Applicant E.A. Kalieva^{1, 3}
Applicant A.S. Yakovlev^{1, 2}
Applicant A.V. Kolychev^{1, 2
1}Tyumen State University, Tyumen
²Sports and Youth Policy Department of the Tyumen Municipal Government, Tyumen
³Tyumen Municipal Multidisciplinary Centre, Tyumen

Keywords: interdepartmental cooperation, public-private partnership, BTL, cooperative marketing, SММ-promotion.

Background. The notion interdepartmental cooperation in the context of communicative promotion activity may be directly linked to the recent requirements and recommendations of Tyumen Region Governor V.V. Yakushev’s Report to the Tyumen Region Council “On the current situation in the Region and progress forecasts” of 24.11.2016 with concern to the public relations and communication policies, as follows: “Tyumen Region will unlikely succeed in its development plans unless they are well supported by a flow of permanent, multisided and, most important, productive discussions, ideas, critical and constructive proposals circulating in the government – business – society triangle, with the timely (‘real-time’) adjustments to the development concepts and plans... Good public relation polices imply not only direct contacts... but, what is even more important, due feedback” [5].

The key process goals mentioned in the Governor’s Report is to establish a productive communication in the government – business – society triangle and secure due feedback in the process. Presently the communication promotion activity is supported by the relevant innovative and research provisions set forth in the valid National Physical Culture and Sports Development Strategy for the Period up to 2020 that makes a special emphasis on the national physical culture and sports sector innovative development model. This model secures, among other things, due interdepartmental cooperation in the government – business – society triangle to facilitate efficient and equal communication opportunities for each process participant and actor. Traditional marketing tools are insufficient to ensure the communication promotion initiatives being effective enough. “The national market of advertising services has grown to such a huge extent that an advertisement addressed to a potential consumer via traditional marketing tools and communication channels is often lost in the flow of alike advertisements”  [3]. If this consideration is true for the municipal sporting project promotion activity, it may mean that the traditional PR methods are no more successful enough in the information flow and the news coming up in the national mass media largely fail to catch attention of potential audience.

Objective of the study was to develop a cooperative marketing model and apply it in the local PR activity as a modern promotion vehicle for the municipal sports innovative development projects.

Study results and discussion. In addition to the traditional communicative marketing tools (public relations, SMM marketing, internet promotion, advertisement, videos, social advertisements, feedbacks and monitoring) [2], the interdepartmental cooperation and public-private partnerships in the municipal sports promotion domain are increasingly supported by a set of modern marketing innovative toolkits provided by modern BTL-marketing innovative technologies including event marketing, promo-actions, SММ-promotion including prize-winning contests sponsored by partners etc. Popular manual by D.A. Shevchenko “Advertisement; Marketing; PR” defines BTL as follows: BTL (below the line) means the certain type of marketing communications of direct promotional effect on each potential client. This type of communications is supported by due feedback capacity and may be adjusted as required by the actual marketing situation and promotion campaign” [6].

As provided by S.S. Marochkina, “the key benefit of the BTL system is the dialogue support function that secures the flow of information to and from the clients and makes it possible to analyse their responses. The BTL-technologies are universal in fact as they provide ample opportunities for creative ideas, and every new alternative approach makes familiar scenarios brighten up with new colours. Furthermore, the BTL-technologies are rather convenient as they successfully combine a variety of scenarios with every detail in them being renewed or changed to flexibly adjust any program for any purpose and any brand name” [4].

This means, among other things, that the BTL-technologies are the only applicable method in the cases when direct promotion is prohibited by legislation. Advantages of the BTL-technologies are particularly vivid in the municipal government cooperation with local fitness clubs in the joint social projects promotion initiatives. Every public-private partnership in this domain, for instance, is somewhat restricted by the Federal Law #38 “On Advertisement” applicable to the national media organisations. Knowing how important such partnerships with fitness clubs are for the sports sector promotion initiatives, we found indirect promotions options for our socially sensitive projects by the relevant informational cases being generated by a variety of combined marketing methods (that imply the traditional and cooperative marketing tools being combined).

The above informational cases in the municipal public-private partnership project promotion domain may be listed as follows:

• Social projects implemented by the Partner for the benefit of the local communities;
• Socially sensitive projects in the Partner’s own territory;
• Alternative projects implemented by the social Partner – for example, Hourly Yoga Project designed to help office personnel practice yoga at work during lunch breaks or other duly scheduled time; 
• Partner’s contribution to the reinstated GTO Complex implementation project in Tyumen city – in

formats chosen by Gagarinsky Sport Club, Arena Sport Club and Antey Athletic Club that offer free GTO Complex test services to the local population;

• Partner’s participation in municipal mass physical cultural and sport events including Athlete’s Day, Youth day, Day of the City etc., with the Partner encouraged to sponsor master-classes, fitness warm-up sessions, flash mobs, tournaments, shows, contests etc.;
• Partner’s contribution to charity events like the wheelchairs granting events for disabled athletes hosted by Vostok Hotel;
• Partner’s sponsorship of the prize-winning contests in the social networks or under relevant municipal events;
• Promo-actions sponsored or co-sponsored by the Partner including contests for unlimited tickets to the Gagarinsky SC swimming pool for the qualified Tyumen residents who succeeded in the GTO Complex tests; or tickets to Sparta Fitness Club for the winners of the Tyumen Bike Boom Photo Contest within the frame of the Bike Festival promotion campaign;
• Partner is encouraged to host the relevant joint events like press-conferences, briefings, meetings, workshops, collegiums etc.; and
• Partner’s support for the relevant sector activity promotion actions provided freely or on an exchange/ offset basis.

