James Harden is likely the best shooting guard in the NBA, but basketball has always been a team game. The 30 franchises that make up the league have generated a revenue pie in excess of $5 billion. The digital age has enabled this game to reach its worldwide audience anywhere, anytime. Teams can build up their own local fan base through the sundry of platforms available.
Much like our #NFLTechSeries, this time SportTechie delves into the digital strategies–from web, social media, mobile apps, and any other technological connection–of each team and analyzes them, including insights from some of the digital executives involved. Today, the #NBADigitalSeries 2013-14 continues with the Houston Rockets. Stay tuned to SportTechie for ongoing coverage of the #NBADigitalSeries.
“A new age.”
That’s the overarching marketing slogan for the Houston Rockets this season. In a two-year time span, the Rockets have completely revamped through a slew of acquisitions, headlined by James Harden and then Dwight Howard. These foundational cornerstones don’t simply bring hope, but realistic ambitions. Ambitions that match the country’s largest indoor jumbotron housed inside the Toyota Center.
By the same virtue, the team has refocused their digital efforts to reflect this dawn of a new era.
The Rockets website header illustrates this campaign through the aforementioned phrase clearly visible on the left-hand side. The backdrop consists of beaming red and white lights from another galaxy, which then fades to black as the user scrolls down the page. At the top right corner, interestingly, exists two different Mandarin version buttons of the site, a traditional and elementary format of it. The team has prudently kept its ties with the Asian community after Yao Ming’s tenure; and surely sustained interest once Jeremy Lin joined.
Right underneath this lies ticketing information and social media buttons, the former includes Ballena Technologies’ 3-D visualization of inside the arena. The rest of the homepage is simple and intuitive; and social outlets are nicely highlighted as images juxtaposed within most of the main menu tabs.
The team’s website sets the table formidably for their strong social media presence, which takes their messaging to another level.
Instantly evident on Facebook, the Rockets promote the colorful personality of Howard for their cover photo–literally with multiple smiling headshots in different colors. This approach certainly is different from what most teams do, but shows a light-hearted nature. The volume of 1.4 million have the option to purchase special ticket packages; however, this feature isn’t natively built in and requires three clicks before being directed to where to call. The copy is informative and digestible, while utilizing Bitly links for ticketing and content.
Branded graphics showcase game time, sponsors for in-game promotions, and cross-star matchups. More recently, they’re making sure fans are aware to even vote-in Terrence Jones as a starter for the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge–a distinction that would commonly be overlooked.
Twitter, though, offers a refreshing voice atypical to teams across the league. The tone here is considerably fan-friendly through diction such as “boss” and “H-Town.” While they do significant play-by-play tweets, they are informative with statistics and positive. Images are attached to tweets frequently in order to wisely increase engagement.
Cross-pollinating to Instagram, too, helps drive awareness to that platform among their 353,000 followers–apparent with a small ticket giveaway that had fans share this news. It’s very sparingly, however, that this account replies or retweet fans, reserved mostly to internal parties.
As for the aforementioned Instagram, a lot of the team’s original graphics here serve as the visual pillars to what’s shared in their other social platforms. They still do post enough content exclusive to this vehicle–not simply an invariable amalgamation. There’s a good balance between actions shots, humorous ones, and videos. The cross-pollination has worked both ways through their recent Howard Twitter takeover, which they decided to have a few of the questions answered via video on this medium. Just as important is the consistency in tone with Twitter as well.
This strength in social media has led the Rockets to host their own Social Media Night this week when they play the Washington Wizards. XFINITY is the presenting sponsor for the event, while providing Chandler Parsons action figures to the first 3,000 fans. After the game concludes, an interview session with Parsons and a group photo will occur. And fans will receive a Parsons poster that could be autographed if they make a three-pointer from the same spot where he holds the franchise record of ten in a single game–this transpired a couple of weeks ago.
Despite these strong tactics on social media, the Rockets’ mobile app lacks behind. They use the same UI and UX composition from Yinzcam, like that of the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans.
This experience pales in comparison to what they’ve established across social outlets. Even with the 3-D seating chart feature available here as online, the tickets tab portal welcomes users with the phrase “buy tickets now”–utterly blatant and uninviting. The “Team Shop” and “Rockets Insider” features weren’t natively designed; rather, presented as if it were a mobile web interface. This app falls flat and is quite average at best.
The Houston Rockets are just starting to realize their full potential on the court. Likewise, their digital assets reflect this “new age” that’s taking off, too.