Name change discussion

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
HebridesTiger said:
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.)
Click to expand...
Excellent response. Well said!!
 
PLT said:
See, that should be the end of it, but Happy will come back with something else in a day or two. It won't be the Economist article since that's been addressed most recently. But some other stance to justify the opinion he's determined to have, one that was proven to be nonsense long ago and which he can pretend to have forgotten about.
Click to expand...

One anti on a forum posts a load of his views on something, and you think thats the end of it because of what you consider are his well reasoned arguments (i.e. he's an anti)?

Brilliant.

I guess because he's another clueless anti, his whining is ok, it's only when we pick the CTWD crap apart, or the stupidly clueless articles against the name chance apart that is just bollocks? <rolls eyes>

Still, lets hope going forward we can emulate the awesome show of local support Sunderland enjoys in all their home games eh?

lol
 
Happy Tiger said:
One anti on a forum posts a load of his views on something, and you think thats the end of it because of what you consider are his well reasoned arguments (i.e. he's an anti)?

Brilliant.

I guess because he's another clueless anti, his whining is ok, it's only when we pick the CTWD crap apart, or the stupidly clueless articles against the name chance apart that is just bollocks? <rolls eyes>

Still, lets hope going forward we can emulate the awesome show of local support Sunderland enjoys in all their home games eh?

lol
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that quite a few of "my views" are just highlighting the view of the original journalist/blogger or filling in factual omissions in an article that you,among others,seem to continually point to as evidence backing up your assumption that Assem Allam has this brilliant master plan for world domination by changing a football teams name and,apparently,little else.Yes,I'll admit to having the odd rant as well,but only when I think he's spouting bollocks and deserves it.....a bit like you seem to do when you feel the same about CTWD articles.
If that's me whining,go read your own posts and tell me what's the difference.
 
Is the post from HT for real? I mean really for real?
If this is supposed to shoot down Happy Tiger you will have to do better, this is so full of garbage it's embarrassing.

The article is dire, but if you are going to use it to prove a point do some research. Using comments like racist is a plain stupid.

Mind you happy, Sunderland??
 
The Omega Man said:
Is the post from HT for real? I mean really for real?
If this is supposed to shoot down Happy Tiger you will have to do better, this is so full of garbage it's embarrassing.

The article is dire, but if you are going to use it to prove a point do some research. Using comments like racist is a plain stupid.

Mind you happy, Sunderland??
Click to expand...

It wouldn't have been my first thought to be fair,but every person of asian/filipino extraction I've talked to about the Hull Tigers fiasco here has invariably said at some point " your owner sounds like a bit of a racist"(paraphrased of course,some swore quite a bit as well).
Sure it's not a hugely scientific sample but in my experience 100% of people supposedly being targeted as future custom have said it's bollocks.Good job that's not why he's changing the name eh?

quote: The Omega Man
HT where did you get the fact that in 2010 Assem Allam injected 80m plus?

I didn't.The article reads that he bought the club in 2010.....His investment of £xx has propelled the team to the position it is in when this article written,Jan 2014.I don't have the exact figures,and neither do you but the generally accepted ball park figure at the moment varies between $80-£90 million.The highlighting was mainly to show that for a supposedly respected financial paper it was very cavalier with its figures.As cavalier as me maybe,but I don't claim to be a writer for The Economist.
 
Heb tiger, purely as a counter regarding the marketing of PL clubs in Asia, I still believe that Hull City...The Tigers is better than Hull Tigers, but we have to stop thinking about just shirt sales and attracting indivual supporters. This article shows (I believe) that the club has to get into this marketplace pronto. The challenge is that so far we have not put up one single workable alternative.

http://www.connectedasia.com/the-premier-league-sponsored-by-asia/
 
The Omega Man said:
Heb tiger, purely as a counter regarding the marketing of PL clubs in Asia, I still believe that Hull City...The Tigers is better than Hull Tigers, but we have to stop thinking about just shirt sales and attracting indivual supporters. This article shows (I believe) that the club has to get into this marketplace pronto. The challenge is that so far we have not put up one single workable alternative.

http://www.connectedasia.com/the-premier-league-sponsored-by-asia/
Click to expand...

I agree,the club should be doing it's best to exploit the market as Hull City and utilizing a great nickname,The Tigers,but it hasn't.

Manchester Utd,Liverpool,Chelsea etc. didn't need a single issue protest group to tell them that's where the money is,go get.Are you suggesting that CTWD are now responsible for the clubs commercial operations and overseas marketing?Just because a company's commercial ops are seemingly incompetent and/or lazy it shouldn't make the customer go out to find revenue.
 
HebridesTiger said:
I agree,the club should be doing it's best to exploit the market as Hull City and utilizing a great nickname,The Tigers,but it hasn't.