The public-private partnership has attained new ambitious goals in the project promotion for this year. Azbuka Kino cinema joined the partnership and now shows a GTO Complex promotion video before every movie. А4-format ads are posted in the municipal elevators; and lobbies of 22 business centres in the city are equipped with promotion plasma screens in the waiting areas. Negotiating and contracting process is underway to have the audio- and video-promotion materials and posters being available at 25 supermarkets and in public transport. In addition, the project promotion campaign includes the relevant contracts with local mass media organisations, with 14 local radio and 6 TV broadcasting companies running GTO Complex promotion materials in Tyumen. 

The above public-private partnership formats are reported to be of interest and encouragement for the local communities and mass media organisations. The public awareness campaign to promote the relevant socially sensitive projects and other activities supported by the local partners are mostly implemented in the traditional marketing formats, whilst the partnerships within these formats are largely designed based on alternative marketing forms.

Cooperation with the Tyumen government units for private partners is beneficial in many aspects including a positive image and trust building in the potential clientele – with the relevant clientele retention and expansion extra benefits. The Sports and Youth Policy Department of the Tyumen Municipal Government considers such partnerships as an extra public communication case and modern sector promotion tool including, among other things, SMM-promotion initiatives in the context of BTL-actions with prize winning options: see Diagram 1 hereunder.

Diagram 1. Cooperative marketing system under the municipal public-private partnership projects.

The relevant sport sector service promotion options within the frame of the public-private partnership (BTL, municipal-private partnerships, SMM-promotion etc.) may be defined as the ‘cooperative marketing’ system [1].

Conclusion.  As things now stand, the municipal government has established partnerships with 27 fitness clubs in Tyumen based on the relevant cooperation and partnership agreements in the cooperative marketing format – on a non-profit basis, with no special legal entity required to be founded. The systemic physical education and sports promotion initiatives in the local communities including determined actions to engage potential social partners into the relevant interdepartmental cooperation projects and public-private partnerships – have helped notably increase the sporting population in the municipality. As a result, 24,841 local residents were reportedly engaged in habitual sporting activities in 2016, including 380 engaged via the relevant socially sensitive projects. As of May 2017, the sporting population was reported to grow to 25,112 people including 560 engaged via the special health projects implemented via local fitness clubs.

References

1. Bagiev G.L., Tarasevich V.M. Marketing [Marketing]. 3rd ed. St. Petersburg, 2010, 576 p.
2. Kuznetsova Y. Novye sposoby prodvizheniya tovarov: sovremennye formy marketingovykh kommunikatsiy v Rossii [New techniques of goods promotion: modern forms of marketing communications in Russia]. Vestnik Evrazii, 2006, no. 2, P. 29.
3. Marochkina S.S., Dmitrieva L.M., Azarova E.V. Vvedenie v spetsialnost: reklama. Ucheb. posobie [Introduction to speciaity: Advertising. Study guide]. Moscow: Unity-Dana publ., 2015, 239 p. Available at: http://biblioclub.ru/index.php?page=book&id=114757 (24.06.2017). P. 130.
4. Kalieva E.A., Khromin E.V., Korotkova E.A. Organizatsiya i razvitie PR-deyatelnosti v sisteme munitsipalnogo upravleniya goroda Tyumeni (na primere otrasli sporta i molodezhnoy politiki). Ucheb.-metod. posobie [Organization and development of PR activities in municipal government system of Tyumen (case sudy of sports and youth policy sector). Teaching aid]. Tyumen: Pechatnik publ., 2017, pp. 56-67.
5. Poslanie gubernatora Tyumenskoy oblasti V.V. Yakusheva Tyumenskoy oblastnoy dume «O polozhenii del v oblasti i perspektivakh ee razvitiya» [Message of Governor of the Tyumen region V.V. Yakushev to the Tyumen regional Duma "On the state of affairs in the region and prospects for its development"], 2016. Available at: //https://gubernator.admtyumen.ru/governor_to/ru/interviews/more.htm?id=11... Article
6. Shevchenko D.A. Reklama. Marketing. PR. Ucheb.-sprav. posobie [Advertising. Marketing. PR. Study guide]. 3rd ed., rev, and sup. Moscow: RSHU publ., 2014, 639 p. http://www.marketologi.ru/docs/downloads/lib/2015/03/05/1.pdf 

Corresponding author: mangeley60@mail.ru

Abstract

The study considers the modern municipal sports promotion technology that applies a set of modern marketing innovative tools including the BTL-marketing ones: event marketing, promo-actions, SММ-promotion including prize-winning contests sponsored by partners etc. The study lists the relevant actions implemented by the Sports and Youth Policy Department of the Tyumen Municipal Government geared to promote the municipal sports with a special emphasis on mass physical culture and sport events in the city. The study underlines the importance of the target initiatives to ensure due commitment of the local mass-media organizations for sport events to facilitate the physical culture and sports promotion projects in Tyumen. The projects may include GTO Complex testing, special events (Athlete’s Day, Youth Day, Day of the City, Day of Russia etc.), yoga classes for office personnel, thematic conferences etc. The study data and analyses show that the systemic physical education and sports promotion initiatives in the local communities including determined actions to lure potential social partners into the relevant interdepartmental cooperation projects and public-private partnerships – have helped notably increase the sporting population in the municipality.