Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

[Eastdog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

I think when they were doing the Whitten Oval redevelopment it was just going to be a training facility for us and wasn't intended to play games there. The Showgrounds idea of developing a new ground there might be where the future 3rd stadium might be for games that don't draw big crowds. The East meet West day I think could be promoted a lot better than it is. What do people think of it being held in January?

[BulldogBelle]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Could we consider what Colllingwood have done and what I understand many European soccer clubs do?

Customers buy our merchandise for the club name, not for the sporting apparel brand associated with it


Collingwood has gone into partnership with a Melbourne-based company that will make the famed guernsey in China — with the club taking a share of all profits from merchandise sales.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/pies-put-their-shirts-on-move-into-rag-trade-20120505-1y673.html

[Twodogs]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Is that true? A friend of mine is a football romantic and he recently organisd a pushbike tour to all the old VFL grounds, including WO. As far as I can recall, we just rode our bikes right up to the oval, no fences or gates in sight, straight off Barkly St.

I'll check the next time I go past.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Any marketing types here who have a business-minded opinion on the pros and cons of dropping 'Western' from our name and going back to 'Footscray'? I know a majority of supporters would love the idea, but how will it affect our bottom line?

[boydogs]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Any marketing types here who have a business-minded opinion on the pros and cons of dropping 'Western' from our name and going back to 'Footscray'? I know a majority of supporters would love the idea, but how will it affect our bottom line?

Suicide. Why alienate supporters in other western suburbs, and exclude ourselves from one of the fastest growing areas in the country?

[AndrewP6]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

I think when they were doing the Whitten Oval redevelopment it was just going to be a training facility for us and wasn't intended to play games there. The Showgrounds idea of developing a new ground there might be where the future 3rd stadium might be for games that don't draw big crowds. The East meet West day I think could be promoted a lot better than it is. What do people think of it being held in January?

Love it. Would not be so excited if it was mid-year or another time. Gets us Eastern dogs (Sth Eastern in my case) a great chance to connect with the current squad.

[Eastdog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Love it. Would not be so excited if it was mid-year or another time. Gets us Eastern dogs (Sth Eastern in my case) a great chance to connect with the current squad.

It's not too busy like the Whitten Oval family day in Feburary and you get easy access to the players for a chat. I went this year and might see you Andrew at the next East meets West day in 2013.

[jeemak]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Don't know a huge amout about buisiness and the like. But I have a slight bit of expertise in Psychology and what people respond to, and I feel the one thing we are missing is something to rally behind, i.e., a club that stands for something other than being bland and safe. The membership commercial earlier this year was a good start but the Minson debacle has brought to light further that our administration is rather spineless and impotent when it comes to the AFL and people will not rally behind spineless and impotent. We ask our players to be tough, hard and unforgiving on the field, is it too much to ask the same of our leaders off the field.

It's an interesting point. I mean, our playing group and administration are probably right now thinking the same thing about our supporter base.

They bust their gut each week, for not many back slaps. Afterall, they only come when you're winning for the most part, and even then they can be few and far between.

[chef]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Any marketing types here who have a business-minded opinion on the pros and cons of dropping 'Western' from our name and going back to 'Footscray'? I know a majority of supporters would love the idea, but how will it affect our bottom line?

I doubt that.

http://www.woof.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=9826&page=4&highlight=footscray

[SonofScray]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Fair point. But I saw plenty of backslapping after the consecutive finals series. Plus isn't what you're suggesting blaming the customer (a big no no in marketing from what I'm told). The fact is the administration has done very well to keep us solvent, okay on field but they've done horribly when it comes to engaging the greater western area of Melbourne.

Just brainstorming here a little so bear with me for a second...but just think about it, we have an area the size of Adelaide that is basically our backyard, yet we have the lowest membership in the league (which was still relatively low when we were making prelims), have allowed Hawthorn, Collingwood, Essendon and Carlton to own clubs and bars in the area, barely visit schools west of Sunshine, and have lost significant ground to the roundball game. This all goes on top of alienating some supporters by changing our name from Footscray to the bland, safe and corporate Western in the hopes of engaging that area. Mind you in that time since the name change every team except maybe Brisbane, Port, Melbourne and North have grown their membership significantly more than us and at times with inferior on field success. Does this sound like a successful marketing/buisiness strategy to you?

So while I've always been the first to say well done to Smorgon and co for keeping the FFC solvent and alive. I thought that was no longer the goal, rather the goal was to get us to start thriving, and to that I believe our administration has failed miserably. And I think some of that failure can be attributed to our bland, corporatized image from the top down.

Great post. In terms of my understanding, I slept through a few years of Marketing at uni, did marketing strategy and consumer behaviour and heaps of research topics in combination w/ Psych. Work in mental health now in a management position but don't get a great deal of opportunity to keep up with marketing principles and try my hand at high level strategy stuff so I wouldn't claim to have the most solid of view, but:

In throwing out Footscray, we turned our back on some features of the Club'd identity that lend itself t our stories and myths which in turn play a huge role in brand identity and culture. Garlick seems to understand but the previous efforts admin wise have thrown the baby out with the bath water, ran with an unsuccessful campaign and robbed the existing supporter base of its right to be proud of, and explicitly understand what following this Club sys about them.

HOF, Footsray End and #westernfront have been good, but we are coming from a long way back. There doesn't seem to have been any real solid evaluation built into the Western change, but the sort of data you raised is pretty damning, just IMO.

