Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

I like what has been said about our colours -- there is a lot of pro-British sentiment at the moment, we can be the daggy, 21st century club of the monarchists (not seriously, but you know, pop culturally). Really play up our British Bulldog heritage, stick the Queen's face on everything we do in an ironic way. Become the anti-establishment yet cool, politically incorrect team.

Get into social media in a real way, not the AFL sanctioned Bigpond crap -- build a British Bulldog social media presence, with our own, much better (but not more corporate) website, twitter accounts that connect our team to bigger social movements around the world (like the anti-government protests in the Arab world and in Europe).

Is this coherent? Does this make sense? No, but people GET IT. People want to protest against something, rally behind something. We are the perfect club to do that. Have a 'F*** Collingwood' campaign. Just for the heck of it.

(To balance this out, support incredibly powerful social justice programs, to show that we are only crazy as a football club, but we really do care about the world. In other words, become Will Minson!)

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Basically, just steal Tony Abbott's political campaign.

I think it's irresponsible for an opposition government, but perfect for a football team.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Once it's clear that we have the battler/bogan/blue collar market cornered, that's what we can sell to sponsors looking to target this market. Great Wall Utes, Bunnings, Four & Twenty, K-Mart, etc. -- it would make sense for them to ally with a club that has a massive following in this market.

Currently, with our brand being more confused than a monkey in a chip shop, it's no wonder we can't attract more sponsors -- who the hell would they be exposed to as part of our team? If we're not clear about who we're delivering to our sponsors, they won't be able to tell whether we're worth partnering with.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Will it stir up righteous indignation from the Caros and Patrick Smiths of the world? Of course it will. And it would be perfect, because that's exactly the kind of negative publicity we want. You know how many people are just looking for a vehicle to tell the Caros of the world to sod off?

Would a 'F*** Collingwood' campaign have Eddie on the warpath? You betcha. You know how many people will pay money just to piss Eddie off?

I can just see it. Just an ad with no voiceovers -- Bulldogs growling, interspersed with wordless close-up clips of Bulldogs players just smashing into opposition players: Crossy smashing into a pack. Growling bulldog close up. Will cleaning up a couple of players. Bulldog straining at its leash, barking, foaming at the mouth. Picken smashing Judd into the ground headfirst. A pack of bulldogs going off their nut. Ominous music. A final card with white bold text on a black background reading something like: 'Who F***ing Needs Premierships', or 'Everyone Can Sod Off, Bulldogs 2013', or 'You're Going Soft, Demetriou'. Something ridiculous and over the top.

I've got it: "Bite Me. Bulldogs 2013."

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Will it stir up righteous indignation from the Caros and Patrick Smiths of the world? Of course it will. And it would be perfect, because that's exactly the kind of negative publicity we want. You know how many people are just looking for a vehicle to tell the Caros of the world to sod off?

Would a 'F*** Collingwood' campaign have Eddie on the warpath? You betcha. You know how many people will pay money just to piss Eddie off?

I can just see it. Just an ad with no voiceovers -- Bulldogs growling, interspersed with wordless close-up clips of Bulldogs players just smashing into opposition players: Crossy smashing into a pack. Growling bulldog close up. Will cleaning up a couple of players. Bulldog straining at its leash, barking, foaming at the mouth. Picken smashing Judd into the ground headfirst. A pack of bulldogs going off their nut. Ominous music. A final card with white bold text on a black background reading something like: 'Who F***ing Needs Premierships', or 'Everyone Can Sod Off, Bulldogs 2013', or 'You're Going Soft, Demetriou'. Something ridiculous and over the top.

I've got it: "Bite Me. Bulldogs 2013."

Funniest thing I've read on WOOF

F***ing Brownlow Medals are for pansies!!!

Collingwood supporters drink Light Ale - not us!!

[azabob]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

I've got it: "Bite Me. Bulldogs 2013."

Great brainstorming Lantern.

I love the membership slogan and I love how you want our vision to be us against the rest.

