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Pro wrestling went digital and picked its brand up off the mat
On the morning of May 13, one of the key members of the World Wrestling Entertainment social team tweeted out a promo for the weekly broadcast of WWE Monday Night Raw. The tweet itself was unremarkable, reading, “ill see you guys 2nite on #Raw” with the hashtag #rttimeisnow. Much more interesting was the fact it was none other than wrestling superstar John Cena doing the tweeting. The message was retweeted 880 times. Five days later, Cena, who has 4.2 million followers, tweeted the hashtag again alerting fans the WWE had arrived in Beaumont, Texas and 659 hit the RT button, pushing the marketing message out to their own social networks.
Small numbers, maybe. But the WWE understands the power of a targeted social mob. If each user who RT’d Cena’s first tweet had just 100 followers, they’d create an audience of almost 90,000. Similarly, the WWE’s current roster of 60 wrestlers—all of whom are active on social—adds up to a massive presence the company has turned into a huge driver of revenue.
In total, the WWE and its wrestlers (called “Superstars”) have 123 million fans/followers on Facebook and Twitter—a combined presence that reaches more consumers than Target, Pepsi, the NHL or Taco Bell. Using that audience, the WWE is now driving eyeballs to its TV broadcasts and pay-per-views (a cash cow for the WWE), promoting an online store stuffed with T-shirts and action figures and pushing traffic to ad-supported web content supplementing its mainstay TV offering.
In the first three months of 2013, the WWE’s digital revenues were up 27% to $9 million thanks to ad sales on WWE.com and a flourishing e-commerce business, accounting for 14% of overall revenue. The cash flow couldn’t come at a better time for the brand, which saw its net income plummet to just $3 million in the same period, down from $15.3 million in the first quarter of 2012. Stakes are high for the WWE, which is fighting to maintain its fanbase in the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s metoric rise, not to mention the explosion of entertainment options aimed at young male consumers, from the X Games to the ever-growing selection of glossy blockbuster Xbox titles. At the same time, the 61-year-old company is grappling with how to get a new breed of teen boys to look up from their phones and pay attention to a product that rose to prominence in vaudeville halls.
Just a few short years ago, many in the sports world were wondering what would happen to the WWE as the popularity of mixed martial arts and, more specifically, its most popular brand, UFC, skyrocketed. Brian Cooper, president of the Toronto-based sports marketing firm S&E, says the UFC threatened the WWE franchise by providing WWE-style entertainment, story arcs, music and graphics—and, the kicker, an actual competitive sport.
“Four years ago a lot of people would have said this brand was going for a dive,” Cooper says. But by embracing social and taking a multiplatform, always-on approach, the company is still on its feet and taking on all challengers. “What they’ve done is [create] a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week content distribution model, and they’ve done it really well.”
Cooper says much of the WWE’s strategy, from owning content platforms to working with multiple distributors (including more than 20 digital content partners), mirrors the playbook of the National Basketball Association.
“They’ve peeled off what the NBA has been doing for eight to 10 years and they’ve been doing it really well, from video games to toys,” Cooper says. “The NBA model is about not only the players, but also the guys in the stands and the clothing, the lifestyle, the music. They cross promote it through [all channels] and these guys, I believe, looked at that.”
At this year’s WrestleMania, two of pro wrestling’s top draws—and most popular wrestlers on social—stared each other down from opposite ends of the ring. In one corner was Dwayne Johnson (12.5 million social fans), a.k.a. The Rock, who at 41 is one of few wrestling Superstars to achieve crossover, mainstream fame, acting in blockbusters like this year’s Fast & Furious 6. In the other corner was Cena (17 million social fans), the most recent face to rise to Rock-like levels of WWE fandom.
It was the type of high stakes faceoff that can only be delivered by script: Cena won the bout after performing his trademark “Attitude Adjustment” on the Rock. But behind the scenes, hundreds of thousands of social narratives were also playing out, creating a richer, deeper story for the WWE brand.
The 29th edition of WrestleMania was the most connected event in the organization’s history. In the lead up, CEO Vince McMahon finally joined Twitter (he now has 250,000 followers), Superstars took questions from Twitter at an “interactive” press conference streamed on YouTube, Facebook and WWE.com, and a diverse crew of “social media ambassadors,” including Piers Morgan, Mike Tyson and Snooki, tweeted about WrestleMania Week events.