Manchester Utd,Liverpool,Chelsea etc. didn't need a single issue protest group to tell them that's where the money is,go get.Are you suggesting that CTWD are now responsible for the clubs commercial operations and overseas marketing?Just because a company's commercial ops are seemingly incompetent and/or lazy it shouldn't make the customer go out to find revenue.
Click to expand...

I have posted before that the club should look at the CTWD and learn how it is done.

I had an interesting conversation with a property developer about investing in Hull City. He was quite astounded that Assem Allam had asked for supporters to come up with an alternative. He was equally adamant that he would not put a penny into a business that could not market itself better in the PL and also he would never invest in a club that had a strong campaign group opposing it. What he said made sense, there are easier clubs to invest in than Hull City.
He did like The Tigers and hated Hull Tigers. Saying the former was stronger. He was the one who changed my view on the development of the KC and a partnership with HCC.
 
Happy Tiger said:
One anti on a forum posts a load of his views on something, and you think thats the end of it because of what you consider are his well reasoned arguments (i.e. he's an anti)?

Brilliant.

I guess because he's another clueless anti, his whining is ok, it's only when we pick the CTWD crap apart, or the stupidly clueless articles against the name chance apart that is just bollocks? <rolls eyes>

Still, lets hope going forward we can emulate the awesome show of local support Sunderland enjoys in all their home games eh?

lol
Click to expand...

At least he's posted a reasoned argument.

Something that you've still not managed yet.
 
YAWN......... all this infighting between all you soft, shallow bastards that care ever so deeply about a petty thing like a name change and the rest of us who don't really care. should stop trying to convince the rest of us cos we are deeper than that.
 
OLM? would you stop being known as olm cos you were forced to change your name??
Would you ****! now grow up son and stop trying to wum!
senile ****/shallow **** - I can't decide which. It is like only going out with blondes.............. "who the **** cares how nice they are?............THEY ARE BLONDES!!" .........****s sake fella!!
 
PattyNchips2 said:
OLM? would you stop being known as olm cos you were forced to change your name??
Would you ****! now grow up son and stop trying to wum!
senile ****/shallow **** - I can't decide which. It is like only going out with blondes.............. "who the **** cares how nice they are?............THEY ARE BLONDES!!" .........****s sake fella!!
Click to expand...

Are you on medication? If not - maybe you should consider it......
 
The Omega Man said:
I have posted before that the club should look at the CTWD and learn how it is done.

I had an interesting conversation with a property developer about investing in Hull City. He was quite astounded that Assem Allam had asked for supporters to come up with an alternative. He was equally adamant that he would not put a penny into a business that could not market itself better in the PL and also he would never invest in a club that had a strong campaign group opposing it. What he said made sense, there are easier clubs to invest in than Hull City.
He did like The Tigers and hated Hull Tigers. Saying the former was stronger. He was the one who changed my view on the development of the KC and a partnership with HCC.
Click to expand...

We seem to be coming to some sort of conclusion.
The report (Asia) tell us what we already knew, it simply fills in some figures. By exclusion, it kind of says the level of consistent football success a club should enjoy to be truely marketable; I would say a prolonged run in the PL is a minimum shout.
Your property developer could have read this board to realise the club has the commercial nous of a frog (the croaky one), or he could visit the shop.
Your property developer comes across a tad myopic. If he took the trouble to see what CTWD is all about he would see a very credible support group that any wise owner could use to the benefit of the club - it's certainly not an hindrance to growth.
I'm baffled why he thinks the KC development is not viable - does he live in Hull?
 
PattyNchips2 said:
YAWN......... all this infighting between all you soft, shallow bastards that care ever so deeply about a petty thing like a name change and the rest of us who don't really care. should stop trying to convince the rest of us cos we are deeper than that.
Click to expand...

This is the name change thread, if you don't really care, just **** off.

And take your clown-shoe's with you.
 
originallambrettaman said:
Obviously. <doh>
Click to expand...

example...

look at TAFKAP......... (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince).... EVERYONE still refers to him as Prince.. but according to you shallow ****s. he is a brand new artist.
are you lot for real?

his back catalogue of songs are still there!
just under a different name.
But they are still his.

so when 1 of his old songs are played, where do the royalties go?
 
PattyNchips2 said:
example...

look at TAFKAP......... (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince).... EVERYONE still refers to him as Prince.. but according to you shallow ****s. he is a brand new artist.
are you lot for real?

his back catalogue of songs are still there!
just under a different name.
But they are still his.

so when 1 of his old songs are played, where do the royalties go?
Click to expand...

Prince Rogers Nelson? That's his real name and would likely be the name under which copyright is registered.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back