The Wall Street Journal article about Rival, Ticketmaster's new challenger in the market, deals with two categories of the Marketing Mix: product and place.
Former Ticketmaster CEO, Nathan Hubbard, aims to "disrupt the ticketing business" by introducing innovation and achieving greater efficiency in the sale and redemption of tickets. Currently, the market for reselling tickets is valued at $15 billion dollars annually, and Ticketmaster makes up 80% of the market share. Hubbard hopes his new company, Rival, will step in to solve several problems facing the industry, such as large amounts of money "being pocketed by middlemen on the backs of artists and teams," (Hubbard). Hubbard hopes new technology can solve another problem: artists and venues currently have little control over to whom tickets are sold and at what price. The security implications of this issue are large. According to Hubbard, ticket resales through third parties often result in teams knowing the identities of fewer than 10% of people present at an event.
Many companies in the ticketing industry, like StubHub, have marketed themselves as direct channels, meaning that they connect with scalpers and sell tickets directly to consumers. These direct channels play a large role in undermining an event's ability to know who attendees are and provide adequate security. Rival will not be a service that sells directly to the public; instead, Rival will allow artists and teams to set prices and resale policies, and then "monitor and adjust them in real time," (Steele). Hubbard's strategy can be understood as channel development, and it makes up the "place" category of the Marketing Mix. Hubbard intends to hand back control to artists and venue management, which will allow them to both prioritize security and sell more tickets fans. Because the artist and venue will be in charge of product and price, they can be viewed as the channel captain, meaning that Rival will be filling the intermediary role in a producer-led channel and is responsible for the promotion and place of the event's marketing mix.
Rival's emphasis on innovation and increasing efficiency is part of its new-product development, which is a component of the "product" in the marketing mix. Rival is in the beginning stages of market introduction, as the company is engaging in P.R. and raising capital, but will not begin selling tickets until early next year. Hubbard's expertise as former CEO to Ticketmaster has allowed him to pinpoint key areas where Rival can differentiate from competitors and disrupt the market. Rival's system will utilize technology to change the way fans interact with ticket vendors. Fans will be able to use "augmented reality" to interact with different venues and will be able to "swipe around the arena or stadium for various seating positions while the price for each view updates before buying a ticket," (Steele). Additionally, Rival hopes to incorporate facial-recognition technology to increase the ease at which consumers can enter events.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rival-inc/
A general rule considering product lifecycle is that the early bird gets the profits. While existing ticketing companies will likely copy Rival's innovations, Rival is the first of its kind to focus on returning control to artists and their teams. While some of Rival's innovations can be replicated relatively quickly—like the "augmented reality" interface—a competitor will have a difficult time changing their entire channel distribution. Because of Hubbard's former experience as Ticketmaster CEO, he has unparalleled insight into his competitors and their pitfalls. This allowed him to lead an expert situation analysis and develop a marketing mix that is sure to be profitable.
Written by Rachel Ann Eades
Ticketmaster’s New Challenger: Your Face
Published: May 4, 2018
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