Talking Tickets 21 January 2022: StubHub Wants To Go Public! 22 Predictions For 2022! The Australian Open! And, More!
Number 119!
Hey!
I’ve made it out of the COVID hotel!
Let me tell you, I felt like I was in the Phantom Zone for about two or three weeks there. Never sick enough that I felt like I was going down, but sick enough that I was never quite right.
I feel like this week has been my first week of the year, so welcome to 2022!
I’ll have some more fun and games to share with y’all over the next few weeks, but for now…two things I’m working on that are FREE.
I’ll be trying out a new sign-up program and home for classes and such. To try the whole process out, I’m going to be hosting a FREE webinar on Wednesday, January 26th at 1 PM Eastern called “7 Ways To Win Back Ticket Buyers in 2022”.
The second thing is “The Executive Roundtable” an invitation-only small, group working group with executives from around the world of tickets where we can work out solutions to situations involving strategy, marketing, and branding. This is a pilot idea…and I’m going to limit it to around six people. If you are interested, send me a note and tell me why I should include you.
To the Tickets!
1. The Big Story: StubHub Wants To Go Public!
Big Ideas:
I’ll have to see the homework on these numbers.
Could StubHub be the next meme stock?
What is everyone going to say, “business will be bad?”
Next week, I’m going to attempt to do a state of play of the secondary market using the Twickets story as a foundation.
We will see if I can pull it off, but this is an interesting story to start the year with because a lot of the justifications for the deal don’t seem to hold up.
Moody’s is talking about the strength of StubHub’s brand and market position as validation for this offering. That may have been true in 2019, but in 2022 that’s not accurate because most brokers will tell you that Vivid has surpassed StubHub as the strongest brand in the market. And, after the refund/rebate/coupon scenario at the start of 2020, StubHub’s brand probably took a pretty big hit with consumers.
In reading through the reports about the potential direct listing and seeing Goldman and JP Morgan running around chasing the deal, this starts to get the feel of the “one of these things is not like the other”.
I looked up the definition of “pump and dump” and I’m not offering any investment advice here, but I can say that meme stocks like GameStop have been popular lately. And, this potential listing could be a way to catch some of the action before the air goes out of the balloon of overinflated valuations, cheap money, and unrestricted enthusiasm on the stock market that eventually comes at some point.
I’m a bit of a boring investor in that I use a lot of mutual funds and spdr funds, myself.
But when you see some of the valuations and numbers, you have to start questioning your decisions.
Maybe most importantly here, is that enthusiasm.
What is anyone going to say about the business coming out of the pandemic, “we don’t know?”
That’s the honest answer, but no one is going to say that one.
And, this could be the perfect way for StubHub to rescue the merger that drug on forever…by riding an industry consensus that everything will be puppies and rainbows.
I don’t know.
I’ll have to see the numbers for me to know what is going on.
Later, I’ll go into that $13B valuation, but I will want to see some numbers first.
2. The Road to Recovery: 22 things that the industry should stop in 2022:
Big Ideas:
Experts make predictions
The way things were won’t get you to the way that they need to be going forward.
You should always be searching for a new idea that will help you keep your business vibrant.
Let’s see if I can do a quick list of 22 things I’d like to see come out of 2022 before we hit 2023:
Tickets need to stop being viewed as commodities.
Market Orientation should be a dominant theme in folks thinking. Let the customer lead you and their money will follow.
A major effort to re-price should be in order.
Discounting with no thought should be dumped.
Following the data on the coronavirus should be the first resort because waiting until things are out of control is bad for business.
Let’s stop chasing the new shiny object and get the basics right.
“Beat the secondary” should be a phrase that is retired.
Smarter use of email should be on the cards.
Offering better jobs should be a key goal. Not just a job, but a job where folks can actually have a standard of living.
A recognition that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should go a long way to solving some bad behavior.
Stop looking for magic beans and start looking for building sustainable audiences.
Emphasize the customer experience at every touchpoint.
Map out your customer touchpoints.
Anyone that works around the industry should do some “shopping” at their events. With no one knowing they are around. Just go like a fan.
Prepare for a bumpy ride through the start of 2023. That’s just what the data looks like.
Create a practice of “bad ideas” that enable you to find good ideas for your business. Trust me, the best organizations in the industry do that and that’s one of the reasons they are constantly having good ideas.
Try to bring at least one idea into your organization that you stole from a business, not in the industry.
Stop using “strategy” as a filler, buzzword, and start using it for what it is: being choiceful.
Stop charging $17 for a goddamn Bud Light.
Kill the “phone crushing” mentality once and for all. It only harms your brand, teaches kids bad business habits, and leads to bad cost structures internally.
Remember that marketing is everything, not just a department.
3. How-To: Understand brand through the lens of the Australian Open:
Big Ideas:
The argument that this story with Djokovic will destroy the Australian Open’s place as a Grand Slam event shows a lack of understanding of brand building.
From a brand-building aspect, this whole thing achieves quite a bit of salience for the Australian Open, Australia, Melbourne, and Victoria.
Picking an enemy is also a really strong branding opportunity.
From time to time, stories come along where everyone jumps on the bandwagon running the same direction and this one with the Australian Open and Novak Djokovic is a prime one for folks that know little or nothing about branding to jump in and say that this is going to “destroy” the brand of the Australian Open will all feel smug and justified in their analysis.
They will all also be wrong.
Why?
Because for the most part, the negative impact of this story is going to be felt by Novak Djokovic. The story is and continues to be about Djokovic and:
His anti-vaccine beliefs
His disregard for rules
His lying on forms and passing the blame onto other folks
On and on
The Australian Open is surfing the wave of Djokovic’s bad press to elevate their salience in the market, getting free media coverage that they would be unlikely to achieve in a “normal” year.
