One of my heroes in consulting, Alan Weiss, is called the “contrarian” for his ability to always look at the opposite of the group think.
Which has likely always been a pretty great skill to have.
But now more than ever, at least in the States, we need more of this contrarian thinking.
Why?
Well, with any story or idea we see in America lately, we see a mad rush to the defense of the conventional.
We see a mad dash to get the hottest take that stays within the lines.
We rush to be just a little bit better version of the same.
Which brings me to the announcement of the NY Jets’ new discount ticket program.
Flipping through my Twitter feed, I saw a professor of sports marketing discussing how: “The Jets must have realized that millennials like experiences and cheap over location.”
Which is really the conventional wisdom right now, if we don’t have anything better to offer, at least its cheap.
That’s the problem with all of these discount, subscription programs in sports. The people designing them have decided that they only button they have to push is cheaper. They have decided that they have no way to tell a better story, to build a better community, or to offer a better experience.
Instead, they have decided that “we will give you the ticket for free and hope you can create your experience.”
The thing is, we’ve seen how this neglect of the fan has been playing out.
The fans are voting with their attention. They aren’t watching sports as much. They aren’t going to games. They don’t care.
Cheap won’t fix that.
If someone isn’t paying attention to your story, a cheaper story isn’t going to fix that.
Its only going to accelerate the loss of attention.
The first person to market with free or lowest price doesn’t get the attention.
Only the extraordinary does.
The thing about all of these discount programs is, there is not anything extraordinary about them.
They are just stealing an age old business model that works better in some industries than others and trying to wedge their products and services into them.
Which might even work, at the right price.
But when you are basically giving your product away, it might be the entire business model and not just the price.