Center’s logo and
name at ever appearance we make, whether it’s at our tournaments, promotional events, or
charity events. Besides making Pacers National Bullying Prevention Center visible, we will
partner up with them to spread the word of anti-bullying. In doing this, our plan is to have events
where professional players come out to camps and junctures promoting anti bullying, when the
young Ultimate players see their idols preaching against bullying and maybe telling them about
times they were bullied, they will be influenced against it. And we want to make it that if you see
our logo, you see Pacers.
YEAR TWO
Gatorade “Points of Sweat Campaign”
In year two of our marketing objectives, we will have two objectives to implement to
reach our goals. The first will be to market our Gatorade “Points of sweat Campaign”, in this we
will be teaming up with Gatorade to hit our target market and grow that awareness we started in
year one and really hook our perspective athletes into our sport. With being a part of this
campaign, we will send our Gatorade product and advertising everywhere we go, like when the
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AUDL professional players do their required community service or camps, we will place the
product and signage strategically so when the children and young adults see a Gatorade bottle
they think about Ultimate and our great community/family approach. Also with this promotion,
we will have Frisbee freestyle performers that will go to festivals and state fairs to put on a
demonstration to show the uniqueness and excitement that Ultimate Frisbee brings and give us
that edgy and cool look with Gatorade.
Discs for Elementary Schools
The next part of our year two strategy is to give elementary schools around the country
the opportunity to buy Frisbees to start teaching our sport to kids at a young age. The schools
would buy the discs in bulk from Discraft, thus making the price reduced and giving them a great
deal they won’t find anywhere else. What this will do is it expands the sport to the target market
and makes the sport fun and exciting while teaching them Frisbee with an emphasis on the
“Spirit of the Game.” The second part of this method is to get these schools that buy discs to
create a father-son or daughter tournament. This plan would greatly increase awareness while
gaining parental support, acceptance, and possible a new passion and pastime for a parent and
child.
YEAR THREE
Mixed Tournaments
In year three of our four year plan we will be attempting to further our reach by creating
mixed Ultimate and Lacrosse tournaments. Our market that we want to hit is closely related to
the demographics of Lacrosse players, so creating these mixed tournaments will not only market
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our sport but also get Lacrosse players involved into our community and possibly addicted to
Ultimate. This is just another way to get our sport exposure to our target market and showcase it
to more and more people.
Another way we are going to promote Ultimate is to team up with Kan Jam and get a
sponsorship on their product. This game already has kids all over America grabbing a Frisbee
and playing around with it. Putting our name to this fun game will get kids thinking about
Ultimate and hopefully taking that Frisbee and playing our sport instead. It won’t be a
complicated sponsorship, but it will be enough to promote our game significantly.
YEAR FOUR
Feedback
In the final year of our four year plan, this will mainly be a time to look over our surveys,
feedback, and any insight we have on the past three years. This will help us improve on any
mistakes or missed opportunities and allow us to go back to the drawing board and come back
stronger than ever for our next marketing strategy.
Communication Plan
Having a good communication plan is essential to our successful marketing plan. The
communication plan is the process of establishing a commonness of thought between the sender
and the receiver. The interactive nature of the process allows for the messages to be transmitted
from us to the consumers. Basically, it is the communication we have with our target market and
how they interpret what we are trying to accomplish.
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The source of the information is going to be developed by us at Market Spark-It. What
we plan on doing is showing the consumers that this is a great up incoming sport to get involved
in. A great way to communicate with our target market is to have the sport implemented into
Physical Education classes. The whole point of Physical Education is to educate kids on the
sports that they can get involved in. It is a form of sampling; the kids are given a chance to play
the sports and develop an attitude and pick the sport(s) they enjoy the most. In most Physical
Education classes Ultimate is not a sport that kids participate in because the awareness of the
sport is not where it should be. By using the pull strategy and going into schools and showing the
kids and coaches the correct way to play it puts across a different message about Ultimate
compared to the reputation Ultimate has now. This sport does not take to much physical ability.
