Tammy Henault leads all global marketing efforts for the NBA and its affiliate leagues to engage fans and further the organization’s mission to inspire and connect people everywhere through the power of basketball. Prior to the NBA she was SVP, Marketing for Paramount+ leading the division responsible for driving growth and engagement for the streaming service, and prior to Paramount Global she was at The New York Times leading acquisition and retention for the digital subscription business.

Why is engaging with Gen Z so important to the NBA?

For the NBA, we have a really young audience and fan base. In fact, we have the youngest fan base among all the major sports leagues in the U.S. About half of our fans are under 35. Engaging with Gen Z, building our next global fan base, and nurturing it for future generations is, of course, a critical priority for us from both a fan engagement and business standpoint.

Building the next generation of fans who can tell the stories of our great players is crucial. With so many amazing younger players in our league today, their stories are just starting to be told. And having the right audiences and fans present to do that is critical for us.

How do you approach measuring brand and commercial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to consumer connections through experiential marketing, especially considering the increased scrutiny on marketing budgets in challenging economic times?
Experiential can often be tough; you have to have a way to measure it. Whether that's through some kind of brand reach metric and a tool that allows you to capture the sentiment, or in the live arena space, it could be the actual ticketing or the people passing through, or it's about the email addresses you collect.

You can measure and track physical keypads at your live event, and also have the right tools and systems in place to track the extended reach, engagement, shares, overall impressions, and earned media around your activation.

Having a really strong partner on the communications and publicity side to extend the reach of anything you're doing is critical. What I learned from my Paramount days is that there would always be a conversation around the publicity ground game. Some of the conversation would always start with, "Hey, what's going to be that thing that's going to drive the conversation and be different, unique, and stand out?"

I think those are some important things to consider when you're putting live events together.

How does the NBA prioritize world-building and immersive experiences to engage with Gen-Z audiences and create personalized connections with fans, considering the diverse touchpoints and partnerships in gaming, virtual worlds, and live events?

I think about all of our immersive experiences that we've been developing. And this was way before my recent time with the NBA. Whether it's our partnerships with Fortnite, Google Pixel, or Google Pixel Arena, or some of our upcoming work with All World and the Niantic team, from the gaming standpoint, we obviously have our 2K League and a lot of different touchpoints where fans can experience our brand and create their own persona within their virtual worlds.

And I think we encourage that and believe it's critical in terms of extending their reach and giving them that personalized experience that feels all the more up close, especially since not everyone has the luxury of being able to go to games or attend events that often. 

How does the NBA effectively engage with diverse cohorts of their audience and ensure authentic communication through strategic collaborations and influencer partnerships across various verticals in the experiential marketing realm?

I think the way we approach it at the NBA is by looking at who we see from an influencer, collaborator, and content creator standpoint, and assessing if they're aligned with our values and commitment. Whether it's DEI, Social Justice, or different causes, or reaching the same fan base.

We recently announced SUGA as our global brand ambassador. This aligns with a demographic we're keen on reaching, being on the cusp of music, culture, and the BTS army having numerous philanthropic efforts.

Also, elevating K-Pop from a DEI standpoint is amazing. As a Korean-American myself, I was really excited about this partnership. So, there are those collaborations at a brand level. We have collabs across every vertical, whether it's music, sneakers, retail, and more.

That's how we go deep and ensure we reach and speak authentically to all the different cohorts of our audiences.

Your five year prediction on the experiential space? 

Five years sounds far away, but also not at the same time. So I believe it's going to be things that are important now, and brands and companies taking things to the next level, whether it's personalization or in terms of how they're approaching different things like sustainability.

I think we're going to be a little bit further along than we are now. It takes time for everyone to kind of get to that same point in time.