HAVING steadily grown its business in the Asian region, the National Basketball Association highlighted the key role that “localization” plays in its thrust in bringing the brand, and what it stands for, to more people.
In a roundtable discussion with local media on Wednesday at the NBA Philippines office at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, NBA Asia Managing Director Scott Levy shared that the success The Association is experiencing in this part of the world is a by-product of efforts to really take time to understand the market and find ways to serve it better.
“For us it starts with localization. In every country in the world, people have different habits. They have different ways of experiencing … any brand or any sport. So our focus is to understand the way local cultures work here,” said Mr. Levy, who holds office in Hong Kong and has been overseeing the NBA business here in Asia since 2009.
“… Our key approach is to make sure it’s (brand) embedded in the culture as opposed to asking people to consume the product in something that might be foreign to them. We spend a tremendous amount of time doing that — not only through media and merchandise, but also by going into local communities. We work with schools, work with local coaches to understand what additional tools they might need,” he added.
The NBA official went on to say that the Philippines provides a “special” component in the NBA business in Asia and, hence, deserves the corresponding attention even as he said the market presents challenges as well which they are all too willing to take on.
“We do more here. We never think it’s easy because Filipinos are very demanding. They come back to us and say, ‘There’s not enough games on TV. We want more games on TV. There’s not enough content on social media. The players are not in the market.’ So we want to bring more players here, bring the real experiences. So we bring NBA players during the year, we bring NBA legends, we have dance teams, we have mascots. People can get very close to the game. I think [with] every market, we have a different strategy depending on the dynamics in that market. But the Philippines is one we spend a lot of time on, and make sure we have an office here,” Mr. Levy said.
CLOSURE OF NBA CAFÉ AND STORES
On the recent closure of the NBA Café and stores in the country, Mr. Levy said they lament that it had to happen but nonetheless are bent on learning from it as they continue to build and improve on their business.
“We’re in so many businesses here in the Philippines and our desire is always to find more ways to engage. And you know, sometimes those businesses are not gonna be the best ways. So we’re willing to try things and if they’re successful, great we’ll continue them, and if we think there are better ways to engage we’ll do that,” he said.
“So, when you think about our stores, our focus is about making sure that the product is available – the right type of product is available — in as many places as possible so people can purchase that. Through NBAStore.com, through Nike, through Toby’s and through Titan, we are making sure that we’re putting the best possible product in there. And the [NBA] stores are not critical to making sure that the product is out there. But we may come back to that at some point but that partnership expired and again, that was just a piece of our product distribution and another experience for our fans. Those things are still happening and will continue to happen,” he added.
Moving ahead, Mr. Levy said Asia, and the Philippines in particular, figure prominently in the plans of the NBA, and shoring up the business in the region will continue through, among other things, partnerships.
“Asia has been one of our fastest-growing regions around the world. We have established many new partnerships. We have a long-term partnership with Rakuten in Japan. Rakuten is one of the most innovative companies in the world and the structure of our partnerships are very comprehensive and they’re gonna work with us in many ways to grow the game. Similarly in Indonesia, we have a partnership with Emtek, another technologically advanced company that has distribution across many platforms, they’re very engaged in basketball and that’s gonna help grow the affinity there. I can go on with partnerships from Vietnam and Thailand that are the same way,” he said.
“As for the Philippines, it is an incredibly important market for us. It’s one of our largest markets in the world. It probably is the market with the highest fan affinity for basketball and that’s daunting. To satisfy everybody, that’s a full-time job. That’s why we have the team here on the ground, the team in Hong Kong, that’s also focused on the Philippines and, of course, our entire organization that contributes to everything that we’re doing here. So we don’t take the fan base here lightly. We are focused on making sure that everybody is happy with what they have available and we’re listening for the things that we need to do better,” Mr. Levy added. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
