ALBANY - Businesses have been able to extend their brand by buying naming rights for sports and entertainment venues for years. Think Staples Center in Los Angeles, Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., and General Motors Place in Vancouver.


But come Monday, when Pepsi Arena becomes Times Union Center, the concept gets a new twist: an online component that will send concert-goers and sports fans to the newspaper's Web site, http://timesunion.com. "The Times Union becomes a very important conduit, a centralized resource, a kind of hub, that all the people in the region can use to exchange information, to participate in dialogue about the news, about entertainment, about sports - anything that they're interested in," said Ronald Ladouceur, senior vice president and executive creative director at Media Logic, a Colonie-based marketing communications firm.


Ed Lewi of Ed Lewi Associates, a Clifton Park public relations firm, agreed.


"The Times Union Web site, that's where it's at," said Lewi, who has been promoting local events, including the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, for 45 years. "The future of selling tickets, selling toys, you name it, that's where it's at."


In May, the Times Union signed a 10-year contract with Albany County, the owner of the 17,500-seat facility in downtown Albany, for the naming rights effective Jan. 1.


As the newspaper's new publisher, Mark E. Aldam, brokered the deal with the county, saying he aimed to promote the product and enhance the newspaper's Web site.


"In addition to being a very visible commitment to the community, the investment we've made in the Times Union Center will bring significant marketing benefits to the Times Union brand and will feature our Web site development," he said.


The newspaper agreed to pay $350,000 a year in cash over the 10 years of the contract.


Since then, the marketing of Times Union Center has been in full swing - promoters and agents were given a heads-up on the name change and sales of new arena gift cards began. Pepsi Arena signs have come down and ones bearing the name and logo of Times Union Center have gone up. A newly painted basketball court was unveiled last week. And a new, state-of-the-art Web site was readied for launch.


"We think it will give excellent presentation to the acts that the Times Union Center is promoting, but really, it's important for timesunion.com because the partnership with the arena helps cement our position as a destination for information about entertainment," said Patti Hart, the newspaper's interactive media director, who oversaw the design of the new site that has a link from the Times Union Web site.





A Web surfer already can browse the newspaper site for bars, clubs, concerts, events and restaurants. That information will be expanded and upgraded in 2007. But Hart said the "most important thing" about the Times Union Center site will be the ability to buy tickets there.


Bob Belber, general manager of the center, described the partnership as "a smart move" because both parties will benefit from the online traffic that will be generated.


"Whether people access information about events or buy tickets online, they will be encouraged to go to timesunion.com and see the tile" that links to the center's site, he said. "I'm sure it is hoped that people will then scroll around and visit other areas within timesunion.com."


And shopping online for tickets is growing more popular, Belber said. A decade ago, the arena sold about 25 percent of total tickets online. "Now, 10 years later, we're selling 65 percent of our tickets online, a 40 percent increase of tickets sold online versus in person or on the telephone," he said.





If marketing is about developing customer rapport, the Web allows it to happen "in real time now," said Media Logic's Ladouceur. "In the old days, you had to gauge the sales, do surveys and it was difficult because you didn't know what questions to ask and all this measurement was expensive - but no longer."


With Web sites, e-mail and blogs, communication is easier. "Last night's concert is being reviewed by your customers," he said, either through e-mail or a blog.


"Marketing has really become a process by which you not only go out and promote something and create advertising and hope somebody will take some action based on that, but you create what are essentially complete relations with your customers," he said.


The process has three steps: "You excite consumers, you engage them, and you move them to take action," Ladouceur said. "And, you also want to look at what they're doing at all times. You can see their activity on your Web site. You can measure what they're interested in, and you can actually create a dialogue" and gear the product to their interests.


Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., sees a "basic marketing rationale" in the deal: "That every time someone goes to the arena, or every time there's a radio ad of a concert, it's another mention of the newspaper's name, and it just keeps it in front of people."





The evolution of newspaper Web sites can't be overlooked, he said. "For a decade or more, and up until three or four years ago, they didn't really tend to have very much on them but the reprinting of the stories from the morning paper," he said. But with "classified advertising becoming increasingly electronic, the advertising base began to grow pretty quickly."


Now, statistics show 30 percent to 35 percent of annual overall advertising revenue is generated online, Edmonds said.


"So how can we keep this momentum going? Make the Web site more attractive, with more breaking news, more video and blogs by staff and blogs by readers," he said. "Another goal is to have more there in terms of advertising, and this becomes a place not to just look at some classified ads, or the occasional display ad, but a place you can go to look at attractions at this arena and buy tickets, all these things are investments in the future."


Lewi, of Ed Lewi Associates, also sees value in measuring "the amount of impressions" from the physical presence of having a sign on the South Pearl Street arena visible from I-787. "You know how many cars go up and down 787 and highways leading into it," he said. "The signage alone is one of the strongest parts of the whole package, and take that and combine it with the entertainment, I think it's a good buy."


Added Ladouceur, "By the Times Union putting its name on the arena, it is a permanent advertisement. It's worth every penny the newspaper is spending on the sponsorship.


" `Pepsi' was merely a billboard," he said. "The newspaper can bring a lot of value to the community to enlighten people to the resource it is ... and that's good for everybody."








Carol DeMare can be reached at 454-5431 or by e-mail at cdemare@timesunion.com.





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History


Opened as the Knickerbocker Arena on Jan. 30, 1990, with a concert by Frank Sinatra, the venue on South Pearl Street in Albany has drawn big concert names through the years -- Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones -- along with ice shows, circuses and sports tournaments. Construction: $68.6 million Home to: Siena Saints basketball, Albany River Rats of the American Hockey League, Albany Conquest of the arena football league Lineage: Known as the Albany County Civic Center during construction, it became the Knickerbocker Arena following a naming contest. The Pepsi Arena name came after Pepsi Bottling Group signed a 10-year contract with Albany County for the naming rights. That agreement ends today Dec. 31.


The deals


Here is a comparison of the name rights deals: Pepsi Bottling Group paid $300,000 annually for the name alone with the total 10-year package, including marketing and promotional money and rights to pour non-alcoholic beverages, worth $4.5 million. Pepsi continues to hold the pouring rights contract. The Times Union agreed to pay $350,000 in cash a year, or slightly more than $3.5 million over the 10 years of the contract, which also calls for the newspaper to provide advertising, a link on its Web site to Tickets.com and other marketing and promotional programs.