McCartney's brand of football would complement that marketing message perfectly.
Consistent strong message on and off the field.

The Western Front video touched on our working class roots, so surely that is the perfect starting point?

[SonofScray]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Lantern - thank you for throwing that into the mix. Exciting concepts, you're onto something and it really resonates with our story (not that anyone would know). You've pretty much articulated some strategy in response to some of personal thoughts about what this Club is, what it means to m and what I wish it was. Made for a good read.

Cede Nullis
Bulldog Tenacity

Two of the most important phrases in our narrative. Mac is bringing that tenacity aspect into our play, the 'yield to none' stuff is sorely missing in our Office.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

F***ing Brownlow Medals are for pansies!!!

Love it. Instead of the Chris Grant lost Brownlow being a tragic story, lets be proud of it. Play up Chris's punch that lost him the Brownlow. Just have an ad with a slow mo close up of Chris's mistimed punch, really play up the moment of impact, BANG. See the face crumple under the impact. Play it over and over. BANG BANG BANG. Cut to slogan 'Biff Over Brownlows. Bulldogs 2013.'

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Sorry for the crazy brainstorms, but I'm on a bit of a roll.

The good thing about being relatively vanilla is that since no one really knows us all that well we can take the 100 years of our history and package it up to tell it however we want - we can talk about 7 failed prelims or we can talk about one of the most successful finals teams in the post VFL era. We can talk about a sad club with one premiership or we can talk about how we are part of the fastest growing region in the country, and really tacking our brand onto EVERYTHING the Western suburbs stands for. I for one am sick of our mythology being limited to Charlie's 1954. It's a beautiful part of our history, but our mythology has to be updated for the 21st century.

I would love our style of football to become well-known in its own right. Bulldog Footy to become a brand -- a bit like Bloods football, but a more bushman version. All our players grow as much facial hair as they can, develop a steely gaze that never wavers regardless of the score. Playing us becomes like playing a bunch of wild men from the northern frozen wastelands of the Arctic. Our forwards don't muck around when they take a mark. Just go back, put the foot through the ball as straight and hard as they can, if it misses it misses. Just do everything with conviction, on and off the field. This way, being true to ourselves (whatever we discover that is), we have our own internal yardstick of success and don't have to rely on external measures of success to know if we are being a successful and strong club.

Lots of people like to say that we're their second team. Give them somewhere to put their money where their mouth is. Create a 'Screw You Demetriou' 2-game membership pack, complete with bumper stickers that say stuff like 'get your hands off my AFL' and the like, has a hilarious stubby holder, a politically incorrect calendar, coupons for Big Ms etc. and let it develop its own cult following.

Our pre-game banner is a massive untapped opportunity for free publicity. Every club's is boring and pointless, we can really make ours the talk of the town by making them as interesting as the floats at the Macy's Christmas Day Parade in New York -- doesn't have to be fancy, just a huge talking inflatable dog's head one week, a flying pig the next, a huge whale's mouth -- that kind of irreverent crap which would take on a life of its own and make people tune in every week just to see what hilarious nonsense we came up this week. It would become such a thing that it would have its own segment on the FOoty SHow or commercial news outlets would close with it. Other clubs would wish they had come up with it.

The singing of the club song after a win is so perfunctory these days with most clubs, it's another opportunity for differentiation -- we could take a lead from some soccer clubs in Europe (mainly Germany) where we would have the players sing it with the crowd.. just throw a podium together in front of the main grandstand and have the team run up there and give a bullhorn to one of the players to ham it up and lead the crowd in the song. The crowd would stay back after a win just to get in on the action.

