HubSpot - 📖 NBA marketer: Take B.I.G. risks

If you could peer inside the playbooks of leading marketers, what would you learn?

That’s the idea behind Masters in Marketing, our new weekly newsletter crammed with insights from today’s top marketing minds.

📈 The deal is simple: Read this every week, get better at your marketing job. Then one day maybe we’ll be interviewing you…

In today’s lineup:

• Meet the Master: An NBA marketer who’s made a career out of bold bets
• Open Tabs: Gary Vee on why traditional Fortune 500 companies are lagging
• Your Turn: Got a burning question for a hot-shot marketer? Send it our way 

MEET THE MASTER

Name: Ron Goldenberg, VP of International Marketing & Innovation at BSE Global

Job: Runs international marketing for the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center

🏀 Fun facts: Ron grew up with SLAM magazine ads on his wall, making his current job a breeze — he's his own target audience. 

Claim to fame: Brought Brooklyn Nets to Paris; launched the ThankYouVince campaign to honor former NBA superstar Vince Carter👇🏾

Lesson 1: If you're not risking your career on a bold marketing move, you're not thinking big enough.

Goldenberg got plenty of pushback when he pitched a Brooklyn Nets activation — in Paris, complete with an orchestral tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. and Brooklyn Nets-inspired pizzeria.

One colleague even said to him, "You really think Parisians are going to show up to a Brooklyn Nets pizzeria?" (I get the hesitation — don't they live off of escargot and croissants?)

He knew there could be major ramifications if the event flopped. But he believed in the concept enough to risk it all. 

"If I'm going to get fired for anything, it's worth [it] for an orchestral tribute to Biggie in Paris,” Goldenberg told me last week. “When your ideas are big enough and bold enough, and you believe in them to the degree that you're willing to take a reputational risk, that's when you're onto something." 

Playing it safe can be a risk in itself. But marketing thrives on standing out, which demands taking chances.

For Goldenberg, the payoff was massive:

• Fans snapped up all 15K tickets to the Nets-Cavaliers game, 3.3K visitors indulged in Brooklyn pizza, and Biggie's tribute sold out in five days 🍕
• 450K unique visitors to Brooklynets.com/paris 
• 64K emails captured (90% net-new to their database)
• 195% YoY surge in ticket sales to French consumers and over seven figures in total revenue 💵

From the court to the crust: The Brooklyn Nets pizzeria pop-up in Paris

Goldenberg got stakeholders on board by being blunt: "You all need to understand how important this is, not just for the Nets but for our fans and the global sports industry,” he told colleagues. “It's never been done before at this scale."

Sticking to the tried-and-true is tempting. But it was insight matched with instinct that landed Goldenberg his big swings.

Lesson 2: Look outside your industry.

Goldenberg doesn't look to other sports teams for marketing inspiration — instead, he learns from other global brands like Stüssy and Oatly.   

As he told me, the Nets activation wasn’t just about basketball; it was about spreading New York's culture and the spirit of Brooklyn. So it didn’t make sense to limit himself to what other NBA teams have done.

Biggie goes baroque: Paris' orchestral tribute to B.I.G. before the Nets-Cavaliers game

Whether you're working for the NBA or a small software startup, Goldenberg's advice is gold: Looking outside your industry can be the best move for evolving your own marketing strategy. 

Lesson 3: Don’t tell a story — sell the story.

Marketers need to be able to tell the same story seven different ways, Goldenberg says.

Your CEO might want to hear about how your new marketing campaign supports the company's high-level strategy; meanwhile, your manager is eager for the nitty-gritty details of how it's all going to play out. 

And when it comes to storytelling, pinpoint the emotion you want to elicit.

“Data will help frame your story, but it certainly isn't going to sell it," he says.

🎙️ Have someone you'd like us to interview? Fill out this form with their name.

Bonus – feel free to add any hot-hitting questions you'd like us to ask them, and we'll give you a shout-out if we do.

A HELPFUL RESOURCE

Powerful apps for mastering analytics

A lot of tools just aren’t built for the complex pipelines and elongated buying cycles that are prevalent in tech-based businesses. 

But these are. See LinkedIn’s list of recommended apps for real-time analytics, attribution reporting, and many forms of B2B measurement. 

Here’s to spending less time digging up data and staring at spreadsheets. You’re better than that. 

OPEN TABS

• Peep LinkedIn’s list of recommended tools for tackling real-time analytics, attribution reporting, and B2B measurement like a beast.
• The 6 biggest mixed messages in marketing in 2024 — and what to do about them
• Gary Vee tells us why traditional Fortune 500 companies are falling behind 
• According to the Verge, "Google Zero" is coming, and SMBs need to prep for the "moment when Google Search stops sending traffic to third-party websites"

This week's email was brought to you by Caroline Forsey. Editing by Curtis del Principe and Laura M. Browning.
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