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Some good points. First, we have to be far more Visible in the west. More billboards, more of the colours, more community programs.

Secondly, football is primarily about fitness. Bulldogs gyms?, ( of even just a few cars with the logo all over them doing those morning fitness clinics for mums in the park. )

Bulldog sports suppliments ? , Adam Cooney / Barry Hall appearing on 'the biggest loser', or other weight loss shows, tapping into that whole fitness, weight loss, health area. Just thinking broad brush stuff.

Happy community is a healthy one, and would like to see Bulldogs at the forefront of public health in the West. Get a great following, build our brand like that.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Not a comprehensive post by any means, but just responding to some of the Footscray/Western connotations. There seems to be an assumption that successful businesses can only be built on the back of a white collar customer base ie. that we have to go after the middle class or higher.

The biggest and fastest growing businesses in the US are targeting the working class. Wal-Mart sell $300 80-inch plasmas etc., and have grown into the biggest corporation in the US on the back of selling to blue collar consumers. Fast-food chains like Subway etc. have done the same, and in Australia, Bunnings, JB, Rebel etc. have a very strong blue collar market strategy, and haven't done too badly.

I really don't understand the cultural cringe that forces us to reject our blue collar roots. The only other club smack bang in that market in Victoria are Collingwood, and we have even more working class bona-fides, being part of the West that isn't invaded by hipsters the way modern-day Collingwood (the suburb) is. Every other club is already saturating the middle and white collar markets, so why would we corporatise and move into the areas of strengths of our competitors?

The stupidest part of all of this is that in the last two years, blue collar workers have for the first time in the history of Australian statistics overtaken white collar workers in terms of median wage, so there is actually MORE disposable cash in our prime demographic than in the areas we seem to keep wanting to tap into.

Purely from a marketing perspective, we should be looking to become MORE bogan, not less. If we had some lateral thinkers, I would absolutely turn the Will episode into a positive, not a negative: don't be all apologetic about being nutcases, tack on a picture of Will to an ad campaign centred around the concept of 'Snarling' (a key codeword in our song) and just really play up our tough guy image, standing up to the man, taking no backward steps -- stuff that really play with the blue collar demographic (just see any ute ad for how to be commercially sexist). Without being disrespectful to women or anything, let's really take back the blokey concept. Brands become stronger when you stay true to them and really focus on what they stand for, not try to broaden them too much.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Turn our lack of success into a strength - play up our outsider status, really push the us against the system image, forget being politically correct;

when it comes to our 'Bulldog' brand, forget being cute and cuddly dogs, really go for the crazy rabid dogs on a chain imagery, create an intimidating identity around that, encourage rabid support of the team, really go for the 'cage fight' atmosphere at our home games. I know the AFL want to broaden our appeal to families etc., but we can let the Hawthorns and Carltons of this world worry about htat, let's take back the male bogan market who are happy to spend money on football. Get on beer ads, get a whole bunch of utes painted in red, white and blue as our company vehicles etc.

Make sure we are constantly competitive on the field. Forget the lack of premierships, focus on making sure every team is scared of playing against the Dogs, regardless of the score. Much like Wimbledon (in soccer) back in the '80s with their crazy gang. It didn't matter if they didn't win titles, they were the scariest team to play against.

[Eastdog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Turn our lack of success into a strength - play up our outsider status, really push the us against the system image, forget being politically correct;

when it comes to our 'Bulldog' brand, forget being cute and cuddly dogs, really go for the crazy rabid dogs on a chain imagery, create an intimidating identity around that, encourage rabid support of the team, really go for the 'cage fight' atmosphere at our home games. I know the AFL want to broaden our appeal to families etc., but we can let the Hawthorns and Carltons of this world worry about htat, let's take back the male bogan market who are happy to spend money on football. Get on beer ads, get a whole bunch of utes painted in red, white and blue as our company vehicles etc.

Make sure we are constantly competitive on the field. Forget the lack of premierships, focus on making sure every team is scared of playing against the Dogs, regardless of the score. Much like Wimbledon (in soccer) back in the '80s with their crazy gang. It didn't matter if they didn't win titles, they were the scariest team to play against.

Do you think Lantern as Ive suggested in a previous thread that we could benefit if we went to other areas of Melbourne and have a connection in the community. What do you think?

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Make sure we make finals every year. Shut games down. When playing against better teams, make sure you just make it as ugly and slow and grinding as possible. Be unapologetic about it. Make it a hard slog, become the best wet weather team in the comp.

Get in the face of the opposition, especially the 'AFL sanctioned stars' like Buddy, Gablett, Judd et al -- lots of people hate this aspect of football, so let's be the club that gives voice to this discontent. Smash into these guys, make sure you draw blood, make ads out of it, be proud that we give it to city hall. You'll see people coming out the woodwork rallying behind our anti-AFL stance. When Demetriou gives us a warning, give him the finger. When they threaten to pull our funding, make a federal case out of it and let Australia know that A.D are threatening our existence unless we tow the line -- this will automatically tap into the inherent anti-authoritarian streak in our culture and people who aren't even Dogs supporters will join up just to tell A.D. where to go.

Become the 'anti-AFL' club, represent the battler, the discontented, those who are sick and tired of Big Brother telling them how to enjoy their footy. You'll be surprised how much of this sentiment there is out there. Give them a voice and they'll rally behind you.