‘If you’re going to go big, make sure you don’t make a mistake’: What brand marketers can learn from the Major League Baseball
The Major League Baseball (MLB) underwent some of its biggest changes in 50 years in 2023, and according to one of the league’s head figures, the success it experienced can be applied by brand marketers.
Speaking at an Inspiration Keynote on day two of the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer, Chris Marinak, took the audience through some of the changes the league made last year and how it helped the experience for fans on and off the pitch.
Marinak said that the introduction of things like pitch timers and bigger bases have helped the MLB grow immensely, with the changes helping the US competition to decrease the times of games by 30 minutes and enjoy its biggest attendance increase since 1993 – a 9.6% increase between the 2022 and 2023 seasons (70.7 million).
According to Marinak, the MLB’s crowd attendance in 2023 was bigger than that of the NFL and NBA combined.
However, Marinak explained that those wins are a process and the MLB had to consider many factors before making those changes; something that brand marketers should also think about in their own work.
“Don’t just implement change because you think it will be successful. Ask your consumer what they want and give them something that will deliver the results that they’re asking for,” he said.
“Secondly is test big changes to make sure you get them right. If you’re going to go big, make sure you don’t make a mistake.”
Chris Marinak at 2024 Adobe Summit
The changes that the MLB made came after being tested in the four levels of amateur baseball below the major league.
“The changes that we had around the pitch clock and pickoff implementations to make sure that they worked, to make sure that they actually gave fans what they want and that they were successful. So, when we implemented them at a major league level, we knew what they were going to do,” he said.
Marinak said the last thing marketers should consider is working with and educating stakeholders on the plans to help them understand the purpose and reasoning behind the change and why they should put effort in to adopting that change, much like the MLB did with its fans.
In fact, a campaign video featuring Academy-award winning and multiple Emmy award winner, Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), helped get that message out to fans ahead of the 2023 season.
“We spent countless hours with our players, with our coaches, about what those rule changes were… when the changes came on the field, people knew they were coming and they were ready for them. And as a result, they were willing to embrace them and adopt them,” he explained.
“And that’s how we got over some of the historical limitations and hesitancy towards change and really made lasting and impactful change.”
Mumbrella is attending this conference as a guest of Adobe. Keep an eye on mumbrella.com.au as we cover the Summit on ground in Las Vegas.
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Neil Griffiths is the editor of Mumbrella. He joined the company in October 2023.
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