The Topps Company, Inc., famously known as the creator of sports cards and entertainment products, has announced that they will launch a unique, comprehensive brand partnership with SeatGeek, the leading online ticketing search engine, to spread awareness of Topps’ new iOS applications among sports fans and SeatGeek users.
The brand integration for Topps’ “BUNT” and “Pennant” apps will largely be in the form of placements on stadium maps across SeatGeek’s Major League Baseball ticketing pages, as well as other strategic placements throughout the SeatGeek website.
“We’ve integrated the placement onto the stadium map because we feel that it is an elegant and unobtrusive way of integrating this brand partnership into our broader user experience,” Will Flaherty, director of communications for SeatGeek, told TicketNews via email. “With the messaging placed in the center of the outfield, it almost looks like the placement has been cut into the field.”
According to Flaherty, their placement strategy seems to be effective as the company has seen click-through rates more than 15 times the industry average.
Topps’ new apps each have their own identity, but both aim to “appeal to a more techcentric youth market,” according to The New York Times.
The BUNT app, which is similar to an online fantasy league, allows users to follow the MLB season, choose their favorite team, collect and trade players, and earn points based on the team’s actual performance. Users of the app can also talk baseball with friends, family, and other fans.
The Pennant app allows users to relive their favorite baseball moments from every game and season dating back to 1952. The app, available for iPhone and iPad, provides scores and play-by-plays via interactive infographics.
According to Flaherty, “sports fans can benefit by being exposed to two new apps that each help make the experience of attending or watching an MLB game more enjoyable,” he told TicketNews.
The goal of Topps’ integration with SeatGeek is to provide consumers with an effortless way to learn more about these apps and an easy path to download them from the Apple App Store. SeatGeek will give Topps an outlet to promote their new digital presence and will put them in direct contact with consumers that will benefit from their product.
As the world’s largest ticketing search engine, SeatGeek provides listings from over 60 secondary market providers so that consumers can easily find the best deal on live entertainment tickets. The company’s award-winning event interface combines dynamic stadium maps with 3D seat views to make choosing the best seats a breeze. SeatGeek also offers innovative tools like Deal Score, which runs all listings through a proprietary algorithm that ranks and places a value on each ticket based on a 0-100 scale. The popular online ticketing search engine is the official ticketing partner for publications like Yahoo! Sports, Gannett, Hearst Newspapers, AOL Music, Billboard, and Pollstar.
“The Topps partnership really meshes with our philosophy in a number of ways,” Flaherty told TicketNews via email. “We’re always looking to help our users find ways to enjoy the sports and performing artists they love. While we usually satisfy this goal by helping them find great deals on tickets, we also think it’s great to bring their attention to other technologies or products that will enhance their experience as fans. We feel that these Topps apps do just that, so we’re excited to share them with our users through this promotion.”