That doesn’t mean that this won’t change, but the initial week of the story has largely been about how much of a rogue character Djokovic has been with the Australian Open being an innocent bystander for elevated brand awareness at a time that tennis might not be on many folks’ minds.
This all goes to say that it is unlikely that the Australian Open will see its place as a Grand Slam slip.
Looking at the point of recovery and return to regular travel, this is also a situation where Tourism Australia and Tourism Victoria win by being seen to stand up to Djokovic, not just for public safety concerns, but because picking an enemy and fighting that enemy is a powerful brand-building activity.
I’ve mentioned this concept in passing before, but over the years I’ve used this concept to attack ideas I know are bad like discounts, bad marketing, and poor strategy.
And, I’ve used the same concept to position myself as someone that is strategic, focused on profitability, and innovative in my solutions by going after folks that use cookie-cutter ideas, only talk about revenue, or that just spew out tactics as if the only thing that matters is doing more of more.
For me, it is never personal, but it is a powerful branding convention that allows me to position myself as the opposite.
In this case, just by showing up and having evidence of ill-advised behaviors by Djokovic, it provides the folks at Tourism Australia and Tourism Victoria to be the good guys to Djokovic’s bad guy.
Examples:
Djokovic maskless one day after a positive Covid test?! Reasonable people agree that’s probably a jerk move and if you lie in that situation, how can Australia be wrong for questioning him? (Meaning: we put safety first.)
Djokovic turns in immigration forms with inaccurate information! As Australians, we believe in the rule of law. Lying on your immigration forms is something we take seriously!
The Djokovic family press conference: Again! Just watch the video.
These things all add up and the story they tell is that Djokovic is a bad actor and the Australian government is putting the health of the community first.
It isn’t typically this easy to show examples, but in this instance, Djokovic comes off almost like a cartoon villain with numerous examples of bad behavior and disregard for people around him.
The key ideas here are:
The Australian Open will only benefit from elevated awareness from the Djokovic controversy unless they are guilty of aiding Djokovic in circumventing the rules for immigration to Australia during the pandemic.
Picking an enemy is a good branding move.
In thinking through brand management, the first idea you need to consider is salience.
Update: I wrote this on Saturday AM, about 11 AM Eastern time, and by the time I got up on Sunday around 8 AM, Djokovic had been deported.
BTW, I got an email when I posted this on my website early Sunday and I want to clarify. Just because I think that the Djokovic situation won’t hurt the Australian Open or the brands of Victoria and Australia, that doesn’t mean I think anyone handled this situation very well. If anything, this is a situation where it is better to be lucky than good.
4. Profile/Tech/Tools: 30 Million NFC tickets from Apple in 2021:
Big Ideas:
The iPhone’s wallet feature is will continue to grow and simplify the role of mobile commerce.
Having a dominant mobile wallet bias will have unintended consequences, but also create new opportunities.
Eliminating friction continues to be where technology wins.
In the before times, when I could travel much more freely, I was always excited about how far ahead on technology and its uses were in countries across Europe and Asia. I’m still a little bit like, “Why can’t I use my iPhone and Apple Pay for everything?”
So, I’m not surprised that this story came out and that there were 30 Million tickets created in Apple’s Wallet in 2021 because I would imagine the number would be much higher in a normal year.
What I am excited about is that it means that things like me forgetting my wallet in San Francisco and that jamming up my night out are less likely to happen going forward.
Mobile commerce’s big promise has always been about reducing friction to consumers. And, that is where technology wins because when you reduce friction, you often see that customers spend more, are more satisfied, and it is simpler to add value through.
While I’m pretty pro-technology when used well and focused on improving the lives of the people that you serve, I’m not a technology for technology’s sake kind of person either.
In truth, I find that many tech solutions are really just technologies in search of a problem to solve.
So when we think about going all mobile, we have to reflect on where the challenges and the opportunities on both sides of the case are.
Because there are certainly going to be challenges like slow adaptation, server issues, wi-fi challenges, and other problems.
On the flip side, all-in on technology increases the power of mobile ordering, customer service, and customization.
I don’t think much is all or nothing…even technology.
5. Blurbs and Such:
A fruitless year in 2022?: This idea of a stop, start, stop year in Asia seems likely. The Asian countries have been a bit more strict in their handling of the pandemic, their cultures are all a bit more engaged with best practices of public safety, and in many markets, their entertainment industries are still emerging so they likely have a bit more flexibility since the established infrastructure in many markets isn’t as overwhelming.
The power of secondary markets: This article has absolutely nothing to do with ticket brokers, the secondary ticket market, or ticket sales, but it is a pretty good read on using stories, context, and knowledge of what drives people’s buying decisions to make better decisions.
Tennis Australia has an investment arm: This is a controlled thing where Tennis Australia can use its market power from the Australian Open to create real opportunities and a fund that is limited in scope, helping it be choiceful in the opportunities that they take on.
How do you grow a bigger brand? Start with a big brand. So when you see stories about the NFL’s growth, keep in mind that there is data that points to the reality that momentum can drive gains in any market. A big brand trends towards growing bigger and for a league like the NBA, NHL, or MLB to grow again, they need to focus on their spending on share of voice.
I was on the ‘Strategy Sprints’ podcast last week to talk about strategy, marketing, and profitability. Give it a listen.
You can find me everywhere with my special Linktree! It is all my links!
Check out my friends at Booking Protect! Customers have been taking up refund protection at a rate that is double what it was before the pandemic began. This is a great opportunity for you to offer more value to your customers in a way that they want while also creating a new revenue stream for your organization.
The podcast returned week with my friend, Lyndsey Jackson, from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We had a great conversation about leadership, pricing, value, management, and a lot more.