It can lead to students gaining confidence in them and believing they can play a sport if they do
not have the physical tools to play other sports. It is also is not a slow paced sport where kids
will complain about not getting the ball, or in this case Frisbee. Once we get these messages out
into the public, it is up to them to decode these messages. Hopefully they take the messages in a
good way and develop a positive feedback. It is very important to get good feedback because that
creates a positive attitude around the organization and gives them more ability to expand. It also
proves that the communication methods are working.
The most important part of the communications plan is to have out target market decode
our message in a positive light. This will cause them to develop a good attitude toward Ultimate
and we hope that it leads to them becoming members of Ultimate Frisbee. We also hope it shows
them that it is important to us that they feel comfortable with Ultimate and what it has to offer.
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Competitive Strategy and Advantage
When talking about our competitive strategy or advantage, we believe that a big thing for
Ultimate is to show the lifetime participation. Many of us do not have the god given skills to play
organized sports in college or beyond, and this is where Ultimate steps in. It is a great way to fill
that competition void that so many of us miss after our football or lacrosse days are over. And as
Griggs stated in his article, Ultimate is a ‘lifestyle sport’ and we believe that getting people
involved at a high school level will not only keep them in shape and provide them with a
competitive sport they can play for years after school but it will also give them an infectious
‘way of life’ and sense of belonging that comes with being an Ultimate player. This lifestyle
sport can come in multiple ways whether it’s fun pickup games with longtime friends, organized
games with intense opponents but an enjoyable atmosphere, or a highly competitive and
compassionate match with an elite club much like Robbins portrayed from his research.
When talking about competitive advantage, it is hard to overlook what is so great about
Ultimate Frisbee, the “Spirit of the Game.” This is the long standing tradition of Ultimate that
helps this sport keep its prestige and place it above the others. As Robbins said, it is one
characteristic that ‘distinguishes it from other sports’. Our goal is for young and potential
athletes to take notice of this aspect of our sport and to latch onto the tradition. This is very
important for the youth because our “Spirit of the Game” doesn’t just keep our game credible
and help it grow, but it helps mold young adults into being the best person they can be through
honesty and integrity just to name a few. As outlined earlier, it teaches sportsmanship and other
life lessons that one can take throughout their time and hang their hat on. More importantly, once
it has been presented to the parents of young children, this will catapult our sport because kids
will be encouraged and inclined by their parents to get involved with ultimate.
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It is hard to overlook the safety issues in all sports today, especially in football, lacrosse,
and hockey. This gives us a great advantage over other sports because Ultimate Frisbee is a
noncontact sport and therefore it is a much safer sport to play. The recent problems in football
with head injuries is something we can take great advantage of, the result of those head injuries
has lowered the Pop Warner participation percentage (9.5%) in the last three years. These kids
fall directly into our target market, and if we market it the right way, we will easily draw these
kids and their families directly into the game of Ultimate. Portraying the safeness of our game is
an incredible way to get these kids introduced to the idea of our sport; the competitiveness,
“Spirit of the Game”, and community appeal will get them hooked for life.
Branding
Perceived Quality
We, at Market Spark-It, understand that Ultimate Frisbee is not going to become as
popular as football and lacrosse overnight, but we plan on it eventually becoming recognized
with these sports within four years. When trying to expand an organizations market, branding is
one of the key components to creating success. Since Ultimate Frisbee does not have a huge
supporting cast it is essential to create awareness and show potential members what this sport is
really about. A major key is to make sure the branding hits the target market of youth kids 18 and
under.
Brand Awareness
The main goal of these campaigns is to directly target kids and even their parents to
create awareness. By setting up clinics to show kids how fun Ultimate Frisbee really is can create
a large fan base and it also will create great word of mouth. If there are 20 kids at the clinic and
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15 come away with a good impressions that 15 people can turn into 500 people because of how
easily the world is connected. It can also show parents how Ultimate is a much safer alternative
to sports like football and lacrosse, but it still brings the same intensity and likeability.
