13 minute read
How to market a stallion
James Thomas talks to stallion marketing managers about their approach to “McCarthy’s Marketing Mix"
The four Ps
WHETHER YOU ARE in the market for a hot tub or a holiday, a mobile phone or a made-to-measure suit, underfloor heating or new underwear, inevitably you will have encountered marketing in some shape or form.
The same is true for those on the lookout for stallion nominations, with a huge spectrum of promotion out there vying for breeders’ attention, whether they are looking for a visit to Blue Bresil or Frankel, or anything in between.
Marketing at work: Laura Green capturing Darley stallion Pinatubo on camera, good conformation photos and stud shots the basis to stallion promotion
The most visible bits of stallion marketing include the tried and tested print advertising in industry publications and the kind of branded merchandise that is de rigueur at sales around the world. There is, however, slightly more to the world of stallion marketing in 2022 than print-based adverts or caps emblazoned with a horse’s name.
In 1960 Edmund Jerome McCarthy published his textbook Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach, in which he proposed a concept that became known as the marketing mix. McCarthy’s principle rested on the four Ps: Place, Price, Product, and Promotion.
While the significance of each ‘P’ may vary across different products, Julian Dollar, general manager of Newsells Park Stud, home to A’Ali, Nathaniel and Without Parole, says that price, in this case the nomination fee, is a pivotal piece of the stallion marketing puzzle.
He says: “With stallion marketing I think you really need to start with a degree in psychology, but you have to set the stallion fee right, that’s something that I think is incredibly important. You shouldn’t go too low as it sends the wrong message out there.”
Dollar’s view on the significance of a stallion’s fee was echoed by Shadwell’s nominations and marketing manager Tom Pennington, who oversees three stallions in Eqtidaar, Mohaather and Tasleet at Nunnery Stud.
He says: “When you’re advertising stallions you’re trying to hammer home all the important points, but, at the end of the day, the key thing is the fee. A fair bit of debate goes into setting a horse’s fee each year, but I think we’ve always been good at keeping them at a realistic level.”
In turn, breeders also need to be realistic, as the most popular stallions – the “product” according to the four Ps concept – tend to be wildly oversubscribed. However, even when the fully booked signs go up on a stallion, marketing still has an important role to play, says Barnaby Webb, marketing manager at Darley’s Dalham Hall Stud, which houses the likes of Dubawi, Palace Pier and Too Darn Hot.
“In the main the top stallions look after themselves and their books could be easily filled, but the trick is to ensure we get the best mares to our best stallions,” says Webb.
“Marketing has a key role to play there in highlighting the attributes of other, newer stallions. So, with Dubawi it’s very easy to talk about his exceptional son Night Of Thunder, and the right marketing will encourage breeders to look at the future generations with the likes of Too Darn Hot, Ghaiyyath and Space Blues, who are all at exciting points in their stallion careers.”
Whatever the stallion and whatever his price point, whether it be at a bargain level or into blue chip territory, getting the right message out there is vital, be that information on the equine ‘Ps’: pedigree, performance, or the all important price.
This is where another of the ‘Ps’, namely promotion, comes into play.
In the broadest terms promotion refers to marketing communication with paying and potential customers, and comprises all manner of components from social media content to stallion parade appearances, as well as the aforementioned print adverts and branded merchandise.
HOWEVER, our industry insiders stress that nominations are rarely sold on the strength of one element alone. Instead, they say it is all about ensuring your horse’s name is visible in a busy marketplace, and thereafter the idea is that a cumulative effect of positive reinforcements will help to seal the deal.
“I don’t think we necessarily sell nominations through doing adverts in daily publications and I wouldn’t say we sell many nominations on the back of social media,” says Pennington. “It’s all about brand awareness, that’s the main reason we do it, to keep ourselves in the limelight.”
Dollar adds: “The website is obviously a big part of it and social media is another form of promotion. It’s important to make sure all the salient points are out there and that’s why we do a lot of success advertising, because I think it’s important to spread the good news.
“It’s all about getting the name out there, especially with the new stallions. Someone might see the name on the back of a jacket or the front of a cap and you just never know where that might end up.”
While digital platforms represent a major growth area in the stallion marketing sector, the demographic of the target market means that breeders’ behaviour has not necessarily developed at the same rate as the technology at their disposal.
This means more traditional methods of communication are still crucial in converting interest into investment.
“We conducted some research and asked our breeders what tools they use when drawing up their mating plans,” explains Pennington. “Stallion brochures narrowly came out on top, followed by stud websites.
He continues: “The biggest thing for us in terms of client relations is picking up the phone. That’s so important and I think in this day and age people have slightly forgotten about that. People think running a few ads and doing a few social media posts alone is going to sell nominations, but it won’t.
“That personal touch means so much and picking up the phone to ask someone about their mare or their foal is still the most effective form of marketing. People want to feel looked after and that’s not always necessarily through a deal on the price. You have to give something back as breeders are investing a lot of money and putting a lot of faith in our stallions, and that applies all year round.”
Webb also acknowledges the impact that the demographic among breeders has on Darley’s marketing strategies, but says their approach is not only about serving the breeders of here and now but, through fresh storytelling techniques, engaging and informing those who may take up the pursuit further down the line.
“Historically, those in the breeding business have tended to be a little older and a little slower to adopt new platforms,” he says. “However, Darley has always prided itself on being at the forefront of innovation, so we’re always pursuing alternate ways to tell our story. And alongside that we have been implementing new ways for clients to contact us, manage their bookings and keep informed about all things Darley.
