Marketing and a Javelin, nothing in common?

Apparently not. Marketing is an essential area within any business. And javelin throw is an olympic athletics discipline that consists of throwing a kind of spear as far as you can. With that in mind, it seems impossible to connect such different things.

Although some Marketing researchers may discredit me for the following statement (and I’d understand it), I’ll do it anyway:

“In my opinion, if you know how to execute a good javelin throw, you can also launch a successful marketing campaign.”

A javelin throw consists of four stages: the preparation phase, the acceleration phase, the throw itself, and the monitoring phase. When you have to launch a marketing campaign, you can consider the same stages: a preparation phase, an execution phase, the launch itself, and the monitoring of the campaign.

In the preparation stage, the athlete runs forward at a lower speed than the rest of the throw with the javelin positioned above his head. This stage entails the initial thrust. As a marketer, your campaign should have an initial preparation stage in which the aim is to define the objectives and to form a general vision before actually creating the campaign. From now on, as Marketing is a broad area, I’m going to focus on communication for the sake of simplicity in a short article.

PREPARATION STAGE

The most important thing to consider in this stage is the business objective of your communication campaign. It has to be measurable, as for example “increase sales volume” or “increase ticket size”. This is critical because you can only ensure good executional decisions, such as which communication channel you should use or what your message should look like, if you have set a clear objective. The athlete also has a sport objective which can be, for instance, classifying for an international competition, which requires a minimum mark. That would be the objective that the athlete wants to reach.

Based on this objective, you can make other key strategic decisions: who your target audience should be; what behaviour change you need to get from your target audience; and what type of immediate response you want to elicit from your audience. This allows the marketer to understand what the best executional approach may be in terms of the most appropriate type of message and media. The athlete follows the same process in deciding the optimal balance between speed and strength based on the mark he/she needs to reach. 

PREPARATION STAGE

Once you’ve set your objective, you can enter into what can be called the execution stage, which represents the acceleration phase of the athlete. During this phase, the objective shifts from preparation to getting yourself into the best possible position to throw.

In this phase, the athlete runs sideways, and has seven steps to position himself and the javelin correctly and to achieve the highest speed at the end, just before the throw. During this part of the execution stage is when the marketer should determine the exact details of how to reach the audience, how to tell their story to connect with emotions, and the balance of channels and budget needed.

ACCELERATION STAGE

Connecting again with the athlete’s experience, the final score of the throw depends heavily on the balance of speed-strength I have mentioned before: the faster you can run and control yourself to put the needed strength at the end of the shot, the longer your shot will be. The word “control” here is important. Your optimal speed is the maximum speed at which you can control the shot, not your maximum speed. It’s easy to apply this to the communication campaign: companies don’t have unlimited resources, and due to this scarcity, they need to find a good balance between them; that is, allocating resources, as well as the athlete does with his/her strength and speed. The word “control” in companies remains with the same importance. Marketers have to consider carefully the reactions to their campaigns, which is beyond their direct control. Here is when the possibilities and disadvantages of digital social media come in. It makes your company lose some control over the scope of a campaign due to the two biggest powers of this new tool: immediacy and scale.

As I’ve said before, the athlete has seven steps to adapt the perfect position to execute the shot. Before launching a campaign, seven steps should also be considered as a checklist to ensure that your campaign has everything it needs to gain a strong response. Although that doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to happen. These seven steps are the following ones:

1. It's visual and surprising
2. It matches your brand / value proposition
3. It has a clear message
4. It connects with the emotions of the audience
5. It's directed to your target audience
6. It's simple
7. It's launched at the right rime

THROW ITSELF

And then, when the acceleration stage finishes, it’s the turn for the throw itself. The most important thing here is the angle. Unfortunately, there’s no optimal angle. In athletics, it depends on two main factors: first, an external factor which is the wind, and secondly, an internal factor which is your own conditions; that is your personal speed-strength balance. The objective is to throw the javelin with an angle that minimizes the friction between the javelin and the wind and maximizes the lift of the javelin in the air. Usually this angle varies from 30 to 40 degrees.

When launching a communication campaign, there are also factors that affect the campaign. First of all, external factors such as the stage of the industry in its life cycle, the competitors, consumers’ trends, etc; and secondly, internal factors like the company’s resources. Depending on that, the marketer should decide to launch the campaign at one or another angle. 

