A shift from baseball-only messaging to a full entertainment brand, built around the groups and suites that actually drive revenue at LMCU Ballpark.
All suites, decks, and tables sold out before the season reached its halfway point.
The West Michigan Whitecaps are a Minor League Baseball team of the Midwest League and the High-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. They're based in Comstock Park, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, and play their home games at LMCU Ballpark, which seats 8,942 for games and holds up to 10,000 for other events like motorsports and concerts.
When Steve VanWagoner took over marketing for the Whitecaps and LMCU Ballpark, he brought a different way of thinking about the business. In his words: "This isn't baseball, we're not just baseball here. This is entertainment. This is family fun. Baseball is something romantic that happens in the background."
That shift led the marketing team to look closely at what actually drives revenue at the ballpark. Large group reservations and suite bookings turned out to be a major driver. Hospitality areas like suites, decks, and four-top tables behind home plate attracted people looking for an entertainment experience with a group of friends or coworkers, more than a solo fan chasing a great game. Reaching that audience became MPP's job.
MPP identified who was actually booking large groups and suites, and where those audiences could be found. "Our goal is to always put the right ad in front of the right people," says Alyssa Coast, Senior Digital Strategist for MPP. "You can have amazing creative, but if the right people don't see it, you're wasting your time and money."
That's the heart of the Hi-5 - are we talking to the right people?
MPP defined and refined that audience, then built a media plan to persuade them that spending time with coworkers, family, or friends at LMCU Ballpark was worth the investment.
The Whitecaps and MPP met that audience where they were with display, social media, and out-of-home advertising.
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Our partnership with MPP is great. We work well together. It's not just hitting the right audience and delivering on performance. It's the little things too. MPP is invested in the success of the Whitecaps, and it shows.
The results came from giving suites and group bookings their own audience and their own message, rather than folding them into baseball-focused advertising as an afterthought. That's the kind of audience-first thinking Hi-5 formalizes today: knowing exactly who to reach before deciding how to reach them.