In the first year of our four year plan, we plan to take advantage of Social Media. This
has quickly become one of the best ways to market, and it is greatly dominated by kids 18&
under. “Facebook is the number one social marketing tool for brands at 83% (88% target for
2014), followed by Twitter 53% (target 64% in 2014).” (Bennett, 100 Social Networking
Statistics & Facts for 2012). First thing is to set up pages on all major social media sites,
(Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr). These are all great ways to promote because
they are free, its impossible to lose money by using them. Once we’re on these sites it’s
important that users see our product, therefore we have to make the accounts known. Other ways
is to use hash tags, if enough people use our hash tag it can trend in a certain region or
worldwide, this is just added publicity. It is also possible to purchase promotion spots on these
sites. We would pay these services to promote our product by putting our ads on everyone’s
accounts to insure that they see what we have to offer. This is a very obvious yet efficient way to
create a good awareness for Ultimate Frisbee, and a great way to increase membership, which is
our main goal.
Also in the first year, we want to team up with the Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention
Center. By teaming up with them it will help promote our “spirit of the game” trademark. The
plan is to have professional Ultimate players go around with the campaign and talk about how
there is no place for bullying in Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate has strict rules that do not tolerate bad
sportsmanship. It is a great opportunity for Ultimate to standout from other sports that allow
trash talk, or physical play.
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In the second year of our plan, we want to try and pair up with Gatorade. They have
command of a big portion of the sports drink market. “Gatorade commands 46% of the
worldwide sports drink market according to Euromonitor International.” If people start to see
Ultimate is associated with Gatorade, it will make them believe it is a top notch product just like
Gatorade is.
The AUDL, American Ultimate Disc League, is the first professional Ultimate league,
created in 2012. In the second year of our plan we can team up with this league and have the
players go around and speak about Ultimate and how great of an organization it is. This will
show kids that Ultimate isn’t just another sport, it’s a community of people who all get along to
play a sport that is fun, competitive and safe. Have these players go around to different high
schools and middle schools and teach the kids the rules and become role models. It will create
great awareness and also show how the game is actually played. Set up local clinics like stated
above, it can inform parents and kids that this is an up incoming sport, and they can become a
part of that.
Not only can we team with AUDL, but also Ultimate USA. This is a non-profit
organization that has the same objectives as us. The main goal, is to create awareness and
promote the, “Spirit of the Game,” trademark. This is a main part of Ultimate because it is based
on self-officiating. It is a great organization that has quickly seen increases in membership and
participation since they started. According to their website in 2010 there was 30 high school
teams participating in the open regionals, and in 2012 there was 47. This is a great improvement
in participation and if we team up with them and the AUDL to try and reach out to regions that
are struggling to gain participation it can lead to even more membership.
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Brand Image
The next step is to create an image, this comes from getting sponsors and having
consumers create an attitude toward the organization. It is very important that our organizations
image stay along the line of good sportsmanship, a safe environment and the “spirit of the
game”. These are the main points that we feel are necessary to take Ultimate Frisbee to the next
level.
After year one of our four year plan, we hope to have created a positive image on youth
kids and their parents. By having professional players go around and talk about Ultimate, we
hope shows how much the expansion of this sport really means to them. We want the kids to feel
like they can be an asset to Ultimate Frisbee by learning how to play, and getting involved. Also
by teaming up with the bullying prevention center, we hope that the parents and youth create a
positive attitude about Ultimate’s ideals. Our desired image is to show that we care about this
sport and the “spirit of the game,” this is why we feel teaming up with bullying prevention is
very important. The same with Gatorade, they have a great reputation and kids see players like
Dwayne Wade drinking it so they drink it. They think that great athletes drink Gatorade so if I
drink Gatorade I’ll be like Dwayne Wade. That is why if we can get Ultimate players to work
with Gatorade, the kids can want to strive to be the next great Ultimate Frisbee player. Hopefully
the kids will see that Ultimate Frisbee is a great sport to get into and it see the lifelong bond with
the other players.
Brand Equity
Brand Equity is the value that a brand contributes to a product in the marketplace.
Basically it is the difference in value between a branded product and its generic equivalent. The
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way to create Brand Equity is to create a product that consumers believe have a high brand
equity. If they believe it has a high brand equity they will be more satisfied with the brand. This
is what will lead to consumers being loyal to the brand.
