This past Saturday we were out and about. We went to two events. Both were extremely good examples of target marketing and narrow target marketing at that.
First we went to a Roller Derby event. This may surprise you. I had little awareness that this relic of the 1960s was still alive. But it was a well-attended event and the sport, if we can call it that, seems to 
be coming back and it is pretty much only female. It is claimed that there are now 500 women’s leagues in 16 countries.
Most of the women skaters use aliases which are usually a lame pun, somewhat sexual or empowering (Hair Heiny Grainger, DefeCaitlin). I don’t know if they were inspired by the recent Ellen Page Roller Derby movie, but they sure didn’t look like Ellen Page.
Today’s Roller Derby is on a flat track but what was striking to me was that the audience was very homogeneous. It was decidedly blue collar, Caucasian, between 20 and 40, and nearly all bore their ink with pride on bared arms.
There was blue grass music and lots of beer to be consumed by the audience who seemed to have a great time in the converted airport hangar that had been fitted with portable stands. My guess was about 2,500 to 3,000 people were in attendance. I hadn’t seen a crowd that consistently similar in quite a while. Plus the grass roots feel of the converted hangar added an almost Fight Club edge to the proceedings.
Then we trundled
off to watch the new movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
The movie is very entertaining and visually inventive. I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it.
But what was really fascinating was that the audience was very tight demographically. The material in the movie was targeted head on to 20 to 30 year-olds. That was the audience. These were not the same people who were at Roller Derby either demographically or psychographically.
The gags, the comic references, the video game allusions were all strictly understandable by that age group. Much younger and they may not recognize the midi music or the dropping coins; much older and they would not understand any of the references to games or comics. There was even one section inspired by Seinfeld with a TV laugh track.
Having watched over my son’s shoulder, I got a lot of the references (but not all), but I was out of my demographic in that audience. If you want to know what young adults think like, this movie is good homework.
More and more we are seeing very selectively targeted cultural products. Some, like Scott Pilgrim are also reaching out to the mainstream.
It will be interesting to see if there is a big enough mainstream market to support these events outside of their narrow targeting. Or does the product have to be retooled to match the economics of their market size? It would be a pity to dumb down something like Roller Derby.
In any case, with well defined targets, both of these will have their cult followings.
August 30th, 2010 on 11:16 am
Roller derby is starting to get some pretty consistently decent crowds, particularly in larger markets – 2-5,000 fans is not unusual in Seattle, New York, Chicago and even Cleveland (where I skate).
There truly are over 500 leagues in the US right now and quite a few overseas (you can look at some of what’s going on with this sport at http://www.wftda.com). Some of those leagues compete at regional and national levels only, relying on income from home bout attendance, fundraisers and corporate sponsorships. Some of them use “home teams” to support a traveling national team as far as skaters and financing.
I think the market may vary dramatically depending on how the individual league operates and who the league is targeting. For example, Burning River Roller Girls have moved to a larger venue and have been making a concerted effort to broaden their audience by making the events more family friendly, offering ticket specials to students, veterans/military, police, etc. Our crowd has always been pretty diverse but we’ve seen a lot more children in the audience this year, a lot more women, a lot more corporate outings and I’d venture to guess fewer tattoos.
There is a great debate about how to attract an audience and gain credibility as a sport while preserving some of the DIY/entertainment aspects like the names and outfits. Denver national teams skate under their real names at tournaments and under skater names on their home teams, for example. Some leagues don’t mind being featured in the Entertainment section and some try really really hard to make the Sports page. Leagues are really struggling with this.
Even from a marketing perspective, derby is definitely something interesting to watch. I’m glad you gave it a look.
September 1st, 2010 on 9:44 am
Love the babes. They are liberated slaves.
Scott Pilgrim was great, they screwed up the marketing. it should have been a hit but it looks like there was some Michael Cera fatigue that drummed it down below the radar. The advertising was mixed up. The movie was great.
September 22nd, 2010 on 11:04 pm
It is all about targeting. The Scott Pilgrim movie looks like it was too ambitious for the audience it was directed to.
September 23rd, 2010 on 4:51 pm
Do you mean ambitious from a budget stand point? If so, I guess you are right since it didn’t seem to make money. I liked the movie. Haven’t been to live Roller Derby yet, will check it out.