Drawing crowds to a NCAA Final Four basketball game is usually not a problem.
But when George Mason University officials weren?t seeing the numbers they wanted at their games, they turned to their agency of record, the Leffler Agency in Baltimore.
“When a midmajor basketball school gets to the Final Four [as George Mason did this year], that doesn?t happen often,” said Bob Leffler, president and founder of the agency. “This campaign is to take advantage of that, to sell more season tickets and single games.”
The Mason Nation campaign launched in mid-November, will run through March and pick up again in November 2007. Mason Nation includes print ads, billboards and local radio and television spots. The company isolated the Virginia marketto increase ticket sales.
“The billboards feature a picture of a player cutting down the net from Final Four last year [March 2006] with people behind him and the logo for Mason Nation,” Leffler said. “We had a methodology, so we didn?t have to do a whole lot of brainstorming.”
The concept of the campaign is to show people what the experience of being at a college basketball game is like. “A lot is about the fans and the crowd, people getting really into the game, which is very common in college basketball,” Leffler said. “It?s like that kind of an experience when you go to a George Mason game.”
“The fruits of their and our labor came together real quick, our first game was the 18th of November and we had 10,000 people in the Patriot Center,” said Tom O?Connor, Director of Athletics at George Mason. “If we hadn?t done some of the things that [Leffler] put in place, we wouldn?t have had that many.”
“As far as long-term effects go, we think they will pay off not only this year but the years going forward,” O?Connor said. “[The agency] has helped us position ourselves to be a major player in this market, which contains the Redskins, Wizards, the Capitals, Georgetown and the University of Maryland. For us to be a major player in that market, we have to be noticed. Bob and his people have helped us do that through Mason Nation.”
Contact the agency
» The Leffler Agency, 2607 N. Charles St., Baltimore
» www.leffleragency.com
» 410-235-5661
