Conference Day 4: Learning, Education, Development (4B)

Developing a Marketing Strategy for Mindsport: Bridging Insights and Motivations

Esme Nicholson and Christina Ballinger (Bridge 2 Bridge), Jordan Maclean and Professor Samantha Punch (BAMSA), Professor Maurice Biriotti (Bridge 2 Bridge) 

Bridge is often stigmatised as a dull card game played by older people. The Bridging Insights project aims to revitalise the mindsport by developing a marketing campaign strategy that can promote bridge to the widest possible audience. In particular, the focus will be on attracting younger players rather than the pre-retiree group, which is more commonly targeted by the bridge community. The project is inspired by an arts-based methodology (Leavy 2020) of focus groups and diary methods. Small group workshops will take place at the Bridging Academia, Policy and Practice virtual conference, where academics and members of the bridge community will be encouraged to discuss how four different ‘ideal types’ fit in with their own experiences of bridge (or not). The four ideal types of self-improver, competitor, socialiser and mind-gamer have emerged from various sources, including previous BAMSA research in partnership with English Bridge Education and Development. The outcome of this first stage is to develop narratives (Kim 2015) in the form of short stories based on ideal types of bridge players. The responses will inform the questions that will be used in part two’s focus groups with non-bridge players. Ultimately, the narratives will lead to the formation of a marketing strategy and best practice guidelines for promoting the game of bridge to new players. A diary method (Barlett and Milligan 2020; Hyers 2018) will also be used for documenting the research process on the collaborative workings between academics and a marketing research team. The partnership has the potential to produce insights for both academics and practitioners beyond the world of bridge.