Marketing Analysis : The American Marketing Association

The business of sports is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. All over the world, many people participate as players and spectators in a variety of sporting activities, creating opportunities for the marketing of a company’s goods and services. An important part of the business of sports is sports marketing, which revolves around understanding consumer behavior and motivating target markets to purchase goods and services. Sports marketing at Clemson University has many different aspects ranging from sports and technology and sport law to sponsorship and sports economics.

Marketing is often thought of as advertising and selling, but marketing encompasses more than just selling a product or service and advertising it to entice customers to make a purchase. Perrault, Cannon, and McCarthy (2009) defined marketing as "the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client" (p. 6). However, Kotler and Keller (2009) stated one of the shortest definitions is "meeting needs profitably" (p. 5). The author's definition of marketing includes all of the activities a business

Definition of marketing is the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. For example, new Apple products are developed to include improved applications and systems, are set at different prices depending on how much capability the customer desires, and are sold in places where other Apple products are sold. Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.

Over the years, the role of the college athletics administrator has changed significantly. Athletic departments no longer consist of just coaching positions they now have several positions that are non-coaching positions. Beizer stated (2015), “catalyzed by the explosive rise in popularity of college sports and the seemingly exponential growth of spending by universities to bolster their athletic programs, there has never been a greater need for professionals who bring both a dynamic and robust set of skills” (para. 1). Marketers understand the popularity of sports and have really made them a centerpiece of marketing campaigns for decades. With the size and the popularity of any sports the field of sports marketing has grown along with it. With intercollegiate athletic departments mission is to increase ticket sales and revenue sports marketing has a huge impact on making this goal happen. Sport marketing uses sports, in several forms to help sell goods and services (n.d.).

This article continues to explain that once a sports marketer creates a product and advertises it on a small scale, “Sports marketers get ahead by gradually representing bigger, more important and more prestigious sports teams, companies, associations, and athletes.” In other words, sports marketers need to have a plan of action to promote their product on a larger scale over time. Also, sports marketers spend much of their planning on the aspect of promotion. Mihai verifies that the category of promotion serves to prove that the product is desirable through advertising, sales, sponsorship and public relations. If a sports marketer follows these planning steps, his/her work will lead to a successful product with a large margin of profit.

In traditional marketing business companies have to make sure that they are providing the right product. Determining the product is essential in business. For instance, Pepsi Co. has defined its product as cola soda. Likewise in sports marketing a product needs to be defined also. A sports agent’s product is the athlete. He or she has to represent the client well enough to get preferred contracts or top dollar endorsements. There has been some debate as to what constitutes the “core” product in sport marketing. For example, some posit that the core product is the actual event. On the other hand, if we applied a mainstream marketing definition, the “core” product is the benefit that consumers seek from a product, service, or experience, therefore taking the focus off of the actual event. (Masteralexis, Carol & Mary, 2012)

Sports Marketing is a field dedicated to advertising and selling sports related products and events.

Sports’ marketing is becoming more readily known as the vehicle that drives the sports business to success. It is “orientated toward consumers and about thinking, deciding and acting in terms of the final consumer. You have to know who your consumers are, what they want and need and use this effectively as a sports marketer orientating the drive more toward the market, not the product (Sports Marketing: The motor that drives the sports business

Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others.(Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders, Wong page 5)

Another definition of marketing is the "selling of products or services: the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to

Sports' marketing is a comparatively new field and dimension within the broad concept of marketing. It is continuously evolving and changing today as society combats the free market to decide the legal and ethical limitations of business today. It is significant to note that this discipline within marketing is not clearly defined. Sports today use corporate sponsorships and television money in order to contend and pay for top quality athletes. Those companies use teams, leagues, colleges, and individuals to make a distinction between their products in a very aggressive business environment. What makes up sports marketing to one person could be considered selling out to another. The business world keeps pushing to find a competitive advantage and the sports world has in general welcomed the money offered (Weikel, n.d.).

Marketing is a management process by which a concept of a good or service transform into a product for the customer. Every business success lies on it marketing. Marketing has been defined differently by different authors but two most accepted definitions of marketing are that given by the UK’s Chattered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and the American Marketing Association (AMA) as follows:

Marketing is an essentially about marshalling the resources of the organization so that they can meet the changing needs of the customers on whom the organization depends. As a verb, marketing is all about how an organization addresses its markets. Marketing is “The management process which identifies, anticipates and supplies the customer requirements efficiently and profitability”.

Definition of Marketing – Marketing can be defined as the process of converting wants into needs. In other words it can be defined as the process of selling products or services to the customers by an organisation.

Marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.