After reading this thread and seeing what's posted I can only conclude that there is no marketing department. I'm not joking. There is likely a sales department where there is some poor college intern that produces occasional material and never apparently proofreads. Anyone who is classically trained in marketing would not generate what has been listed here. Ever. There is also likely a social department (aka, 1 poor community manager) who probably does video (explaining why these are bombastic and with no purpose usually). What this means: 1) No target market assessment and associated strategy 2) Zero consumer insights 3) No creative strategy (hence the incoherent messaging) 4) No coordinated marketing campaign or marketing strategies 5) No integrated marketing communications between Sales/Marketing/Communications/Social 6) No three year plan 7) No one monitoring brand guidelines 8) No strategic asset calendar When you look at all that, that makes you realize why we're seeing what we are seeing. Also shows that while marketing is derided, our job actually has some science around it that isn't just producing a TV ad every once in awhile. MLS has a CMO - they should be monitoring the marketing of every team. Not sure what this person does. Their primarily responsibility is the league, but the teams reflect on the league.
Spot on. Even someone who worked their way up on merit wouldn’t allow for this, hell I know undergrads that would be embarrassed by this level of work. Based on Chris’s comments last night he’s either totally oblivious or towing the company line. Once Bruce goes I see a Red Bulls style malaise in our future. As Cadaver said it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Bumpy rides in terms of trophies are inevitable. But, it was not very encouraging to hear Klein say, "The Club is young."
Indeed and the rules of the league can hinder an ambitious club as we saw with the Kljestan deal, that’s why those areas unencumbered by league rules & restrictions should be exploited to their fullest. To my knowledge the league does not impose any sort of cap or restriction on marketing/branding/advertising.
Its not like the league rules are a secret. We knew them but we tried to push through the Sascha deal anyway. We shouldn't be upset that we failed to circumvent the known rules. If we had any decent scouting we could have brought in a player to play the same role SK was intended to play for probably less money and circumvent the allocation order. Honest question, do we have any full time scouts?
No. No scouts, and no effort in that area. How much scouting do you have to do to find Sacha? One of the things that impressed me when I read about Tim L's recruiting for Toronto wasn't just how hard he worked to get Defoe and Bradley but that he actually had multiple targets and was working them all, knowing inevitably some would fall through and some were long shots in the first place. But he pursued them all giving his team the best shot possible of landing one or two gems. Maybe he overpaid in the end but no one can criticize the effort he put out. OTOH I can't criticize LA's recruiting effort either - doesn't make sense to criticize a mythical creature.
I don't think we were trying to circumvent anything. I think we knew that Mix D was Crew's target acquisition. If that had gone thru, and Dallas did not have the wherewithall to meet Sascha's asking price, it would have gone down as planned. Mix's father's last minute demands pulled the rug out from under that deal, and the domino effect was that we got screwed.
http://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2013/09/19/la-galaxy-to-re-sign-president-chris-klein So the guy retires in 2010. In 2011, he was the director of the academy. In 2012, he was promoted to VP. In 2013, he was promoted to President. We're talking about two years of real business experience and now he's making up to $500,000! This is a joke. Here's the Galaxy's VP for Marketing: http://www.lagalaxy.com/club/staff Johnathan Lowe. Of course it turns out he's not our VP, he's AEG's VP. Here's his bio from a board he's on http://www.contra-tiempo.org/aboutus.html The Galaxy isn't even a "prized asset", we're just tenants at the Home Depot Center.
This is key. Because it likely means he spends 2-3 hours/month on LA Galaxy marketing. The rest would take up the majority of his time. Don't know the structure of the LA Galaxy marketing team, or if there is one. When you release your marketing assets you need a strategy as to when to release them to generate the most eyeballs. a) Does it align to your overall campaign messaging at the moment? Need to ensure the asset messaging aligns to reinforce messaging, and to optimize your beats. b) Space out your assets appropriately, or determine if there's a point to do a "big beat" and release several items together. But there should be thought behind this and not just issuing assets. Releasing multiple videos at once for example dilutes your viewership. c) Look at your year long calendar to determine if you have the right release schedule over time. d) Plan out your according social/Comms beats - need to do this in advance because there is a science to it, not just the day of the asset release. e) Ensure you have all the right metrics and tags in place for the channels of release f) Ensure all your tracking methodology is up and running for the release, and ensure you actually track performance - list this on the calendar to reinforce that tracking and learning is just as important as release. g) If localization is necessary, you need to give the calendar in advance to other territories (for instance - if you want a Spanish version). Hope that helps.
The rules of MLS are so mysterious, that there have been bad Nicholas Cage movies made about trying to uncover what they are.
