The Los Angeles Kings may have one of the lower profiles of a professional team in the city, but there is one marketing area where they aren’t lagging nearly as much: the new world of social media.
The Kings currently have 19,000 Facebook and 14,000 Twitter followers. The far more popular Lakers have 26,000 Facebook fans, but the Clippers count only 15,000.
Last season, page views of the hockey team’s website jumped by more than 80 percent while unique users rose 70 percent. The Kings also had the second-highest average time spent on its site among National Hockey League teams, at nearly eight minutes.
Now, the Kings are looking to build on that success with an initiative called LA Kings 365. It involves coordinating its online marketing, including e-mails, YouTube posts and message boards.
“We need to engage our fans in meaningful ways and activate the social networks,” said Jonathan Lowe, vice president of marketing for the team, majority owned by downtown L.A. entertainment and sports company AEG. “The fans are a passionate group that will help spread the word.”
The team recently hiring Phoenix-based social media company Digital Royalty to oversee the initiative. Digital Royalty has an extensive client list that includes mixed-martial arts promoter UFC, several Major League Baseball teams and basketball star Shaquille O’Neal.
Meanwhile, winning has paid dividends in the form of increased ticket sales. The Kings made it to the Western Conference quarterfinals last seasons before losing to the Vancouver Canucks.
Lowe said that 97 percent of existing season ticketholders renewed for 2010-11, and this year the 43-year-old franchise could break a record for total season ticket sales.
“We’re building on our first time in the playoffs since 2002,” he said.
Logo Spinout
Irwindale-based Tri Mountain Racing’s TMR racewear brand scored last month when it won a contest held by FedEx for its small-business customers.
FedEx offered customers a chance to have their company logo placed on Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Nascar car in place of FedEx’s logo for one week. In order to win the prize, the customers accumulated points based on how much shipping they did and then bid on various prizes, including computers and racing gear. Having a logo placed on Hamlin’s car was the grand prize.
“I knew that logo was worth more than everything else, so we saved our points and just went for it,” said Glenn Oyoung, Tri Mountain vice president of marketing. “That’s not normally within our marketing budget or strategy.”
Tri Mountain ended up the third-highest bidder and had its logo placed on the right rear fender. The top two bidders had their logos placed elsewhere on the car.
Hamlin ended up starting first at the Nascar Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 race Sept. 19 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The biggest moment came when Hamlin spun out, but was not hit. The spin was replayed several times on television, allowing Tri Mountain’s logo to be seen multiple times. Hamlin ended up coming back and finishing in second.
“Everything that could happen to feature that side of the car did happen,” Oyoung said. “Plus we had lots of requests from new distributors and retail customers following the race. There was a tangible effect on our business.”
Tri Mountain was founded in 1993 and employs more than 100 people. The family-owned business manufactures and distributes corporate apparel and uniforms. Its TMR racewear brand features sportswear for racing aficionados.
Field Goal
Local college football commentators Petros Papadakis and Steve Physioc started broadcasting a new weekly syndicated radio show last month dedicated to Pac-10 football.
The show is sponsored by San Francisco-based Bank of the West, which signed on as a leaguewide sponsor last month in a deal negotiated by L.A.-based Pac-10 Properties, a unit of Fox Sports Net. Pac-10 Properties represents the league in its TV and licensing rights deals for the conference.
When Bank of the West announced a sponsorship deal with the Pac-10 Conference, it was the first new sponsor signed since the league announced an expansion that will take place in 2011 or 2012. The Pac-10 Conference will add the universities of Utah and Colorado as soon as those schools can be released from their current conference contractual agreements.
“College sports is hot right now and has a loyal fan base,” said Mitch Huberman, senior vice president of Pac-10 Properties. “Adding the two teams and markets along with a championship football game means greater opportunities and value for sponsors.”
Staff reporter David Nusbaum can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 236.