Basically, if you are perceived as 'small', you have to develop a cult, uber-devoted following, and you only do that by being different, irreverent etc. -- the funny thing is that a lot of these 'cult' things actually become huge, but still retain that 'cult' quality, which is what you want: lots of people feeling like individuals and special for making the choice to support whatever it is you are selling, even though lots of other people are doing the same.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Develop a cool streetwear range with our apparel sponsors. This would only work if it's very, very cool -- think Ben Sherman meets skatewear. Predominantly white backgrounds, but using our red white and blue motif, abstractions of the British flag, that kind of thing. Give it some underground cred by getting Banksy or someone to design it, sell it in skateshops, hook up with a couple of hip-hoppers to make it part of their wardrobe/look. Work with Puma to release a limited edition Bulldogs motif skateshoe -- maybe some hi-tops. Again, has to be very cool and well designed. Red Blue and White hightops, it will sell like hotcakes.

Sell it overseas -- in the UK especially (you know, play up the Australian angle). It would only have to be a small part of their underground scene, but the cred would rebound back here and really 21st century up our brand.

We update our look -- website etc. -- accordingly as well. Slick, yet a bit daggy -- I dunno, Bogan Cool?

I mean, our administration has thrown away our heritage, but have only done a half-arsed job of updating our identity for the 21st century, so we're kind of stuck halfway in a limbo time-warp of confused late '90s corporate identities - Robodog and the like.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Make our membership scarves/caps age appropriate -- if they are for younger members/teens, give them a design they would be proud to wear out/to school etc. Again, it's not expensive to get underground designers to work on these. Red White and Blue striped foldbacks (caps), that kind of thing. Not just for gameday, but for everyday. Get our colours and our name out onto the street, make us part of a movement.'

Make our merchandise desirable objects. (I mean, this is not rocket science. Merchandising is the biggest scam going around if you can pull it off -- people PAY YOU to advertise YOUR BRAND. Genius. Yet, look at the stuff we sell. Well, most footy clubs are crap at cross-selling anything except gameday merchandise, so we're not alone there, but there's another opportunity.)

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

:

Make our membership scarves/caps age appropriate -- if they are for younger members/teens, give them a design they would be proud to wear out/to school etc. Again, it's not expensive to get underground designers to work on these. Red White and Blue striped foldbacks (caps), that kind of thing. Not just for gameday, but for everyday. Get our colours and our name out onto the street, make us part of a movement.'

Make our merchandise desirable objects. (I mean, this is not rocket science. Merchandising is the biggest scam going around if you can pull it off -- people PAY YOU to advertise YOUR BRAND. Genius. Yet, look at the stuff we sell. Well, most footy clubs are crap at cross-selling anything except gameday merchandise, so we're not alone there, but there's another opportunity.)

Some of this stuff is pure gold Lantern. I really hope someone from the club has a look.
I like the idea of making us 'gym' animals not just in terms of the players, but in a general image sense.
Can we never again use ' who let the dogs out' again at home games please?
Put on the ACDC instead.
I have a bit of a design background so if you would like, I could knock together some visuals to go with some of the best proposals in this thread and we could put them to the club. Nothing to lose.

[1eyedog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

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.

A player on 350kpa gets about 30k a month, not a bad back slap for busting your gut.

[SonofScray]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Baltimore Ravens and the Philly Flyers are good exponents of some of the ideas Lantern has posted.

See Baltimore's anthem - 'Baltimore Get Up' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4QneKf6MIY

Philly's reputation as Broad Street Bullies and some of the mythology around 'old time hockey' shared in America's North/North-East lends itself to good branding. Here they are kicking commie ass and getting a swarm of patriotic Americans around them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxzimDYlTCs

As a Bulldog's fan I want to show my association and have it explicitly understood.

Also, Mission = mexican food. More luchadore masks in the crowd!

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Bulldog entrepreneurial brainstorms

Baltimore Ravens and the Philly Flyers are good exponents of some of the ideas Lantern has posted.

See Baltimore's anthem - 'Baltimore Get Up' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4QneKf6MIY

Philly's reputation as Broad Street Bullies and some of the mythology around 'old time hockey' shared in America's North/North-East lends itself to good branding.

As a Bulldog's fan I want to show my association and have it explicitly understood.

Baltimore - 'The wire' did wonders for their image! That's all I think of now when I hear that name.