Digital team ‘authentic’ in its teen marketing
Teenagers are the toughest targets for a marketing firm to reach, let alone influence.
Even top college football coaches findt hat star athletes rarely open their email, and regular mail ends upin the trash. Houston-based Fusion Sports, though, has figured out how to help coaches communicate with their top high school recruits using digital engagement techniques that are as revolutionary for teens as they are creepy for oldsters.
Fusion Sports clients include Texas A& M, Texas Christian University and the University of Maryland. Aggies who’ve seen the Aggie FB Life campaign have seen the company’s best-known work.
The A& M football program wash aving trouble attracting top athletes when head coach Kevin Sumlin took over because the predominately white, former military college had a bad reputation among African-American Texans, particularly in recent years.
“The problem communicating with recruits was convincing them this is not a backward university ... that the cotton fields where their grandparents worked don’t really define what’s going on now,” explained Sean Richards, FusionSports’ co founder and chief strategy officer. He added that Sumlin “was looking for a wayto get around all of these negative stereotypes s that have followed A& M among young black males. ”s .”
Fusion Sports rebrandeded thethe program while staying trueue toto the A& Me tho sand then gave eco aches coaches cutting-edge social mediaa toolstools to interact with the athletes.
Every recruit gets a message essage every day, often beginningg inin their junior year of high school.. Whether it’s a personal message fromomthe the coach, a link to an interestingting post or an image of the recruit in the team’s uniform, the goal is to convince them they belong at A& M.
“This is what it means to be a Texas A&M football player. This is what the life is really like,” Richards said of the messages. “And you have to speak to themin a language that they understand, and you have to be authentic.”
Personalizing the information and imagery is critical and gives th recruit something to post on social media, Fusion Sports CEO Ashley DeWalt said.
“Is this kid a sneaker-head,
always talking about his shoes?” DeWalt said. “We may create a cartoon of that kid wearing the latest Jordan shoes ... or create an image of the kid on a Wheaties box.”
Knowing where kids spend their social media time is critical to Fusion Sports’ future, De Walt said. Snapchat is hot, but Facebook is not, mostly because parents use it. Live broadcasting site YouNow is the latest social media channel popular with teens.
Sumlin saw greater recruiting success after hiring Fusion Sports, said Justin Moore, associate athletic director at A&M. The program’s recruiting class rating shot up 87 percent to eighth in the nation as ranked by sports media, and the campaign scored morethan 40 million impressions across all social media channels as fans started following Aggie FB Life as well.
“Every major Division Onefootball program is developing these graphics and sending them out to these kids because nowit’s the most important thing for these kids,” Moore said. “We were the first ones to do that. Now we’ re working on some new projects with Fusion to stay ahead of the game.”
The company has parlayed its digital marketing expertise to moretraditional marketing services. De Walt and his five-member team have created digital billboards and environmental graphics in athletics facilities, in addition to rebranding equipment trucks.
Fusion Sports is in talks with a fifth major university to rebrand its football program for recruiting purposes, in addition to providing experiential marketing for fan engagement.
For the last six months, the company has operated from the University of Houston Small Business Incubator but is far from an overnight success. De Walt started the company in2006 while a finance student at UH, with the third co-founder, Alex Heilmann, to build websites for star athletes.
After graduation, De Walt taught public school for five years to make ends meet until the company generated enough revenue to go full time. His breakout product wasthe first athlete-branded iPhone app for Ray Lewis, a future Hall of Fame linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens.
Today DeWalt is leading the company into 360degree virtual reality videos. Fusion Sports recently offered its first virtual reality experience for its newest business, helping universities recruit academic talent in addition to athletes.
“Our first VR video concept was for the University of Houston,” he said, explaining howthe company will give away branded cardboard frames that turn smartphones into virtual reality goggles. “We want to use virtual reality to help sell those programs, help those kids imagine themselves on campus without having to leave their house.”
Many older readers may shudder at how much marketing firms can learn about us from the internet and how they target us. But the internet generation ignores generic marketing and expects brands to communicate to them personally.
That’s the future of marketing, and Fusion Sports is leading the way.
Chris Tomlinson is the Chronicle’s business columnist. His commentary appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. He also posts a daily news analysis at HoustonChronicle.com/ Boardroom. chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinson