Kentucky Derby Festival – Missing marketing opportunities

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Marcie Shanks

derby 140

Eyes around the country today are focused on Kentucky for the 140th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.  The Kentucky Derby Festival kicked off a series of events on April 12th and culminates with the running of the thoroughbreds this evening, May 3rd.  By all accounts it is a grand festival and probably the most exciting thing that happens in Kentucky all year so where do you go to keep up with all the excitement?

Surely you can go to Churchill Downs or Kentucky Derby Festival’s websites to see listing of events, videos, social media feeds, and find all that is KDF in one place?  Not so fast.

Churchill Downs website has limited social functionality with a minimalist “social wall”.  What about the days leading up to the big event? How exciting would it be to watch YouTube videos from the trainers, jockeys, and fans experiencing morning workouts of the horses, or perhaps just a collection of streaming Tweets on the homepage to experience all things leading up to Derby in real time.

The Kentucky Derby Festival website also has limited social functionality with at least a “notifications” section at the bottom of their page, but you have to really know what you’re looking at to recognize that it is social content without any of the expected platform logo’s or sharing features tied to the section.

This event has MAJOR corporate sponsors and huge money tied to it annually.  You would think they would have a digital and integrated media specialist tied to making the event as sharable, social, and fun as possible.  Plus with it all the content collected in one place (think Storify to the extreme) with an app that listed event dates and times, concerts, registration features, maps, and a real-time social stream from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Vine and the like even non-Kentuckians could really enjoy the magic of the Kentucky Derby Festival.  (Plus all the corporate sponsors would get even more exposure!)

I must say with as much media attention as the Derby gets, I am disappointed with the lack of integrated marketing for the festival.  This is one instance where just having a website isn’t quite enough, they really need a dedicated app as well as a dedicated social media stream.  Oh well, there’s always 2015!

About Marcie Shanks

Marcie Wingfield Shanks was born and raised in Central Kentucky where she now resides with her husband, two sons, and three step-children. She studied chemistry, chemical engineering and math at the University of Louisville where she received her B.A. in Liberal Studies with a focus on environmental science. For fear of giving up an unbelievable opportunity, in 2004, she found herself learning and managing her family’s retail automotive dealership where she continues to work part-time in the last two years managing inventory, IT, training and marketing. Since early 2012, she has been recovering from a complicated autoimmune disease after years of chronic pain. Her struggles to return to vibrant health have led her to develop a love for total wellness and a desire to help others recover from their health struggles. In 2013, she received her Holistic Health Coaching Certification from the Institute of Integrated Nutrition, certification in Women’s Empowerment Coaching and Women’s Leadership Coaching from the Professional Women Network, and certification as a Yamuna® Body Rolling and Yamuna® Foot Fitness practitioner. The Yamuna modalities helped her manage musculo-skeletal pain, as well as strengthen and realign her body during recovery. She desires to use her unique background to coach, inspire, and support those struggling with chronic illnesses restore their health and wellness through a multi-disciplinary approach through her business Dimensions Wellness. Her skills include public speaking, workshops, and writing about both marketing and wellness. She will receive her Master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications in 2014 from West Virginia University. This blog Digital Marketing Marcie was created for use in multiple marketing courses at WVU to study the principles of digital media, web metrics, SEO, social media, networking, and emerging media.
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1 Response to Kentucky Derby Festival – Missing marketing opportunities

  1. Amara Takes on Digital Media says:
    May 8, 2014 at 10:37 am

    WOW! I come from a HUGE horseracing family, yes, there is horse racing in the Caribbean. This is a huge surprise and a big missed opportunity. For all intents and purposes the event is a big deal. Social media could have helped them to tell the story of not only the race and festival, but the story of the horses and their owners. These are all areas that media hone in on when reporting about the event. This could help to also draw a younger crowd to the event as we know the audience for horse racing is traditionally older.

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