Just wondering if the happy,clappy(but decidedly bitter & twisted),we love Disneyworld names clique have any evidence of support other than the tepid and rambling Economist piece or the equally indecisive BBC article on sport marketing(considering half of the Beeb article was interviewing someone who makes his money in sports marketing it was fairly undecided by the end,just like Clappys' wonderful Economist revelation)
Both appear to be token attempts to give balance to the story but ultimately end up saying"Meh!Might work....that's if they have a proper marketing strategy in place,well in advance of the actual name change.But it will only matter if they become a consistently successful team anyway."
Just to point out,if you were unaware,why Economist journalists only use initials(if they're bloggers) or pseudonyms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymity
Let's take a look at your precious Economist article shall we?
IT SHOULD really be smiles all-around at Hull City FC, a mid-sized football team in an unloved corner of north-east England. Since the team was bought by a local businessman, Assem Allam, in 2010, his £60m
(it's 80-90mill,but I suppose figures aren't the Economists strong point) ($100m) investment has propelled the club into the English Premier League (EPL), just at a time when playing in the top division became a lot more lucrative. The team is also highly likely
(?) to remain among the elite for another season, after an excellent first 20 games.
However, Hull’s season has been overshadowed by an ugly row between Mr Allam and the club’s supporters over his attempt to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers. A pressure group, City Till We Die (CTWD), believes that “changing our name will break with 109 years of history and tradition”. These supporters have received vocal approval at the club’s matches in recent weeks. Mr Allam believes that a stronger brand identity is required. As he told The Guardian, “City, Town, County: these are meaningless. In marketing the shorter the name the more powerful—think of Coca Cola, Twitter, Apple.”
(a belief he admits he got from reading a business paper on stock market trading and of which one of the co-authors of that very paper has said bears no relevance whatsoever to the kind of marketing that Assem Allam is attempting.Rather poorly at that.) He has lodged a request with the sport’s governing body in England, the Football Association (FA), for formal approval, having changed the name of the club’s holding company to Hull City Tigers in 2013. The supporters are anxiously waiting for the FA’s ruling. Mark Gretton of CTWD has said “It is hard to convey the misery and anger that [the name change] has stirred in so many.”
(This is a shameful example of peoples passion and emotion for their football team that has no place in business decisions,unlike selling the the premier league abroad as a business steeped in the very same passions,emotions,history and traditions of the teams and supporters in it)
On one hand, Mr Allam would be well-advised to be sensitive to the fans’ outrage.
Professional sports clubs’ brand is often their most valuable asset, and building loyalty and recognition to a new name takes decades and many millions in advertising. In the United States, sports teams have held onto their nicknames even after moving to a new city where the original one is irrelevant—see the Utah Jazz basketball team, formerly of New Orleans—and the Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves have resisted a switch even though their sobriquets and logos are widely seen as offensive to Native Americans.
But the brand equity locked up in the Hull City trademark pales in comparison with that of the clubs listed above: it is barely a household name across England, not to mention the rest of the world.
(Whilst there is obviously more money in a US market,apart from the Redskins I'd never heard of any of those supposed household names before this article.It also misses out the fact that most team moves/changes in the states have supporter involvement in the process,unlike in Hull.) And even some of football’s most hallowed teams went through periods of reinvention before settling down.
(As pointed out many times before,these examples occurred when football was in it's infancy and many clubs were growing into different entities from their humble beginnings.What they were not doing was marketing themselves for the far east.)Manchester United was once called Newton Heath, for example, and Liverpool’s ground, Anfield, was originally occupied by their arch-rivals.
The economics of the EPL demand that teams pay as much attention to modern marketing strategies as they do to putting together their roster.
(Changing your name and hoping for the best is not a marketing strategy,that's just winging it.Both this article and the Beeb one stress the need for advance planning yet there seems to be nothing coming out of the club,official or rumour.Is there a dynamic "Hull Tigers F.C." marketing team?Or a team for the far east?And which ad agency do we have "on board" for our supposed global roll-out?Do we even have a strategy yet?'Cos if not it's too late to be starting a campaign now for next season.Maybe it'll all be done on the cheap because no one tells Assem how to do business,especially some artsy-fartsy ad man.) Since the league has precious few restrictions on well-heeled patrons’ ability to spend at will,
(Apart from FFP regs,but fair enough,there will be ways around it) clubs that don’t have the good fortune to be owned by oligarchs must turn to corporate backers to finance their player acquisitions. Manchester United, the most successful English team of recent years, lists 35 sponsors on its website; Liverpool recently signed a seven-figure deal with Dunkin’ Donuts, which will become the club’s “official coffee, tea and bakery partner”.
(Wow!Sounds great.How did they get that sponsorship?Did they change their names?...or have they won a ****load of trophies and titles?) That may provide amusement to opposition fans, but management hopes that the additional revenue will enable it to make a louder noise on the pitch. Hull’s only chance of keeping pace with these rivals financially
(Really?Does any one,other than Papa Doc,believe this is actually possible in the foreseeable future?Keep up financially with Manchester United?To be honest I doubt even he thinks,or even cares,if it works,just as long as he loses the City.) is to expand its revenue base beyond its small cadre of die-hard supporters.
Whether a name change will be of any help in this pursuit remains to be seen
(Sounds like this blogger is unsure there will be any benefit). Mr Allam’s choice of “Tigers” seems to be a rather transparent
(and racist) bid for supporters in Asia, where the EPL is hoovering up millions in new television revenue:
(which is payed to the PL,and,as far as I'm aware,not divvied out on the basis of cutest names get more dosh) species of tiger are national symbols in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, China and South Korea. Cardiff City, another medium-sized club that changed hands in 2010 and later rose to the EPL, has adopted a similar strategy, changing its shirt colour from blue to red—which is thought to be more palatable to Asian fans
(and is a strategy that has had no appreciable effect on Cardiff City income from the intended market so far)—despite fierce opposition from current supporters.
In and of itself, the new brand is unlikely to lure many fans. But it could come in handy if Mr Allam backs it up with an integrated marketing strategy: say, acquiring a handful of players from his targeted countries, having the club travel to the region as often as possible and arranging partnerships with local brands and media.
So not changing the name and marketing the club professionally would work just as well?
In the end, however, the best advertisement is a quality product. Mr Allam is continuing to invest in his team on the pitch, committing £15m to new players in the January transfer window. And he has threatened to walk away from the club
(if he's willing to blow tens of millions of his own money) if the FA rejects his proposed change, which could leave it in a perilous financial situation. CTWD’s members may need to ask themselves whether they would prefer to cheer for Hull Tigers in the EPL, or for a diminished Hull City in the Championship or worse.
(The old loaded question again,why not ask"would you prefer your balls cut off,you might not bleed to death,or would you rather be pushed off a cliff and probably die,but might land safely on a ledge?"...Quite obvious which answer would be more attractive at first glance but the fact that nothing is guaranteed in either scenario,or for that matter gives a logical reason for the scenario's in the first place,makes the question quite pointless.)
