Keeping Pace: A Conversation with NBA's Tatiana Holifield-Arthur

Phil McKenzie In an attention economy how do you build a digital strategy that is successful in this media environment Tatiana HolifieldArthur We are all fighting for attention There is a lot of available content vying for eyeballs The traditional ways that sports organizations created fandom doesn39t exist anymore The days of you growing up and following a team as a loyalist is over We are not only competing for attention but we are also fighting to get people to come to the arena versus watching clips on social mediaThe diverging ways in which people are consuming their content means the monetization is also divided Our goal as a brand is to determine the best method among myriad options to reach our fansMcKenzie You are responsible for the Pacers the Fever the G League the esports team and the arena complex itself Any one of those could be its own brand How do you create a cohesive brand message HolifieldArthur That is one of the primary reasons the Pacers brought me on board Prior there was no one to oversee all five of these brands and as a result everyone acted independently So I was charged with creating a cohesive strategy that would allow us to be more creative with our assets and more effective From a brand voice perspective we need to be costefficient while also recognizing their unique elementsI come from an entertainment background I have to work across different audiences and finding what resonates Pacers Entertainment is in the same business just with different brandsMcKenzie How do you bring that cohesion togetherHolifieldArthur Our goal is to speak authentically to our audience We do that by building an internal team composed of true lovers of the brand itself In that way we ensure they will create a social feed that they would want to interact with if they were on the fan side of that experience If you39re going to be a brand on social and digital channels you have to be real and speak to your audience without pretenseMany brands talk about authenticity as a challenge but I don39t think it39s that hard It is just as important to listen to fans as it is to project content outward Moreover with the power of social media if fans don39t like your content the feedback with be direct and immediateMcKenzie How has your transition been to join an organization in such a maledominated industry HolifieldArthur Pacers Sports and Entertainment has welcomed me with open arms and has given the support that I need to make our workplace a more inclusive environment Before I officially started we had a conversation about making the organization more diverse and inclusive and they are on board with that Everyone is committed to making sure we have the broadest definition of diversity bringing their talents to the table each dayOur audiences are diverse and we should be reflective of that to effectively communicate However are you supporting the people that you have within your company Are you giving women or people of color opportunities to be leaders within your organization I was the first African American woman of color and now we are up to five in just under a year I think we are setting a positive example of what is possible with a real commitmentMcKenzie What has taken so long for these strides in diversity and inclusion to be made Especially since as you cited audiences are more diverse HolifieldArthur You would think that the days of trailblazing in the capacity of diversity and inclusion would have already happened However the challenge is often from those who are in leadership roles When they are given the ability to hire they are often most comfortable with the people who look like them and they have something in common with This perpetuates a lack of diversityIt does companies a disservice when they don39t stretch their thought process in identifying potential candidates who can bring a different opinion background or space altogether When I was hiring and going through traditional sports searches I was finding the same candidates I realized I needed to get more creative in my sources to widen the pool of candidatesMcKenzie How has that creativity translated directly into the creative strategy HolifieldArthur One of our standout campaigns has been our schedule release video Within the NBA the videos that teams distribute to announce their schedules are very competitive and everyone tries to outdo everyone elseGiven my entertainment background I wanted to challenge my team to not only do something different but also to stretch the entire organization Ultimately we created a Netflixthemed schedule release video All of the brandings were Netflixinfused the scroll through functions the titles we chose etc It ended up being one of the most successful schedule release videos and there was a ton of press So outofthebox thinking was a winner for usMcKenzie How are you balancing the digital fan experience the need to get bodies in the arena and meeting fans where they natively live HolifieldArthur The ultimate goal of any company is to drive revenue and specifically for a sports organization we want to sell tickets We also understand that with the usual constraints and the fight for attention we cited earlier these goals might not always be compatible So social media is a way that we can leverage those two ideas and give value to our audienceWe recently launched our TikTok channel for both the Pacers and the Fever and the engagement has been great It might not seem like a natural fit being that TikTok is a music app but we have found that fans and even players like to interact via that medium It allows our fans to see the players beyond the court We39ll postdance challenge videos on TikTok which lets us leverage our dance team the Pacemates as another example We want to take our efforts beyond the court and make it into a lifestyleMcKenzie How do you leverage the inherent influence of the players into your marketing strategy HolifieldArthur Players are influencers in their own right Working with them and incorporating them into what we do is different from working with a typical influencer because their job per se is to be an athlete first So the amount of access is automatically limited especially during the seasonPlayers have their causes and initiatives and we try to support those to ensure our relationship is mutually beneficialI39m developing a formalized influencer strategy that extends beyond players and plugs us into other celebrities and microinfluencers A lot of what we do will be predicated on establishing tiers of influencers macroinfluencers who may have say a million followers or more local TV and radio personalities and finally micro and niche influencersMcKenzie What should be on our radar in this new media landscape HolifieldArthur Legislation and politics are very important when you39re thinking about the future of media Those two factors determine so much of the competitive environment in which media operates I think the one thing that many people don39t always consider is how legislation and politics play a role in what we can do from a media standpoint They set the rules the table and the parameters In short the regulatory environment mattersTechnology as a whole is having an outsized effect on our lives amp8212 specifically automation Although still speculative resources are being allocated toward driverless cars and we are embedding technology into our lives via smartphones and smart speakers and we need to be paying attention to thatClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Keeping Pace: A Conversation with NBA's Tatiana Holifield-Arthur

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