We all see, and usually ignore, banner ads on a daily basis. I think a lot of people see them as useless and cheap-looking on websites in the 2.0 age, so we’re finding other ways to generate revenue online. I’m interested specifically in how this trend is affecting the soccer market.

The background stuff
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a quick look at a few examples of “traditional” online advertising (wow, I bet we never expected that term). Actually, let’s refer to it as “interruptive” advertising as it’s known in the industry. There’s contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, floating ads, pre-loaded ads, wallpaper ads, trick banners, pop-ups, pop-unders, video ads, hyperlinks in text, map ads, mobile ads, advertising networks and e-mail marketing including e-mail spam, my personal favorite. Advertisers can buy ads as “cost per click”, “cost per visitor”, “cost per impression”, “cost per action” or “cost per conversion”. The specifics of all that are a posting for another day.

Interactive Advertising
What I’m interested in is much more dynamic. By using interactive media to promote and/or influence the buying decisions of the consumer in an online and offline environment, interactive advertising utilizes media such as the Internet, interactive television and mobile devices.

Take for example, a printer commercial that’s shown online – where the user actually chooses to see the ad. Check out www.epsonality.com for a good example of how an ad agency here in San Franciso has made printers… well, fun (if you’re into that kind of thing). Or go to www.jockeyunderwars.com to see people dancing in their underwear. The good thing about these sites is that response to brand communication is instantaneous, and conversion to business is very high because in contrast to conventional forms of interruptive advertising, the viewer has actually chosen to see the commercial.

The interactive advertising that Nike, Adidas, etc. are undertaking is very interesting. If you go to http://www.nike.com/nikesoccer/wntbus/, you can see Nike’s National Team Bus. Basically, it’s a collection of videos and pictures about the US Women’s National Team. It’s viral marketing, meaning the end user wants to go to this free website, and come back, to learn about the National Team. In the meantime the host is selling Nike, Nike, Nike. Good advertising if you can attract people to the site.

Another example is the Adidas soccer homepage. You can’t get past the first page without seeing a video of Kaka, Lampard and Messi (I’m not upset about this whatsoever). You can also go to You Tube to see this Adidas Video online – That’s FREE advertising for Adidas, and as of this posting there’s been 114,577 views.

If you have more examples, please post them in the comments section.

The WPS Locker Room – Online!
So now that we have a little advertising background, let’s think of ways this can help create a sustainable environment for women’s professional soccer in America and beyond.

Imagine this – Each WPS team has their own site, called the “Locker Room” (sponsored by their product company of choice – Reebok, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Diadora, etc.). The page opens with a full page ad for their product company or sponsor, ala www.arsenal.com. (There’s a big opportunity for pay-per-click revenue here).

Once you enter the site, you can learn about the season. Basically, the user follows the team, behind the scenes, through an entire season. Highlight reels are just the beginning of video stuff we can include – You get an insider’s look at the home stadium, behind the scenes in the locker room and bits of team meetings (the stuff you don’t get at the field).

US Soccer has done a great job of interviewing their players in their Studio-90 section of the website, and they keep a good blog. There’s just so much information on this site (they’re trying to cram all info about every national team and every event onto this page with every initiative, every blog, and every ad). It’s become tough to find what you’re looking for.

Here is an example of a Behind-the-Scenes video that I created at Region 1 ODP soccer camp. (I drove around all week in a golf cart collecting video content. I still have some hilarious things on my hard drive.) I wanted to create a little advertisement where ODP isn’t seen as the scariest of all soccer camps, and coaches are accessible even after camp is over. As of this posting, it’s had 699 views on YouTube.

The Locker Room can also include interviews with players and coaches about the season’s events – games, injuries, etc. And keep all this as a vlog online. Integrate sponsorship around these videos, for example, “X Company presents, Tony Dicicco’s first training session with the Boston Breakers.” Then provide a link to X Company, and generate revenue for Boston Breakers. What about “X Company presents Cat Reddick’s team cheer,” an audio clip/rollover online. Basically, integrate the ads into the videos, audio, etc. Create media that people will visit on their own accord.

I also think each player should host a blog online. If we teach the WPS players a little about social media optimization, we can create financial incentives for them to get the hits on their page. Even create a competition among each team, and post videos of the competition on the Locker Room homepage. If players are engaged in the process, these WPS teams, with extremely limited budgets, can grow their advertising staff by 18 without blinking an eye.

In all this, I see there are a couple main advertising considerations to making it work (If you can think of more, please post). First, teams will need to weave the advertising seamlessly into the message itself. Like I stated in the first paragraph, people see banner ads as useless and cheap-looking, so we need to make sure there is value in every ad. Second, teams will need to market their website to attract viral users. Third of course, each team would need the tech-savvy, visionary staff to make this all happen… But that’s for another discussion.

There are infinite possibilities in terms of what’s possible with interactive advertising in soccer. Please feel free to post more ideas!

Tagged as: adidas, interactive advertising, nike, soccer, Technology