We hope that the biggest way to convince our consumers that Ultimate Frisbee has a high
brand equity is to sign on with Gatorade. Gatorade already has great brand equity because people
believe that their product is at the highest level. So by teaming up with them people would
assume that Ultimate Frisbee has a high level of brand equity. Also at this point awareness and
image should have already been established so we plan on furthering our sponsorships to create
more equity. Kan Jam has become a huge success, so we want to have Ultimate Frisbee sponsor
them and put their name on the frisbee and can. Once again this will make people assume that
Ultimate Frisbee has a high level brand equity. The other plan we have is to combine high school
lacrosse tournaments and Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. They are played on similar fields and
the concepts of the sports are similar. It is a way for Ultimate to associate itself with another
sport and create equity at the same time.
Brand Loyalty
Building strong brand loyalty is an essential part of expanding Ultimate Frisbee. The one
thing Ultimate can’t afford to happen is for the sport to become a fad. That means it takes off
quickly but dies off quickly and disappears. Just like this quote says, “The loyal fans endure all
the team’s successes and hardships. As the definition implies, they continue to prefer their team
over others. Alternatively, the fair-weather fan will jump to and from the teams that are
successful at the time.(Stark 217)” While Ultimate wants to gain fans, we really want to focus on
membership and participation. Still this quote can apply to kids who play the sport, one minute it
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can be booming and then something better could come along and they jump to that ship. That is
what we are striving to prevent with Ultimate. If we successfully implement these campaigns
Ultimate should continue to grow, and gain loyalty. The biggest way that we are creating brand
loyalty is by targeting younger kids. They are still in the experimental phase of their lives, they
aren’t sure where they fit in best. By showing them that they fit in with Ultimate, we hope that
they stick with Ultimate and pass it on to their friends and one day their kids.
Target Market/Segmentation
In order for Market Spark-It to successfully market Ultimate Frisbee we need to cater to
our target market. In our SMART objective we stated that our target market is all youth 18 years
and younger. Since this target market is quiet large it can be segmented into different sections.
This market can then be segmented into kid’s age’s four to eight, children from nine to 12, and
then ages 13 to 18. By marketing Frisbee to each individual group, we can attract consumers to
satisfy their needs. To get some primary research from our target market, we handed out a
questionnaire to attain some information at local elementary and middle schools. (See Appendix
D)
Our first part of our target market is children age’s four to eight. Since these kids are
very young it is important to market towards them, but their parents as well. An important part of
Ultimate Frisbee is the theme of spirit of the game, sportsmanship, and a safe environment.
According to the “Official Rules of Ultimate: 11th Edition” in section One, item B it states:
Ultimate relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship that places the responsibility for
fair play on the player. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the
expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon
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rules, or the basic joy of play. Protection of these vital elements serves to
eliminate unsportsmanlike conduct from the Ultimate field. Such actions as
taunting opposing players, dangerous aggression, belligerent intimidation,
intentional infractions, or other 'win-at-all-costs' behavior are contrary to the
Spirit of the Game and must be avoided by all players.
This is important for us to market because it sets a very good example and good morals for
children. As a parent we want to get their attention to sign their children up for Ultimate Frisbee.
Ultimate Frisbee is a great alternative to sports such as football which becomes more violent and
can very serious injuries. Parents will see that Ultimate Frisbee is safer that sports such as
football, hockey, and other contact sports.
The next part of our target market is children age’s nine to 12. As stated earlier one way
that we plan attract this age group is to give elementary schools around the country the
opportunity to buy Frisbees to start teaching sport at young age. This expands the sport to the
target market while teachers teach the sport with emphasis on the “Spirit of the Game” to give
children a safe outlet for play. Implementing this in schools would help to create exposure for
this sport. Creating father-son/daughter leagues would also increase awareness while gaining
parental support, acceptance and perhaps a new passion. We also plan on teaming up with the
anti-bullying campaign, PACER’S, which will not only send a good message to young kids but
also get Ultimate more exposure. Schools across the country always promote anti-bullying and
by getting together with PACER’s it can get more kids playing and participating in Ultimate
Frisbee.
The third segment of our target market is consumers ranging in ages 13-18. We will be
targeting this market in various ways. In our first year we plan on using social media which is
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used by many kids in this age range. Creating a social network for only ultimate players will
create a “VIP” appeal and perhaps create the desire for other’s to want to be part of it. This will
also create awareness and hopefully participation of Ultimate Frisbee. Another idea that we are
using in our first year of marketing Ultimate Frisbee is to create a newsletter monthly called
“Disc-uss”, which will encourage all leagues to subscribe and keep up to date with
national/international news, players, results, as well as new brands/sponsors. This is another way
to promote Ultimate Frisbee towards this age group. It is important to set up Ultimate Frisbee
Leagues around the nation to get these consumers playing the game, as well as promoting the
professional Ultimate Frisbee League. A way to do this is pro-players will be required to do
community service/awareness which will bring players to local levels to speak/coach/clinics. By
doing so this will create role models for this age group to follow and can cause more
participation in the sport.
Buying Behavior
Within our target audience we as Market-Spark-It feel that there are four different buying
behaviors that can be separate entities or a mix of all four used when deciding to participate in
Ultimate.
The first is an expected response to our “Spirit of the Game” trademark and heavy
incorporation of it within our sport. We feel that in the first two years of our awarenessweighted marketing, that parents of youth will see this trademark and decide to take a second
look or further research what this trademark entails. Once they gain a full understanding of how
Ultimate is run and the values associated with the sport they will feel like it is a safe and positive
sport or substitute for an existing participation in another sport. These parental “deciders” for
children of younger ages (6-12) will push or influence their child to participate.
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For teenagers in both middle school and high school, bullying is a very prevalent issue
that has been addressed greatly over the last decade. Bullying is something that is inevitable at
this immature stage of our lives and there is no way to completely diminish it. Ultimate however
does not associate itself with bullying or mistreatment of any kind. In fact, we teamed up with
Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center (NBPC) to promote sportsmanship and further
illustrate what our sport is all about. The association of our sport with the NBPC, or just referrals
from peers about Ultimate’s approach to sportsmanship and communal vibe can really attract
teenagers and positively affect their lives. Ultimate is considered a “niche” sport and has a strong
community. This community was built off of competitive play of an attractive sport as well as
the sense of belongingness the sport brings and acceptance among the community of all kinds of
people. At a more teenager level, the values of our sport and “Spirit of the Game” could really
establish many lost or unhappy teenagers and absorb them into the positive/accepting community
of Ultimate.
Our second buying behavior is the lack of danger associated with Ultimate. All sports
have dangers associated with them because it is something very hard to minimize in an athletic
setting. However, some sports have a lot more dangerous implications associated with the
participation of them. These more dangerous sports usually fall under the sub-category of contact
sport athletics. The dangers of certain sports are major deterrents for participation in them, and
usually more prevalent at a younger age when parents have more influence on decisions for their
kin. Especially now with concussions headlining athletic participation dangers and is becoming a
huge issue in both grass root sports as well as in the professional setting, this is a huge influence
on buying behavior and something our sport will use to manipulate uninformed parents about the
benefits/positives Ultimate has to offer their children.
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Our third expected buyer behavior is cost of participation of the sport. Another deterrent
many families face when deciding sports their children are going to play is price of participation.
Many lower-income families are driven away from sports like lacrosse, hockey, golf, among
others because equipment price/maintenance and venue price are all expensive and reoccurring
factors. Ultimate frisbee is a seemingly cheap sport. There is an annual fifty dollar membership
fee for Ultimate-USA and team tournament fees; but all sports have that. There is no auxiliary
costs for things such as equipment, travel costs to far venues, cost to use venues etc. To play
Ultimate you simply need a frisbee and a football field or any field close to that size. Frisbees
will range anywhere from ten to twenty dollars and most homes already have this recreational
disc from vacations, Kan Jam, or just for play around the house. For older youth, the segment of
individuals falling in the high school range will key on pricing as well. At this age, youth are
held more responsible both financially and with scheduling. With a close to minimum wage parttime job or no job at all, as well as saving up for a car or gas money for that car, these teenagers
have very little spending money on the side. This is a very cheap sport to play and will not cut
into their already stressful new expenses. Although, this is not a major buying behavior among
teenagers, it still could come into play for some.
