Branding at the ol’ ballgame used to be as simple as signage in the outfield and giving away logo-laden Bobble Heads. No more. Nowadays, brands need to be part of the game day experience for fans.

Successful sponsors build experience marketing into their programs, says IEG Senior VP Jim Andrews, to build lasting customer and business relations.

For example, when CRM software and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider EADS Telecom moved its North America headquarters to Frisco, TX, it sponsored the hometown baseball team, the Frisco RoughRiders, in order to become known to local fans and businesses.

But the sponsorship became more than a gesture of civic pride; EADS developed a program to demo its products in-stadium to potential business-to-business clients. The Dr Pepper/Seven Up Ballpark became its setting to show off — and hopefully sell — its Nexspan VoIP technology.

The first customer for the product was, in fact, the ball club. EADS wired the entire stadium, including luxury suites, dugout, bullpen and offices with the VoIP to demo its advantages over traditional analog phones.

EADS clients get to test the gear, and RoughRiders President Mike McCall drops by when he can to speak to clients and journalists on the company’s behalf.

“It’s a great way for us to show what benefits our product provides,” says EADS VP of Marketing Kyle Priest. EADS has entertained about 250 local, national and overseas business clients in the two years they have been a sponsor, he says.

On-site activation takes other forms: Pepsi North America leveraged a sponsorship of the United Hockey League’s All-Star Game in January to showcase its Pepsi and Mountain Dew brands — as the game. Instead of East facing West at the Glens Falls, NY, Civic Center, “Team Pepsi” skaters met “Team Mountain Dew.”

In honor of the winner, all 4,100 fans in attendance received a free bottle of Dew as they exited the building.

Back at the ballparks, Schaumburg, IL-based PromoWorks brought in-store-style sampling to Wrigley Field last June. Staged at a Cubs game, the event combined mobile and stationary product sampling, scratch-and-win Cubs collector cards for fans as they entered the gates, as well as a Chicago retailer tie-in. Sampling and prize sponsors in 2004 included Dentyne, Fisher Nuts, Hershey’s, Kellogg’s, Ricola, Rolaids and White Hen.

Convenience retailer White Hen, for example, sampled 30,000 2-1/4 ounce bags of its gourmet coffees (the size it uses to brew its in-store java). An on-pack coupon, designed to lift green salad sales in-store, drew a 1% redemption rate. White Hen Director of Merchandising Tom Romanello was pleased. “Shoppers at convenience stores are not big coupon clippers,” he says.

The agency returns to the Chicago Cubs home with three new Mega Sampling Events in 2005.

Technology adds a new spin on in-stadium branding. Vibes Media, Evanston, IL, handles contests for carriers like Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular. For the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, Vibes helps Verizon Wireless sponsor a Fan of the Game contest. Staff take snapshots of fans at the game with camera phones, which are shown on the scoreboard. Fans vote via text messaging.

U.S. Cellular sponsors a trivia contest for White Sox fans attending games at U.S. Cellular Field. A trivia question is flashed on the scoreboard, and fans who text message the answer correctly are launched into a 50-question opt-out trivia contest. Each correct answer triggers a chance to win White Sox tickets, merchandise or a chance to deliver the lineup card to home plate before a game.

“It carries fan interaction beyond the game itself,” says Vibes VP of Marketing and Sales Doug Rothrock. “And more important for the sponsors, they can track who used the text messaging features, what carrier they use, and what area code they are from. They can even track them to see if they became text-messagers afterward. The sponsors can then change the behavior of the consumers.”

Texting promos have appeal beyond teens, Rothrock says. Vibes has seen the ballpark contest demographic rise from primarily teens to fans aged 35 and up. “Kids show their parents how to text message when it’s contest time,” says Rothrock. “People are doing it at all ages.”

Sounds like a home run.

Who needs Cheerios when you’ve got Puffed Wheat-Os? Sales of private-label food and beverages hit $48.6 billion last year, accounting for 15.4 percent of the $315 billion in total supermarket sales. The private-label segment has grown at a rate of six percent per year for the past five years, while the overall retail sector has risen just 3.9 percent. Just five years ago, store brands made up only 14.2 percent of total revenues. One reason for the increasing popularity of generic products: retailer consolidation. As big supermarket chains become even bigger, consumers can find store brands in more locations across the country. Shoppers at A&P, for example, have three private labels to choose from – a result of the chain’s acquisitions in the Northeast, Midwest, South, and Canada. Now that’s a national media buy.