AFL clash Jumpers and brand values

OK so it's footy finals time which means it's time for me to address my pet hate THE CLASH JUMPERS IN THE AFL.


But because this is a marketing blog, of sorts, I'll use marketing-ese to state my case.

Firstly, what is a football club? What is it about these entities that inspires such passion? (AFL is per capita far and away the highest attended sport in the world.)

If it were the players then memberships and support would drop overnight when an insanely popular player like Richmond's Matthew Richardson retires. But guess what it doesn't, and it didn't. Fans love their players, but they love next year's crop just as much as they loved last year's.

We know it's not the coaches or other officials either, it also isn't the home ground as no one except for Geelong plays at home any more.

No it is the fierce inter club rivalry that inspires passion, the tribal connection people feel to an amorphous entity known as Carlton, Essendon or Collingwood. A rich set of experiences, a shared history going back more than 150 yrs for some, and an anticipated future. And the only tangible representation of all of this is the jumper, the club emblem that the players where across their chest.

It is the quintessential brand, more than a trade mark its a love-mark, more valuable to some fans than their own wedding rings.

So what does the AFL do? they decide for purely pragmatic reasons (to more clearly identify opposing players on the field) they force clubs to trot out 'clash strips' and then for reasons only know to the clearly vision impaired bloke at the AFL that decides such matters, force clubs to wear them even when their is no obvious clash, sometimes making the clash worse!

It goes without saying that people have watched almost 100 years of the worst clash, Collingwood V North Melbourne (even on black and white TV) without ever having a major problem but all of a sudden over the last decade this has become SOOO crucial that the AFL feels it is more important than tampering with the one tangible connection a fan has to his/her clubs culture the jumper.

Look at these pictures, Essendon are RED and BLACK, it's powerful, passionate and strong - not insipid grey. North Melbourne are a vibrant royal blue it speaks to their aspirational working class culture and traditional style of play, they are NOT some Diego Maradonna Argy uniform rip off. And the iconic CFC on the old dark navy blue is regarded as up their with the All Blacks as one of the best jumpers in world sport - WTF to this light blue version!

DEAR AFL - Fans follow their club, the most tangible representation of their club is the jumper, the jumper IS the brand. it may not seem important to you but given that you slap the AFL brand on more items of shoddy merchandise than Krusty the Clown one shouldn't be surprised.

PLEASE return back to a more relaxed approach where only the absolute worst examples require clash strip and tolerate minor jumper changes such as socks and the like to achieve the desired result STOP tampering with our love-marks.

I suppose the lesson for marketers out of this rant is to think, what part of your organisation is really important to your fans? And be conscious when what seems like a pragmatic change might actually cause an unpragmatic emotional response.

What EA Sports can teach Arts Marketers

Chris Erb from EA SPORTS was a key note speaker at Ad:tech Sydney. For those who don't know EA sports is not just a giant in the gaming sector but also the global sports sector, and as a purveyor of discretionary entertainment spend there's a lot the arts can learn from them.

According to Erb, the main reason EA has become such a powerful sports brand is because it gives fans of sport serious and powerful engagement over an above the more passive consumption of a rival like ESPN. (Yes, they see ESPN as their main rival not other game developers.)

The success of EA is built on attracting known brands (NFL, FIFA) to licence them to develop games then delivering extremely well on the promise of those brands.

Some stats: EA Sports has 19 million facebook fans and 80% of users play 20 hrs per week or more - that's huge engagement.

The EA Sports mission is to build and drive connected experiences. Although the arts don't have games - what ways can we make our product more active, less passive and how can we drive engagement be it physical world or virtual?

EA does a lot work on "surprise and delight" features for instance, you can unlock a hidden passage of 3D gaming within Madden Football. But to do this you had to buy a special brand of Doritos chips to get the code and free glasses.

With regards to pricing EA stands for good value, doesn't gouge and only works with authentic collaborators (i.e. Football fans eat chips!).

They always keep the consumers at the heart of how they market their product - asking how would our gamers react if we did this?

Their BIG NEW THING currently is building offline experiences to strengthen connection with their predominately online brand. This is done by the development of themed EA Sports Bars, including ones on cruise ships and EA Sports shops in airports. The arts already is strong in the physical world, if EA is clamouring to offer physical experiences we need to realise what a strength that is for us .

EA's customer knowledge is HUGE for instance they can find out, of all of the people playing NFL Madden online last Thursday, the percentage of people who always pass to the right on the third down. The arts also has access to comparatively much more data than the usual retailer and needs to look at it with fresh eyes.

Erb also says that gamification isn't just the domain of video game makers, anything can be made into a game and many corporates are using game-type play to strengthen positive buyer behaviour - I have further notes on gamification and will expand on this in a future post.

The key take homes for me from Erb and EA were:

• Look for ways to make the arts experience more active, more two-way and less passive one-way. 
• Look beyond your niche to know your true competitors. 
• Think about surprise and delight features. (a live band in the foyer, free wine tastings, unscheduled announcement to join the cast after the show) 
• Think about real, authentic corporate relationships that make sense to your consumer. 
• Leverage our real-world strength - that people come and interact with the arts in a physical sense. 
• If you have access to rich data - even if not quite as rich as theirs - use it. 
• Make a game of it! People will do things they might not otherwise if you make a game of it.