Digital marketing

Service Concepts in Tourism and Hospitality Management part 1

Digital marketing analysis and development.

Analyse the current situation of digital marketing at Pelicans with RACE-framework.

Pelicans uses digital marketing very well and they try to interact with the team’s fans that way. Facebook and Instagram are their main social media marketing tools and they have a huge following on those sites (26K on Facebook and 13K on Instagram). Pelicans has their own communication and marketing director who manages all their social media accounts and updates them almost daily.

Pelicans also uses radio and television marketing and especially on game days you can see, and hear, a lot of their commercials. Outside of Isku Areena, Pelicans’ home arena, is a huge led screen where they advertise their games and it will catch your eye when you drive past it. On game days they also put Pelicans flags on flagpoles near the Isku Areena.

The content varies from news to game day information to interviews from players and coaches. Pelicans puts a lot of effort in everything they make for digital marketing and you can see it from the way they make content. It’s interesting to see how much work goes to digital marketing and keeping up with sponsors.

Pelicans has a lot of sponsors for the team and they get something back from that, for example, boxes where they can watch the games and marketing places on ringside etc. Bermanto and Pelicans have a video series called “Pelicans by Bermanto” and in that they introduce the players to fans. These kinds of posts are quite popular among fans.

Another company who sponsors the team is Veikkaus and right now they have a competition where you can win a box to see a game with nine friends of yours. In the competition you just have to choose what game you would like to see, pick that one and tadaa, you’ve entered the competition. 

And of course, a big slice of digital marketing is news. On their own website they write news about things that are happening, for example, on 23^rdof this month they are adding two new individuals to their “Lahti-hockey Hall of Fame”. They also use digital target marketing, for example, I get a lot of Pelicans’ ads on Facebook and Instagram and that’s because I actively follow their social media accounts. I get Telia’s ads where they advertise Pelicans’ games and their own deal where I can watch Pelicans’ games on Telia TV. 

How would you develop the company’s digital marketing?

There’s not much I would change in Pelicans’ digital marketing because I think they’re already doing a very good job in that. They value their customers and try to get the fans feel like they’re a part of the Pelicans family. Pelicans is already so well-known team in Lahti and most of the fans, who come to watch the games, are older people who have been fans since the beginning. One thing they could invest in more is direct marketing, but for now I think their marketing is quite good.