THROW ITSELF

But one common quote among athletes is that the throw is not over until the javelin is stuck in the grass. That also applies to a marketing campaign. What I want to point out here is that as any action, the measurement of the results is an essential part because otherwise you won’t be able to learn from any of those actions.

Research has shown that if you finish the shot before the javelin is stuck in the grass, you automatically and unconsciously divert forces from the course of the javelin. That’s why you have to look forward at the javelin while it’s flying and until it’s in the grass. Almost the same thing happens in a marketing campaign, where you should focus on every executional detail throughout the campaign and always monitor the results of your campaign in terms of, for example, sales, response, etc. 

MONITORING STAGE

As athletes, we expect to throw as far as possible; as well as marketers expect to reach the maximum of their target audience with the campaign. But when the shot is completely finished, that is, when the campaign is over, you cannot do anything to change the scope you have achieved. However, as the javelin is stuck in the grass, your communication has stuck your company on your consumers’ minds and the only thing you can do then is hope for this positioning to be aligned with the value proposition of your brand.

I want to finish this article with a quote by Les Brown that can be applied to almost everything you do in life:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Reasons to believe in sportspeople as managers

Why do companies value sportspeople when selecting a suitable candidate for a managerial post? What difference can they make to an organisation, if at all?

Today I would like to comment on what I believe to be the two most powerful qualities that can influence a prospective employer when a sports-minded person applies for a managerial position. Let’s see how we can make a difference in today’s organisations.

First of all, think about the ability to deal with pressure. As an athlete, one experiences plenty of stressful situations and spur-of-the moment decisions that can change the course of one’s career. I have certainly found it character-building to have to work under pressure. It is like learning a new language. The more you practise, the more comfortable you are with it.

In 2008, I was at the Spanish Championships in Almería (Spain). During the whole two days, another athlete and I had a tough and demanding competition until the last event: the 600m. We were only 17 and both of us had the chance to surpass the Spanish Record, which was nearly 20 years old. At this point, the race wasn’t about doing your best, but about adopting the best strategy. The winner would be the Spanish Champion and would own the Spanish Record.

Speaking from experience, I can assure you that what you feel hours, and even minutes before the race is pressure. The race started and we positioned ourselves at the back of the race. The speed and the rhythm were not important, the crucial thing was knowing the right moment to change, our strategy. Because we were running so slowly, the pressure of when to change the speed increased, but 400m from the finish line, I was the first to make the choice. At the end of the race, I realised that that was not maybe the best choice; but no one knows what could have happened otherwise. My rival had enough strength at the end to overtake me and we ended up with an insignificant difference of 5 points on a score of 4,076 vs. 4,081 points. We both beat the Spanish Record and we always remember this competition as the best we ever had between us. We both started learning what pressure really was that day and we continue to experience it in many competitions. 

 

This experience is very valuable within an organisation. We are now prepared to overcome a crisis in a company with the same composure as if it was a normal day, and we are used to have only one chance after months or years of work to perform as best as we can. In any project, there’s always the D day and the H hour where you, as a manager, have to excel. And here is when the nerves and the pressure come in; therefore, an athlete can provide that “extra something” at such moments in any position of responsibility.

However, it’s not only in such a crucial moment as this that a sportsperson can make a difference. Let’s move onto the second topic of today: short term – long term vision. As I’ve mentioned above, the last moment is important, but only as important as the work that has been put in to arrive at the final point.

The manager’s job has a lot to do with planning a sports training program. As athletes, we set objectives at the beginning of the season, and we design a “plan to get there” with our coach. This plan is made by focusing first on the long-term (what we need to achieve) and then in the short-term (how are we going to do it). Both visions are equally essential.

A manager with a sports background is able to have these two views: the ability to recognise where the company needs to go (L/T) and set objectives based on that, and the steps needed to get there (S/T) and over perform the D day at the H hour, when the pressure appears again.

It’s common in organisations that unexpected things appear at the end of the process. Many managers feel frustrated when it happens and don’t know how to overcome these difficulties. Every day, sportspeople experience unexpected things that place obstacles in their way and their reaction to these small failures is what determine their final success. This is another thing that athletes can provide companies with, because as Kobe Bryant says:

“Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.”