Exclusive: Latest Strikeforce Nashville 4/17 CBS Promos & Event Website (4/5/10) :

CBS and Strikeforce have released new promos for the Strikeforce Nashville event taking place on April 17th.  The footage for this promo is the ad spot being aired during the NCAA March Madness tournament, introducing Dan Henderson, Jake Shields, Gilbert Melendez, Shinya Aoki, and Gegard Mousasi to the CBS audience.

Strikeforce has released a ticket sales ad spot for the Nashville event on 4/17, meant to used for ticket sale marketing campaigns and not geared for the CBS audience.

Here Strikeforce releases a promo for their new Strikeforce Nashville Website:

Payout Perspective:

In the MMAterial Facts (3/23/10) feature, MMAPayout introduced the 26 second ad spot on CBS to the MMA fanbase. That video alone was able to garner almost 20k views in the span of a day, and hence jump started CBS and Strikeforce’s efforts into viral video marketing for the Nashville 4/17 event.

Criticism to Strikeforce’s promotional efforts relate mostly to the lack of promotional material, the effectiveness of that material, and the reach outside of their fan-base. Promotional videos were made available in the past leading up to the events, but that material was, for the most part, available only on the Strikeforce or Showtime websites, or in their YouTube channels, which fans don’t regularly frequent.

Creating a viral promotional effort, highlighted by the effective use of marketing tools like Twitter, Facebook, and becoming accessible to the MMA media can pay dividends in the long run. A few weeks ago, CBS created and launched the Twitter feed CBS_MMA.  A few days ago, Strikeforce launched their brand new Strikeforce Nashville Event Website, which includes new videos, interviews, fighter pics, and bios.  Both of these new marketing tools are being utilized to assist the last minute marketing push for April 17.

Airing the CBS ads during the NCAA tournament, which have an average audience of 10-12 million viewers and is expecting a higher viewership for tonight’s championship game, is a definite positive for Strikeforce.  Along with the NCAA tournament, Strikeforce will debut their MMA brand along with some of their most marketable fighters on NCIS: Los Angeles tomorrow night on CBS, which has an average audience of 12-16 million viewers.  These two marketing campaign efforts show some dedication towards MMA from CBS that we may not have seen in the past, only lacking the Fight Camp 360 special that was recorded for the Fedor vs Rogers event.  Dan Henderson may have said it best during an interview with MMAWeekly:

“I would have been surprised if Dana White didn’t try to put on a show,” said Henderson when appearing on MMAWeekly Radio. “I’m sure he was actually trying to put one on. If he could have made it work he would have. The only thing it did was kind of irritate the CBS guys into throwing a couple hundred more spots out there for the promotion of it.”