The “Oddest” Business Investment Decision — Can Sometimes Pay Off

One of the most anticipated aspects of the AFL Grand Final, The NRL Grand Final and The Superbowl is the halftime entertainment or as the Americans call it “The Halftime Show”.

As evidence one needs simply to look at this year’s line-ups. The Superbowl had a hip hop extravaganza featuring Mary J Blige, Eminem, Dr Dre and Snoop Dog to name but a few. The AFL featured Robbie Williams accompanied by Delta Goodrem and the NRL selected Australian veteran rocker Jimmy Barnes and a host of his friends.

But, it hasn’t always been like this.

Halftime shows came about to keep the spectators entertained at sports that needed a lengthy break for players to regroup and refresh. In a business and marketing sense, halftime shows originated as an initiative in “retaining customer enthusiasm”.

Like most innovations requiring investment, the half time show had to overcome the resistance of “bean counters”, who objected to the extra expense (nowadays in excess of a $1,000,000) as an extravagance. The logic being, “why spend money on a halftime show, It won’t draw people to the game. The people will already be there, so it’s just an extra expense. No one will complain if there’s no halftime show because nobody’s expecting it.

Fortunately, Walter Lingo the man credited for the invention of halftime shows was able to explain, “That’s the whole point. We should do the halftime show precisely because nobody’s expecting it. Give them more than they expect. Something different than everything they expected. As long as we keep surprising them, they’ll keep coming back.”

Thank god for Walter!

Nowadays halftime shows have become more than a crowd pleaser. In their own right they have become a huge money earner attracting sponsorships, TV deals and a massive amount of publicity and social media content.

The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched single-day sporting events in the world. There’s an entire week dedicated to the lead up, with much of the hype bordering on the ridiculous. Almost bigger than the game itself the halftime show, attracts the brightest stars in music and has become the ultimate marriage of sports and pop culture. It’s a spectacle that can make or break careers, and make terms like “wardrobe malfunction” synonymous with football.

So even though initially some thought of the halftime show as the oddest of business investment strategies – it has paid off. Big time!

It required visionary thinking.

This is exactly the type of thinking one must adopt when dealing with the wealthy and the affluent customer.

These folk are more jaded, not easily impressed, and have infinitely more choices. This is especially important when selling at premium prices. Price elasticity usually has much more to do with ‘experience’ and ‘relationship’ than with core products or services. One needs to think of EVERY interaction, EVERY thing in your business as an experience for the customer.

Opening up a box or package shipped to them needs to feel like an event, getting a sales letter needs to titillate and inspire, watching a video has to be cinematic, speaking with a customer service rep has to feel like a chat with a reliable friend, and so on.

To achieve this ask yourself the question that they won’t enunciate but is in their mind:

where’s the Halftime Show?

Sadly, not enough businesses go the extra mile. Not enough businesses offer up a “halftime show” even though that is not what they are there for.

This simple mindset, this oddest of investment decisions, will set you apart from your competitors and serve you well.

The older I get, the more I feel this way about my experiences with businesses and marketers…

Where is my “Halftime show?”

Put on a good one and I’ll keep coming back and tell all of my network along the way.