“Our job is also to ensure we play our part in encouraging the next generation of breeders for whom all these channels will be second nature. There will always be a role for more traditional marketing; our regular adverts, whether in print or online, plus of course our brochures and Darley caps.
“These all help reinforce to clients our key messages about the depth and variety of our roster, while also allowing us to report on recent successes, stallion statistics and provide a place to share some of our behindthe-scenes content.”
AS WELL AS its own diverse digital offering, Newsells Park has periodically sent their clients, both loyal and prospective, a mailed out gift pack, with recipients finding an envelope in the stud’s yellow livery containing chocolate as well as information about the farm’s stallion roster.
While the chocolate was a nod to the operation’s former owners, the Jacobs family, who made their fortune in the coffee and chocolate industry, Newsells have also pushed the boat out with more novel items too, including promoting Equiano with a pair of yellow Speedos.
“I’ve always liked doing the odd mailer so that we can get something onto peoples’ desks that they’re going to look at and maybe even smile about,” says Dollar. “Chocolate was an effective way of doing that because everyone likes chocolate, and if they don’t the likelihood is their nearest and dearest does. Sometimes we’ve done it with a bit more of a sense of humour, too.
“From the moment we got Equiano we traded on the speed element, we used to call him the ‘King Of Speed’, so when Jackie Hutchinson [of Pace Marketing Solutions] came to our spring meeting she brought various ideas along, including a pair of speedos!
“I took one look at them and thought ‘What the hell?!’ and it wasn’t until a year later we decided to play on the King Of Speed/King Of Speedos angle. It was all pretty harmless, although I had to send one lady a bunch of yellow flowers to apologise as she was so disgusted!”
Dollar adds: “You don’t want to paint yourself as being too lighthearted or frivolous about what you do because we’re deadly serious about breeding the best racehorse we can.
As Julian Dollar says the serious business of breeding racehorses needs a bit of humour every now and again. The Newsells Park Stud’s “King of the Speedos” campaign did just that, but the humourous approach ensured the promotion was also successfully lodged in the memory banks for all those who received a pair. Sadly, no male models appeared wearing them on Instagram... but if you can bring in a bit of humour or enjoyment into the job, then why not?”
Not all racing and breeding jurisdictions are guilty of taking such a conservative approach to stallion promotion, of course, with Australia racing a notable example.
Arrowfield, which has been home to champion stallions Danehill and Redoute’s Choice and, most recently, Snitzel has a wealth of interesting and entertaining content on their YouTube channel, including a sitcom called ‘Studs’.
The three episodes, which were written by the operation’s Paul Messara, sees the Australian-bred Snitzel getting into a war of words with his New Zealand-bred neighbour Dundeel, Real Impact sharing Japanese proverbs with Not A Single Doubt and Olympic Glory, and Panzer Division warning new recruit Scissor Kick about becoming too emotionally attached to the mares he covers.
If that all sounds rather unorthodox, that’s because it is. But, thanks to the power of the voiceover, the episodes also contain a stack of information that breeders will find relevant, and anyone who has tuned in is unlikely to forget about the horses involved in a hurry.
While established brands with the image, history and global reach of Darley and Shadwell seem unlikely to start scripting their own sitcoms any time soon, Pennington says that the power of video has already demonstrated its value in the bloodstock world and predicts that will only increase as the next generation of breeders take up the mantle.
“Where I think social media is so effective is the use of video,” he says. “I don’t think replicating a print advert on social media has any impact, but with video you can show off the stallions and their progeny. We’ve seen how influential the introduction of video has been at the sales and when I asked our breeders if they had found stallion videos beneficial during the pandemic, 70 per cent said yes.
“A lot of breeders still have the same sort of outlook as they had 40 years ago, but as a younger generation of breeders come through they are going to be more tech savvy, so I think digital marketing can only have a growing influence. I think print advertising will eventually become a thing of the past, although I’m not sure how quickly that will happen.”
The social media influencer is a distinctly modern phenomenon, with stars of platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok boasting both expertise in niche industries as well as sizeable followings that afford them considerable sway over their target audience.
WHILE PEOPLE posting about fashion from their bedrooms may sound a frivolous pursuit to many in the bloodstock world, there is no denying that being an influencer has become big business, with Zoe Sugg, who posts under the name Zoella, having an estimated net worth of £4.7 million thanks to her online exploits.
Dollar says he has watched the rise of the influencer with interest, although admits that exactly how the breeding industry would utilise such personalities remains to be seen.
While influencers may not have reached the breeding world just yet [Maybe it has – see page 46, Editor], Webb says there have been other shifts that Darley are already responding to.
“Consumer habits are constantly changing and you only have to look around the sales rings to see how many breeders and agents are working from iPads or their phones to realise that digital platforms are the growth area,” he says. “Yes, I know iPads have been around for years but we are discussing a very conservative industry.
“I would expect racing to follow other sports with many more podcasts, vlogs and far more behind-the-scenes content. Closer to home, we have had great success with MyDarley, our personalised client portal, which allows clients to sign contracts and submit mare forms online, as well as get free pedigree updates for their mares and enhanced stallion statistics.
“The good thing is that no one at Darley is afraid of any of the new technologies and we will embrace all media to ensure that the stories of our top stallions are told.”
All agree that good use of the company’s website is key, giving breeders the chance to see the stallions and now watch videos: here is Mohaather from Shadwell (If you are reading online, the video should now be playing)