Our fourth buyer behavior is accessibility. Ultimate is very accessible to play almost
anywhere because as I stated before all you need is a frisbee and a large open area. You can play
this sport almost anywhere there is not a huge amount of snow covering the ground. If there is a
large amount of snow covering local fields, players can use plowed parking lots instead. There is
no regional restriction like water sports or winter snow sports. There is no venue restriction like
hockey, golf, skiing, swimming, basketball etc. This accessibility is a great attractor for
participation especially among youth. The main reason is, youth aged athletes under 18 years of
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age have a hard time getting places on their own. Besides the limited diameter of bike riding
accessibility it is pretty inconvenient for them to get places more than a few miles away from
their houses. During play-time kids are limited to the sports they can play to mostly basketball,
soccer, touch-football, and frisbee. However, basketball and soccer you need nets which not
everyone has. Touch-football is simply a variation of the sport but not truly the same experience
real football players receive. You can play a real and legitimate game of Ultimate anywhere.
Another aspect of this accessibility is that Ultimate is self-policed. The games do not need
referees or officials of any kind to establish order of play and regulation of rules because of the
honor system used in Ultimate. This is a perk that many parents will value and encourage them
to promote this sport to their children.
Collectively, these factors will influence buying behaviors of youth parents. Hopefully
the attractiveness of this sport to parents will in return be pushed onto their children to participate
In the sport and help our company establish long term relationships and membership for Ultimate
and Ultimate-USA.
Marketing Mix
Gatorade “Points of Sweat Campaign”
Our objective for this method is to team up with a large and credible corporation Pepsi
(Gatorade) and create awareness with the youth. Through this campaign we will require
American Ultimate Disc League Professional players to do community service and have them
speak at events like camps and clinics where we will expose our target market to the beautiful
game of Ultimate. Our PRODUCT in this marketing mix is the sports drink that Gatorade will
develop with the outline that we provided in our contract. The PRICE would be based off of
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what other Gatorade drinks, like the G2 drinks are going for, about 75 cents for a 20 oz. drink.
Next for PLACE we would utilize Gatorades distribution networks to supply our product on the
shelves of every convenient store, grocery store, and large chains throughout the United States.
Also aside from using Gatorades distribution networks, we would give out the product at all
sponsored AUDL events, tournaments, fairs, concerts, and games which is a great way to
PROMOTE our product through sampling. The sampling that occurs at our events will also
provide us with publicity when the parents and kids go home and tell all their friends and family
about our product and sport. To effectively reach our target market we must use conventional
and unconventional techniques. We would start off by advertising on the top television stations
for our target market by examining the Nielsen Ratings. Another way to promote our product is
through our social media outlets. This will be more of an unconventional approach because we
can tweet out ads, post coupons and special offers on Facebook, and place advertisements on
websites like usaultimate.org, theaudl.com, and etc. PUBLIC RELATIONS will be used to
better understand how and why our advertising of this product is successful or not. This is
integral much like the feedback we review in the fourth year of our marketing strategy because it
will show us what we are doing right or wrong so we don’t keep making those mistakes for the
years to come, especially in this campaign since it is so integral in our success or failure.
Social Media – Call to Arms
In this method to generate awareness we are going to create a social network only for
registered Ultimate players that will create a “VIP” charm which will also piggyback off of our
competitive strategy that Ultimate gives us which is a sense of belonging in our tight knit
community. This monthly newsletter called “Disc-uss” will keep our subscribers up-to-date on
players, coaches, teams, results, brands/sponsors, and national/international news. This
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newsletter will allow us to reach our target market efficiently and effectively. As for the PRICE
of this product, it will be free, since everyone will be forced to sign up after becoming a member,
we feel it would be best not to charge them and hurt our brand image. PROMOTION of this
product will require us to reach non-registered people and convince them that they want to
register. A great way to do this is to have our newsletter “Disc-uss” at all tournaments,
exhibitions, and promotional events that people can read. Our purpose for this would be that the
great and exclusive content offered would drive potential customers to sign up on the spot.
