By Michael Desroches
Marketing — The “Boyz” Way
I truly love fall for many reasons – the cooler weather and the return of football being my primary ones. There’s simply nothing like a lazy Sunday with a pot of chili cooking in the kitchen as I teach my boy the finer points of the game.
While I start every season with the sometimes misplaced optimism that my Dallas Cowboys will be contenders (and come on – they started off 3-0 this year, so it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities) the reality is that they haven’t been truly great for years. Far too many years. We can talk injuries, play calling, personnel decisions and straight up bad luck all day long.
But despite all that – they still win at marketing.
No matter where in the country I travel, I see someone sporting gear from my “Boyz.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s a vintage Super Bowl cap or a kid sporting a brand new Dak jersey, those colors and that recognizable star are everywhere. In fact, the Cowboys are valued at $4.8 billion, the highest figure of any professional sports team in the world.
So how do you build a brand like that? Particularly when you (and it pains me to write this) just aren’t that consistently good? Take the Patriots, for example. It’s no surprise that as they rack up Super Bowl victories and Brady’s face is plastered on everything, their marketing game is strong.
Yet despite all those new England wins, my Boyz have a Facebook audience size of 8.5 million – 1.8 million more than the Patriots’ 6.7 million. And that’s just on one social media platform. Their Twitter engagement rates are unmatched and we’re not even starting to talk “real world” rabid fan base here.
I believe the reason is something that every organization and every brand out there can learn from: They simply never stop marketing. And they never cease innovating while they do so.
All too often, brands assume that once they reach a certain point, they can ratchet down their marketing and still maintain their audience/client base. The reality is that marketing today moves faster than it ever has. If you don’t put your brand out there, consistently and inventively, you’ll fall behind – no matter how good you are.
And if you do put yourself out there, good marketing can cover a world of sins. Like a run of rough seasons.
And let’s face it: The Boyz know how to market.
They pretty much invented cheerleaders – at least how to promote them – and built a massive audience in the process. (From posters in the 80s to a reality TV series that’s going on 14 seasons – you can bet that builds a fanbase.) They truly took their Super Bowl winning aura of excellence and a savvy owner and crafted it into a megabrand that is still synonymous with winning.
And they never stop.
In 2016, they launched an innovative “#FinishThisFight,” a short-form documentary series about the struggles key players have overcome. That series alone reached over four million people combined on social media, and they repeated it to even more success with “Round 2” in 2018.
Now that they have the largest social media audience on Facebook, their digital marketing team is now focusing on dominating the up and coming platform – Instagram. They are growing their brand there without flashy contests or giveaways – just strong photography, innovative graphics and awesome storytelling. (Which is, not surprisingly, exactly what market research says folks want to see on Instagram – organic content devoid of advertising.) And it’s working – the team has seen more growth there than on any other platform.
As Cowboys Content Strategist Taylor Stern told Front Office Sports in April:
“Don’t take your foot off the gas. It’s really easy to get discouraged in this business. But just keep grinding, keep working and keep changing and adapting and growing, and you’ll get to where you want to be in time.”
That’s a lesson we can all learn from – when it comes to not just sports – but marketing, business and life.
About Michael Desroches
Michael Desroches is a corporate marketing consultant, brand strategist, speaker, trainer andmentor. The Founder and Principal of Woodbridge, Connecticut-based Brand Inspiration has spent more than two decades helping corporations, nonprofit organizations, mid-sized companies and small businesses here in the northeast and across the country. He and his team help clients uncover their most unique traits and translate them into creative marketing that inspires donors to give, customers to buy, and people to trust. Learn more at www.michaeldesrochesonline.com.
