The obvious story of 2008 has been the economic downturn in addition the struggles that American business has experienced. Big and small, businesses tweaked their marketing strategies to get more bang for their buck. Creative Ops was no exception to this movement.

As a proof of concept, AZ Hardball was created during the Arizona Fall League. The Creative Ops marketing team decided since the phone was no longer ringing, it was time to watch some Fall Ball. The team created a destination site for everything that Major League Baseball had to offer in the state of Arizona. Taking advantage of the opportunity to be able to stay on top of all of the latest baseball developments in the state of Arizona and having a network that would be able to syndicate sports content, the site successfully launched in October of ’08 and is still running strong.

In short, the goal was to receive increased exposure to the interactive portion of the business. This was accomplished by providing and promoting content by using a viral marketing strategy. Within months, AZ Hardball content was being featured by several media outlets including USA Today and TNT. The marketing team succeeded by sending plenty of additional opportunity our way … and we all got to watch the sport we love too.