PLACE: the newsletter would be mailed monthly to all subscribers, also we would have the
newsletter in grocery stores, Barnes and Noble, convenient stores, gas stations, etc. at a marked
up price that any and all could buy. The PUBLIC RELATIONS end of this mix would be easy
due to the fact that we could connect to our Ultimate players, fans, and subscribers over social
media and any complaints could be resolved quickly and effectively.
Promotion Planning
In the promotion plan it is crucial that it directly coincides and blends with the
communication plan.
First and foremost in our promotion plan, we had to be sure that we made the necessary
target market considerations. We believe that our target market is perfect for the selected
promotions. Our target audience is children up to 18 years old. This is the perfect age range for
promotions to be done via our choices of social media, a company such as Gatorade, elementary
schools, and sport tournaments. But again, without the proper steps in place in our
communication plan, the promotions become ineffective.
We used a combination of both push and pull strategies in our plan which is best for sport
marketers such as ourselves. The push strategy targets sponsors and companies associated with
40
our target audience. The push strategy is found within the plan to target elementary schools, in
that buying in bulk from Discraft means working with them to provide not only a product but a
lower price so that we can in turn “profit.” The pull strategies target the audience directly such as
the Ultimate/ Lacrosse collaborative tournaments. Sport tournaments cater directly to the people
who play the sport and the fans of the said sport. Social media promotion can be targeted but
does allow for any and all for viewership. By directing our use of social media to concepts such
as emailing a newsletter, and application for Ultimate players we can reach our target audience
directly. The commercial and promotions and advertising via Facebook, Twitter, etc., is harder to
target but nonetheless effective.
Next, it becomes essential to set promotional objectives and develop the promotional mix.
During the first two years, the promotions are geared more towards informing. Awareness is key
to our whole plan and the first step is to inform the target audience in the introduction stage.
Promotions in the growth stage should be directed for the purpose of persuasion. Therefore,
having the tournaments and leagues in year three is intentional. We have to allow the audience to
engage in the product/service. Furthermore, targeting elementary schools and pushing to put
Ultimate in their curriculum not only creates awareness but allows for engagement. That is the
true purpose placing that promotion starting in year two. The last stage of our plan there is a need
for reminders. At this point, during year four, collecting and evaluating feedback from our
promotions will be done. Since all of our previous promotions will still be in swing, we further
advertise those in year four as well as remind via social media in the maturity stage of this plan.
The promotional budget was decided using determinants such as, brand awareness, brand
loyalty, size in the market, as well as keeping mind the monetary demands of the promotion
41
ideas. With this in mind and for a company such as USA Ultimate, arbitrary allocation was used
to determine the budget for this strategic sport marketing plan.
Financial Analysis
We came up with a financial allocation budget that our company Market- Spark it will be
using to carry out our action plan (See Appendix for Charts). All of the money that we will use
for marketing, youth development, and sport outreach and development will be financed by
USA-Ultimate. Our two companies sat down together and went through past financial reports of
USA-Ultimate and based our projected budget/expenses from the years 2011 and 2012. We made
rough estimates and rounded up or down a little for each allocated areas past expense in order to
allow a little more leniency on spending. This is mainly due to the fact that this is the first
collaboration between the two companies and to make exact estimates is very tough at this point
of the process. The allocation is based off of our four year marketing plan and ledgers the money
towards the focuses for each specific fiscal year.
During our first fiscal year in 2014, we expect to allocate our money heavily in both
marketing awareness and our ties with Gatorade/NBPC to establish consumer preference and
brand equity. In this first year, focus does not need to be on sport development and outreach
because before we can develop what is going on within the sport we need to yield higher
participation and awareness or else we will not have a lot of influence or even contact with a lot
of our target market.
As we move into the second fiscal year, we will still heavily focus on the same objectives
as the first year but with more face-to-face interaction between players and youth communities
42
and a greater consumer awareness, we will allocate quite a bit more to sport outreach and
development to heighten benefits and opportunities for new or potential participants. In this year
we will establish our promotion of increased visibility of Ultimate in the elementary and other
grade schools during physical education. Also, we will really focus on our Gatorade “points-ofsweat” campaign when visiting these schools and communities and really try to show the
credibility of our brand and athletes, and an increased funding of development and outreach
becomes more prevalent.
