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Abstract: In many segments of the sport industry, sport marketers are pressured to increase their product sales to generate increased revenues for their organizations. This pressure poses a challenge. Be- cause sport marketers are involved in persuading consumers to buy, they run the risk of exaggerating or misrepresenting their products in an effort to sell them. Today, and in the future, sport marketers should recognize this risk and monitor their marketing strategies to ensure that they communicate honest images and messages about their products that are consistent with the core values of their organizations.
A marketing program is not delivered in isolation of the organization-wide planning process. In nor- mal circumstances, the marketing planning process must reflect the overall plans for the organization.
Key words: sport marketing, strategy, marketing program, planning process
Jel Classification: M31
introduction
The term 'sport marketing' was first used in the United States by the Advertising Age in 1978. Since then it has been used to describe a variety of activities associated with sport promotion.
People tend to define marketing in terms of their experiences, instead of rec- ognizing one of the most important roles of marketing-carrying out the mission of an organization. Some corporate executives might describe sport marketing as selling goods and services to generate a profit. But sport marketing is more than selling. Sport marketing is more than advertising and pub- lic relations. Sport marketing is more than community relations.
Pitts and Stotlar (2007) defined sport marketing as "the process of designing and implementing activities for the production, pricing, promotion, and distribution of a sport product to satisfy the needs or desires of consumers and to achieve the company's objectives".
Sport marketing is the application of marketing concepts to sport products and services, and the marketing of non-sport products through an association to sport. Sport marketing therefore has two key fea- tures. First, it is the application of general marketing practices to sport-related prod- ucts and services. Second, it is the marketing of other consumer and industrial products or services through sport.
marketing 'of' sport and marketing 'through' sport
marketing 'of' sport
This refers to the use of marketing mix variables to communicate the benefits of sport participation and spectatorship to po- tential consumers. Ultimately, the...