Well, that Town Hall was a fail. Probably was a win for the Galaxy, though. They get to show a facade of caring about the fans and the fans get to think they have a say in the organization. The questions were terrible and I wish there was a way that some of our questions could have been asked and answered. This Town Hall is just another symptom of the problem, Galaxy is all flash right now and no substance. I really don't know if we will see any change in the future and am more and more worried for where we will be in a couple years after Bruce retires.
Such a shame to hear about the town hall meeting. The questions show you what kind of fans we go after though. Maybe we're all in the minority here.
there's probably a small contingent of junior level people handling all aspects of customer interaction for LAG, with the ability to draw additional resources from AEG on a case by case basis. my guess is that the only actual marketers we've had lately were employed by or because of Beckham.
Another example of amateur hour: the constant use of the league highlight video from the last game even when it has virtually nothing to do with the topic at end. The latest example is Adam Serrano's interview with Alan Gordon. Should have been an easy video to shoot and post. Instead there is the canned league produced video and a typed interview. Not even a picture of Gordon.
As pointed out this thread is more about catharsis than anything else, but at this point I’d rather have either StubHub or Herbalife take over our marketing department. Regardless of my personal feelings about the product or business practices of either they at least have a competent marketing & branding department with defined standards. Oh and @Berks did you read Lowe’s bio the way I did? To me it came across like the resume of someone who hasn’t been personally responsible for anything and was moved sideways/demoted within the organization. Lots of vague allusions and making normal activities of marketing out to be achievements/recognition. I’m biased and frustrated at this point and I know it wasn’t specifically a resume, but if that came across my desk for a senior level position it would go in the automatic rejection pile. I’ve found “shifted” and “amongst others” are two red flags in resumes. The former usually indicates someone whose abilities have plateaued but can’t be fired or promoted so get moved sideways or given a meaningless title (I see that a lot within LA’s branding/marketing department). “Amongst others” usually means “you’ve never heard of the others so I’m not going to list them here.” Again, I’m totally biased, but certainly the work produced thus far would bear out Lowe is either ill-equipped to handle his senior level position or as you say overworked managing two brands. That said the Creative Director for Maple Leaf seems to handle juggling multiple brands and events with aplomb.
I think there is a marketing department, but it is an AEG marketing department. I think they handle the marketing for both the Kings and us. And right now, the Kings are the money maker. They just released that they sold out all their season tickets, 17k, for the upcoming season. Sure they threw up some billboards at the beginning of the season, but then turned their focus to the Kings. They are probably busy with the upcoming NHL season, forgetting all about us. Hell, are marketing was probably done by all the summer interns, which means there will be nothing for us for the rest of the season now that they are back to school. I guess we are stuck with Dan Gargan and a box of crayons...
Also whether or not Jon Lowe is competent or not is almost moot since his bio says we aren't his focus any more: "...Two years ago, Jonathan shifted his role withinAEG to focus on the Kings and currently serves as the Senior Director of Marketing and Promotions for the hockey club..." That leaves exactly who to focus on the Galaxy? My read is that since Tim L. left no one at AEG gives a damn about us.
I think that's probably right. It would explain a lot. Maybe it's time to wish for a new ownership group for which the Galaxy is a focus, and not an afterthought.
The latest in sigh inducing “art” Lunch box Omar wearing last year’s kit Landon wearing 2012 kit Only Robbie wearing the current kit Size difference between “LA” and “Galaxy” is specifically forbidden in branding guidelines “LA” and “Galaxy” both violate the crest’s white space as defined in the brand guideline “LA” and “Galaxy” both violate their own white space requirements as defined in the brand guideline Herbalife logo almost certainly violates their branding guideline with regard to necessary white space Marketing asset I’m sure Herbalife are thrilled having their logo obfuscated by being printed against the blue sash Again our opponent’s crest pops more than LA’s Unnecessary asterisk (nit pick) On the bright side nothing seems to be misspelled. We never were. He was with AEG. Based on the precipitous drop in quality and the continuity of and relative dearth personnel I have a strong suspicion LA had an outside agency handling their marketing or collateral. This season in an effort to cut costs they brought it in house. Outside agencies are expensive relative to internal departments, but the effort to acquire and maintain the talent necessary to be competitive with the quality of is really, really hard. In soccer terms it’s like relying on your academy products to supply the 18 man game day roster. There’s definitely employees specific to the Galaxy who in marketing/design.
I haven't haven't used a school lunch box in 50 years. My kids stopped using them after 4th or 5th grade. Yet the Galaxy's big promo is 15,000 lunch boxes? Who plans these events? I wonder if that is part of MLS's plan to bring in those big spending young urban professionals. I can just see the young buck eager for a promotion carrying in his lunch in a Galaxy lunch box. Can you imagine the Marketing discussion: "But if we order 15,000 of these lunch boxes from China the cost will be less than $1.00 per box and Herbalife agreed to pick up 50%, thats a lot cheaper than what we would need to pay for 15,000 Galaxy T's.".