The 'Funnest' Sport

consumer perception

IMAGE COURTESY OF USA SWIMMING.

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The ‘Funnest’ Sport USA Swimming launches a PSA campaign to encourage more kids to dive in

By Christine Birkner | senior staff writer

 cbirkner@ama.org Goal While more kids join local swim teams during Olympic periods, swim team participation only grows 1 to 2% on an annual basis, and in 2014, 80% of parents who took their children to swimming lessons didn’t consider keeping their kids in the sport, according to USA Swimming, the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based national governing body of competitive swimming in the U.S. “Parents thought: I’ve done my good deed. I’ve taught my kid to swim. Now let’s go play soccer or basketball,” says

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Matt Farrell, CMO of USA Swimming.

Farrell and his team set out to change parents’ perceptions, boosting swimming’s appeal as a recreational activity. “It’s not like parents didn’t know our product was on the shelf, but it wasn’t top of mind and they weren’t considering it like they were other sports,” he says.

“We wanted to get ahead of this for the future of the sport.”

Action USA Swimming enlisted Minneapolisbased advertising agency Colle + McVoy

to create a campaign to encourage more kids to join local swim teams. To develop messaging for the campaign, USA Swimming and Colle + McVoy polled kids on swim teams to find out why they enjoyed the sport, building the campaign around the tagline, “The Funnest Sport,” based on those findings.

“The word ‘fun’ kept coming up in our research,” Farrell says. “Having fun and enjoying the experience is the No. 1 driver of why kids join a sport.

If they aren’t having fun, it’s why they quit. It would be easy for someone to say that swimming laps or looking at the black line at the bottom of the pool isn’t fun, but I don’t think any basketball player would tell you that running Z-drills in practice is fun. They look at their overall experience as fun.

Swimming is hard work, but the overall experience, and being part of a team, is fun. It was a story that we were trying to tell better.”

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CONSUMER PERCEPTION

The grammatically incorrect term “funnest” also helped the campaign get noticed, Farrell says. “It was a huge difference maker. When you don’t have a huge budget, you have to do something that breaks through the clutter.”

The campaign launched in May 2014 with two 15-second spots that ran on TV, social media and YouTube with the voiceovers, “Basketball, softball, cannonball: Which one sounds the most fun to you?” and: “I’m passionate. I’m dedicated. I am an alligator.” A 30-second spot focused on the health benefits of swimming, with a 9-year-old swimmer high-fiving his cheering teammates after he completes a race, and the voiceover, “Swimming introduces kids to the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy kid is a confident kid.”

Some of the spots ran during national swimming competitions on NBC. “There’s a contrast there: You’re watching these athletes who are the best in the world, competing at the highest levels of the sport, and you see footage from our commercials of kids who could be your kids, or your neighbors’ kids,” says Mike Caguin, chief creative officer at Colle + McVoy. “When you see kids doing a cannonball, it makes swimming more approachable.”

Both ads directed viewers to SwimToday. org, where users can search for swim teams by zip code. “Parents’ No. 1 problem might be getting over the fact that they don’t know where to begin, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to find a team,” Caguin says.

The website also includes a parents’ guide, which answers frequently asked questions about swimming, such as how to choose a team and what to expect at your first swim meet; an order form for kits with stickers, bracelets and temporary tattoos that promote swimming; and downloadable, customizable posters to display at local pools. “We needed something where kids were thinking about swimming the most: at swim lessons. They’re at the point of sale,” Caguin says.

The campaign was promoted in USA Swimming’s social media channels

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own daughter involved in swimming.

We felt like she was the perfect spokesperson to carry that message.”

COMPANY

UsA swimming HEADQUARTERS

Colorado Springs, Colo.

CAMPAIGN TIMELINE

May to August 2014 CAMPAIGN BUDGET

$700,000 RESULTS

Spots aired more than 3,000 times, and received more than 46,000 views, combined, on YouTube. SwimToday.org had 4.5 million visitors, with 50% of visitors searching for a swim team, and the campaign garnered media mentions in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated for Kids, and on NPR.

with the hashtag #FunnestSport. USA Swimming also enlisted the help of Olympic gold medalists: Ryan Lochte and Cullen Jones appeared on a video on USA Swimming’s website talking about why they love swimming, and Missy Franklin tweeted about the effort. “We asked them for a favor and they were incredibly supportive,” Farrell says. “It helped us build the credibility inside the swimming audience first.”

Dara Torres, who won her 12th Olympic medal in 2008 at 40 years old, also tweeted about the effort. “We’ve found that moms are the primary decision-maker in the household when it comes to swimming decisions,” Farrell says. “Dara Torres is a mom and a decorated Olympian, and is getting her

Results From May to August 2014, the spots were distributed to 1,500 TV stations, were aired more than 3,000 times and received more than 46,000 views, combined, on YouTube. SwimToday.org had 4.5 million visitors, with 50% of visitors searching for a swim team, according to Farrell. The campaign garnered media mentions in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated for Kids, and on NPR. USA Swimming will run the campaign again this summer.

The campaign budget was $700,000, and 10 industry partners, including Arena, Speedo and TYR, also contributed financially to the effort.

“The way the industry pulled together was one of the pieces we’re most proud of,” Farrell says. “It really galvanized the industry around one message. It’s about generating leads for local swim teams, and we had more people search for swim teams than they ever have before.”

Vince O'Brien, senior vice president and consultant for global sports and entertainment at GMR Marketing, a New Berlin, Wis.-based sports marketing agency, says that the campaign will resonate with kids because of its focus on swimming as a team sport. “Most people see it as an individual sport, like running, but Michael Phelps has said that one of his favorite parts of swimming is swimming on the relays. Kids love the camaraderie of the team.”

The campaign also resonated within the broader swimming community, Farrell says. “Swimmers got it. It almost became a rallying cry within the sport, itself.” m •org For more on swimming-focused campaigns, check out “The Art of the Celebrity Endorsement” from the May 2014 issue of Marketing News, available at AMA.org/ MarketingNews.

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