The third year is when we really start developing increased opportunity for leagues,
tournaments, and other sport related events in local communities all around the U.S. We feel that
with all of the awareness focus in the first two years of our marketing plan, by this third fiscal
year we should get a lot of the potential participants from our target market involved in Ultimate.
We do not feel that budget allocation to the area of awareness marketing and youth development
should be ledgered so high like the first two years, but instead our sport development and
outreach will be our primary focus to really get participants involved and absorb them into the
“niche” environment so that Ultimate becomes a part of their lifestyle; not just a sport they play.
We hope to team up with lacrosse and create dual-tournament settings where the tournaments
offer both sports in it, and really continue to increase opportunity for play while simultaneously
strengthening brand credibility among the consumer and other substitute markets such as
lacrosse.
Our fourth and final year of our strategic marketing plan will be primarily used for
feedback and analysis. We will still keep budget allocation for all three of these category focuses
so that our awareness, improvement and development does not completely evaporate and
disappear. We will implement surveys and questionnaires to the Ultimate community and parents
43
of young youth aged participants to really try and grasp not only areas we should continue to
focus on and improve, as well as unnecessary promotions or unclear marketing objectives. We
can then decide how transparent our values and goals as a community really are and what future
steps we can take to either strengthen the community/organization or how to grab further target
markets/opportunities shown.
All three of these allocated budget categories are crucial to the success of this marketing
plan and to really gain popularity and participation for our sport. Development is the biggest
need for this sport to really become a top-tier and credibly perceived sport in the U.S. If our
organizational goals are successfully implemented and our consumer response is what we expect,
this can gain not only huge participation strides for USA-Ultimate but also find itself with a lot
more revenue and a larger budget for future years.
Projected Income
As shown in the 2012 USA-Ultimate annual report, membership fees are a substantial
59% of the total revenue that the organization receives. This overhead revenue collected by the
organization in the beginning of each year is a very much needed source to keep strong and
continue to expand and build the Ultimate community. Each individual membership fee is an
annual payment of fifty dollars to USA-Ultimate and includes many benefits from USAUltimate. The revenue earned from new youth members if increased by 10% each year would
provide approximately 56,000 dollars in extra revenue for USA-Ultimate each year. This totals
to 224,000 dollars over four years from new youth membership goals alone; excluding
tournament fees, sponsorship and merchandise sales.
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Methodology
The methodology of creating this strategic sport business plan for USA Ultimate was at
first, quick, then a quite drawn out. As Market Spark-It, we knew that we could help USA and
we wanted to. That was the quick part. As a team we thought long and hard about the route to
take to revolutionize USA Ultimate. We decided on aiming to focus our efforts on the numbers.
This could be measured and the decision to target up to ages 18 years of age (Youth Division)
was done with a purpose. Grab them while their young, teach them to play, show them what they
did not know before and create Ultimate obsessed youth that will in turn, and in time provide the
future of Ultimate. The concepts and goals we created was done by deeply analyzing the SWOT
and PEST. Marketers must play to strengths and opportunities with regard to all other factors.
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Appendix
A
B and C
Financial Allocation/Budget
Fiscal Year
Youth Development Sport Development
& Outreach
Marketing
2014 (1)
$150,000
$100,000
$200,000
2015 (2)
$150,000
$150,000
$200,000
2016 (3)
$100,000
$250,000
$100,000
2017 (4)
$75,000
$200,000
$100,000
Financial Analysis Plan
Fiscal Year
Projected Expense Budget
2014 (1)
$450,000
2015 (2)
$500,000
2016 (3)
$450,000
2017 (4)
$375,000
Total
$1,750,000
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D
Questionnaire
Answer the following questions to the best of your ability:
Age
Sex
______
______
Have you ever played Ultimate frisbee? (Circle One)
YES/ NO
If yes, where did you play Ultimate frisbee? (Physical Education/Pick-up Game/On Ultimate
team/ etc.)
What do you like most about the sport of Ultimate Frisbee?
47
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