The all-hands-on-deck approach included the WWE’s first use of Pinterest and Tumblr and “Coming Home,” a crowdsourced video of fan photos set to WrestleMania 29’s theme song. It also partnered with Hootsuite to create a dashboard showing which wrestlers earned the most social mentions. At the sold-out event at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the WWE even re-positioned antennas to improve the mobile bandwidth to ensure fans could share in real time.
As part of the digital overhaul it has put into overdrive in the past year, the WWE has launched apps on mobile, Facebook and Xbox and a responsive version of WWE.com fit for smartphones and tablets. Perkins Miller, the former Universal Sports COO appointed WWE executive vice-president of digital media last August, says the pay-per-view sales pitch follows the typical approach the WWE takes to commerce on social.
Here’s the strategy: first the WWE provides exclusive content, then uses it to create dialogue. Once the brand establishes a connection, it sends a marketing message.
“Right at that moment, in the last 30 minutes, we’ll tell people it’s time to buy the pay-per-view and they will go buy it on their TV, their Xbox, tablet or laptop,” Miller says of the broadcasts, which cost $69.99 in high definition. “We make a natural connection: Hey, did you have a great time watching our pre-show? Guess what? Time to watch. Click here, go to your TV provider to buy it now.”
Miller says timing is key for generating revenue through social, as is paying attention to what your fans are saying. “To really make money with social media, you have to listen to it. You have to see what kind of conversation [fans] are having, around what content and at what time,” he says. “Be sure you’re sending a meaningful offer to them so it doesn’t seem like you’re interrupting their day or somehow overriding the story with commerce.”
Though the WWE does not employ an agency for above-the-line work, it works with several digital partners, including Echo, a San Francisco-based company that built Superstar profile pages to pull in content from multiple social networks on which the WWE then sells ads. Cena’s WWE.com profile, for example, shows tweets and Facebook posts next to an ad for Fruity Pebbles, a cereal for which he is the spokesperson. By aggregating content like this, as well as famous matches from WWE’s archives and galleries of Instagram photos posted by the WWE’s female wrestlers (called “Divas”), the brand has created a social ecosystem that also drives ad revenue, says Khris Loux, founder and CEO of Echo. Loux says while many brands have given social a “hall pass” on ROI, the WWE has connected it directly to increases in sales.
It has done so by incorporating social into its marketing strategy at a very early stage.
“The WWE has been very forward leaning,” Loux says. “By coordinating with talent before the event, they’re able to encourage specific outcomes. The idea of social isn’t created after the event, it’s before the event even happens.”
The digital team is able to, for example, have the Rock tweet “When I say boots to asses, trend it on Twitter,” then see #bootstoasses trend during broadcast, a formula applied to simple engagements like these that link broadcasts to social conversations, but also to amplify the power wrestlers have to push product on social. Miller says merchandise sales jump as much as 300% when a Superstar tweets a link. The company’s e-commerce business is booming, thanks in large part to these types of promotions. In the first three months of 2013, WWEShop processed more than 73,000 online orders, averaging at almost $50, to earn a cumulative $3.5 million.
Having a large group represent a single brand, though, takes planning and education, including guidelines like tweeting twice a day and responding to one to two fans daily.
The WWE meets with the entire roster of wrestlers bi-monthly to talk strategy and has social staff available for consultation, including community managers who go on the road to provide Superstars with hashtags, graphic assets and e-commerce offers.
Norman O’Reilly, a sports marketing professor at Ottawa University, says his studies of merchandise sales across a number of leagues have shown sports celebrities have great influence over consumers.
“They have a strong impact on any kind of action, whether it’s people buying merchandise, watching television or buying tickets. It’s very, very strong,” he says, adding social strengthens the emotional connection between consumers and athlete brands. “Social media allows the fan or interested consumer to get to know the brand in a different way that potentially showcases more attributes.”
O’Reilly says the WWE’s digital strategy is similar to many sports brands, though it’s excelling where many are failing. It’s also succeeded where brands in many sectors have failed: creating real, sustainable revenue with direct links to investments in social/digital.
Though O’Reilly says the WWE should be pleased with its jumps in digital revenue, he cautions sports marketers from pulling their focus too far from TV.
“Television is the golden egg funding sports entertainment. If you start filtering off access to sports properties on other channels for revenue, you start to cannibalize your main revenue source,” he says. “It’s something the whole industry is struggling with and this could happen to the WWE as well.”
For more on how sports leagues and personalities are leveraging social media, including a look at WWE’s Divas, subscribe to Marketing. And check out our latest issue on your iPad!
