As an avid reader of the Revolution's various woes over the past few years, the one thing that makes me angrier than the poor personnel management is the ineffective marketing. Some examples are large, like spending too much money in the wrong places (high-visibility/low-engagement stuff like T and Metro ads as opposed to something more creative that draws in fans), and subpar television promotion, and the inability to get Jon Kraft on the radio without getting sidetracked with Pats talk. The smaller stuff is arguably more disturbing, like the recent botched (to my eyes) STH Pitch event and the flaunted apathy/incompetence of Lizz Summers. The idea of a public boycott has been discussed ad infinitum here, and I think the conclusion is that it wouldn't make that much of an impact. However, I think if Revolution fandom delivered something more concrete, it would drive more notice. What if Revolution fans either crowdfunded, or collaborated on a comprehensive independent Marketing Plansbook? I mean comprehensive in terms of quantitative/qualitative research on category/company analysis, industry trends, target audience analysis, a marketing environment overview, followed by a positioning statement and creative brief with spec executions. I believe there are a lot of marketing professionals who are also Revs fans, and I believe it can be done. Plus, if this is dropped on their doorstep, and posted visibly online, and shown to the media, they'd have to take notice. Who has ever heard of a fanbase/supporters group performing their own market analysis on their team? It would be pretty unique. This is a pure hypothetical, but I'm curious what the response is here.
While I appreciate the idea, this team will never be successful if the fans are the only ones who care. If the Revs wanted to increase ticket sales/concessions/attendance, there is a very simple solution, and that is to run buses from Boston for a small fare. If they think that is too difficult(they should probably just fire everyone in marketing) they could run free shuttle buses from the Walpole or Mansfield commuter rail stations. Make a real effort and do it for an entire season. I can guarantee the increase in ticket sales and concessions would more than make up for whatever costs they might encounter. Add to that the increased attendance and atmosphere and you might actually have a real professional sports environment. No sports organization can survive solely on the efforts of their fans. Eventually, the front office has to either make a real effort or the team will be sold.
Yeah, love the passion, but you're essentially asking people to do the team's employees' jobs for them. We'd be better off starting our own club by getting together a bunch of qualified people and looking for an angel investor.
I don't think the OP is looking for survival solely from the efforts of the fans. The fans would develop the blueprint and then the FO would be responsible for executing the blueprint. This idea is better than the boycott idea. Btw, what happened to Facebook Fridays from last season? I haven't seen that promoted at all this year.
Okay and where does the MONEY come from? The Kraft's aren't going to spend it. What people do not realize is outside of Gillette Stadium how much advertising do you see for the New England Patriots? Pretty much nothing. That's because they do not have to advertise at all for the NFL. In the NFL they do not have to promote games, tv etc. These guys have no idea how to promote anything.
I personally like the idea of a bus from Boston to games - doesn't matter what part of the city - It would certainly help the broke carless college kids like myself get to the games from the city. Even though the Revs have certainly been a sub-par product over the years; The effort to get a bus from the city to the stadium would be a step in the right direction, and I'd be the first one to buy a ticket. They do it for Pats games... Why can't the Revs get the same??
You will never see it for Revs games until the MBTA has regular service to Foxboro. MBTA does not own the line and it needs a lot of work to be used every day.
I like the OPs passion for this and think crowd sourcing ideas would be valuable for the FO but it would also be a damning public indictment of the Marketing employees in charge. As Director of Marketing in my day job I would be professionally embarrassed at my quality of work if my customers, even well meaning, did all that work publicly and spontaneously. Unless the goal is to get people fired, IMO this initiative must be top down and a rev organization initiative, rather than supporter-driven. Or, we deliver it privately to the revs' FO for their consideration as concerned and passionate supporters. The revs' approach to social media is tactical, not strategic. Far too cost prohibitive to run this for the revs. This has been talked about on the board off and on the past few years and IIRC someone ran the numbers and there would have to be at least 800 fans per train per game to break even, let alone profit. Even if it was possible, that's out of the question in terms of risk for the quants and MBAs in charge.
Our attendance wasn't much better in the late 00's when we were winning, they booked double & triple headers to mask it.
Riders ran a bus from Boston to Gillette earlier this summer on a shoestring and it was mostly a success. We'll probably do another one for the NYRB match in September. Would like to make it a regular thing.
I am currently at Miami Ad School Bootcamp for Account Planners in New York, as well as 15 of 20 classes deep in an MBA, and although I have a passion for Marketing and the Revs, actually undertaking a project of this magnitude, although very interesting would absolutely require paying me, or another professional of similar caliber to do the job. From my perspective though, the problem appears that most of their initiatives are transactional, one off, and promotions based. There is very little attention paid to building long term brand equity. While research is great, and honestly my favorite part of the job, I dont know that we'd uncover too many dramatically new insights. All the problems with this organization have been discussed ad nauseum and if anything research would probably be done to confirm and support a strategic direction at this point. (which they obviously dont have) A segmentation study of single game purchase and season ticket purchasers would be what I would be most interested in seeing, and due to the fast changing culture of the league and its fans, would be the most relevant. Large companies typically commission segmentations every 2 years or so, with less aggressive operations doing it about every 5-6 years. I would love to the SG's develop more of their own user generated content. I believe we severly lack in fan videos and youtube uploads etc. compared to other teams, but its a double edged sword, because you want to show something impressive, but when the reality is maybe not so much the case the content can come off a little flat. Major SG outreaches in urban areas is something that is absolutely not happening and would be a high priority as I see it moving forward.
Honestly, I was pretty mad when I wrote this (it was patfan mentioning yet another Lizz Summers brainfart in a different thread. I'm honestly this close to starting my own FIRE LIZZ SUMMERS! meme-generator thread - her Twitter would make it fairly easy) and conceived this post/idea with the goal in mind of getting a damning public indictment of the current Marketing employees. LincolnKing: I absolutely realize what it would take - I have a MA in Marketing myself and have done what I am talking about on a much smaller scale, and you pretty much described exactly what I was thinking - which is why I suggested a kind of Kickstarter-esque crowdfunding to support payment for the effort/execution required. However, I've also talked to people about this in IRL also and do agree that there would be a limit of new insights and that anything Supporter-driven would ultimately be futile. I would absolutely love to see a segmentation study, like you said.
Many of us criticize the SGs, including those of us who are active in said groups. I'm not sure what you're getting at...
It would be cool to see video highlighting the SG experience. Everything from the view inside the Fort, to the tailgates, away viewings, roadtrips to the swamp and elsewhere and whatever else I'm missing. It would not only drive awareness and market the team but also the SGs. There's lots of creative people in the Riders and Rebellion, I'm sure it could happen. A few years back one of the Riders was invited to represent the revs at an MLS-wide event, maybe MLS Cup? Can't remember. Anyway he did an amazing job on the video. Something like that, but for the SG would be absolute viral marketing gold.
JDEsq was jumped on for claiming that the SGs suck and then not being willing to do anything himself. So now he's upset at Steve for suggesting a cool thing that the Ridersbellion might do.
I don't think he was really jumped on. I think people pretty much said that it's easy to be critical from afar, hiding behind a computer screen. People on these boards know rkupp and his opinion is far more respected and valued than someone like JDEsq. I think those in the SGs would be the first to tell you of all of our shortcomings. Then again, it's not easy to have boisterous SGs that are high in numbers when the team's performance is this bad and the SGs have been treated so poorly by the FO in the past. We've lost so many members over the years...