Its advertising on TV strategy will not likely yield the results expected

Through a peephole, someone from a companion industry can see Thoroughbred racing with a magnificent opportunity to regain status as a major sport. Within the National Thoroughbred Racing Association exists the substantial budget to help make it happen.

In its battle against the competition of casinos, riverboats, and lotteries and to regain the heart and minds of the general public, the NTRA was given considerable resources. How well it executes its plan will determine if the NTRA will have a positive effect on attendance and handle. From this vantage point, it seems as if the NTRA may be implementing the wrong game plan.

At present, racing is on a kind of pleasant plateau. The "s" words-simulcasting and slots-have put the industry there. Simulcasting, however, does not create new customers: It only maximizes existing ones. Slots bump up purses without increasing handle. Simulcasting and slots are anodynes, not the marketing solution that racing requires.

NTRA has assumed that enough advertising and enough races on TV will pierce the American consciousness and raise awareness of the sport. NTRA is devoting about two-thirds of its $30-million annual budget to those two tasks.

There are conceptual reasons to reject the NTRA's assumption.

Cost dictates that TV commercials have to be doled out to viewers in short segments of ten, 20, or 30 seconds. It seems to be nearly impossible to communicate the appeal of horse racing in such brief spans. That is a contributing factor to the uproar from inside the industry each time NTRA debuts another creative approach. It can be expected that each succeeding wave of creativity will meet similar reaction from the industry while also failing to bring in new bettors. Horse racing is a many splendored thing; the public won't respond to quickie prods. Incidentally, infomercials, which can run a half-hour or even an hour, would not be helpful. They can be produced cheaply, but almost no one watches them.

As for showing horse races on TV, the problem is that to a nonracing fan, every race looks alike. On Triple Crown days, viewers may get a new understanding of racing because of all the information dispensed by the media and television and because the production values are superior for Triple Crown telecasts. But this in-depth, outstanding coverage amounts to just a handful of days a year. The Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup have been on TV long before the NTRA was born.

NTRA has not released any data to indicate that the advertising and races-on-TV approach resulted in new customers or increases in pari-mutuel handle. The silence reinforces my belief that NTRA has been putting its money on the wrong horse. The industry euphoria caused by record purses and record auction results during the current stock market boom obscures the need to question the NTRA approach. Anyway, most industry participants are more comfortable critiquing advertising than evaluating marketing strategy.

NTRA may not understand the magnitude of the problem. In the glory days of racing, the sport had a virtual monopoly on legal gambling. Thus, horse racing naturally entered the consciousness of generations of young people. In recent decades, however, young people interested in gambling have not been exposed to horse racing-instead, they have a number of alternatives. Consequently, the job of introducing horse racing as a new product to young people is not easy or simple. The competition is entrenched, and overcoming the competition of casino gambling will not be easy.

There is a powerful marketing tool usually used as an adjunct to advertising: public relations. In the case of horse racing, the priorities should be reversed. Public relations should be the focal point; advertising should be secondary.

Public relations is usually the secondary tool in marketing because many marketing problems yield to an advertising attack. Companies such as Procter & Gamble and General Motors can create a desire for their products with advertising. Consumers must use detergents and they must buy cars. If detergents and cars are shown to pollute, public relations is enlisted to soothe consumers.

Public relations also can be used in a proactive approach to influence the attitude of the public. The best public relations practitioners create programs where the editorial (non-advertising) spaces in TV, radio, and print are utilized to provide interest-building coverage for the client. When this happens, it is not self-serving paid advertising talking, it is the media itself.

How is this accomplished? Public relations professionals know how to create programs and information that are recognized as legitimate news or human interest stories by the media. Not only is the media agreeable, but the media need these stories to fill the endless hours of time, the endless pages, that surround the advertising. It is a symbiotic relationship.

Horse racing needs what public relations can do for it. Public relations can create events and programs (not races) to induce media coverage. Through public relations, horse racing can push its way back into the awareness of the American public. It would provide more of a massage than a message. Call it an ongoing soft sell that slides horse racing into the mainstream information flow that heavily influences the way people think and behave.

Specifics? Any major public relations agency would be delighted to talk to a serious potential client. Especially one with a marketing budget the size of the NTRA's. The kind of money being spent by NTRA for advertising would be enormous in the context of a public relations budget. Money goes a long way in the world of public relations-just the opposite of the situation in advertising.

I hope that NTRA can veer away from its safe bias toward advertising. Perhaps it might reach a turnabout in its thinking when it gets tired of being asked why its strategy has not resulted in increases in the customer base and handle.