The selling of our club to the next generation

[Mantis]

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan). Anyway we were talking about the fact that in his his time at school he is yet to have a visit from any Bulldogs players which is upsetting to him. (He has had visits from players quite a few other clubs)

So the question I ask is, Is the club doing enough to promote our team & it's players in the fastest growing region in the west? We hear all the talk that we are the lowest supported team in Melbourne, etc, etc, but one would hope that the club would be trying to do something about it.

[LostDoggy]

When I was a young Lad we would have players come to our school at least onse a year I remember a young Scotty West, Brad Johnson and Adam Contessa running PE having a kick with us during Lunch Time. My Primary School was in Altona Meadows.

And my High School had Gia there for 6 years straight talk about commitment, though at the time he was promoting the Hawks.

[KT31]

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan). Anyway we were talking about the fact that in his his time at school he is yet to have a visit from any Bulldogs players which is upsetting to him. (He has had visits from players quite a few other clubs)

So the question I ask is, Is the club doing enough to promote our team & it's players in the fastest growing region in the west? We hear all the talk that we are the lowest supported team in Melbourne, etc, etc, but one would hope that the club would be trying to do something about it.

I know when my kids went to Primary school in the west, they had visits almost every month from the Doggies.
(Wether it had anything to do with Cooneys daughter being at the same school or not I'm unsure)
I also have had mates mention that they have had players attend school clinics and Auskick.
Unfortunatly at footy training they had Collingwood players, as Collingwood were then aligned with Willy.
I believe they now have Bulldogs players turn up.
It would only take a phone call and I'm sure the club would send a couple of players down to the school.

In answer to your question I think the club does a lot in this area, but I don't think you can ever do to much.

[LostDoggy]

I have to say that when I first saw the thread title, Mantis, you were talking about floating our club as a publicly listed company, which, at first glance, does have its attractions.

I know that I would CERTAINLY buy Western Bulldog FC shares, and it would certainly give 'the next generation' (I'm talking about Gen Ys and Xers here) an incentive to continue to support the club and see it do well, if we actually are all part owners!

[Mofra]

So the question I ask is, Is the club doing enough to promote our team & it's players in the fastest growing region in the west? We hear all the talk that we are the lowest supported team in Melbourne, etc, etc, but one would hope that the club would be trying to do something about it.
It's a good question, because I've been told it's the only region in Australia growing faster than the Gold Coast. I know we work with migrant communities but we can't forget our core market which is the kids who will follow footy reghardless, living in the Western Suburbs.

[LostDoggy]

It's a good question, because I've been told it's the only region in Australia growing faster than the Gold Coast. I know we work with migrant communities but we can't forget our core market which is the kids who will follow footy reghardless, living in the Western Suburbs.

I've raised this many times with the club, and I don't believe we're doing anywhere near as much as we should be. Our marketing department is pretty anachronistic in its approach, professionalism and creativity, very old school (pardon the pun).

As a smaller club, it is all the more incumbent upon us to be proactive and highly creative in our promotional activities as we really have to get the bang for the buck that bigger clubs can forego.

The use of technology and social networking tools to promote the club are near non-existent, although we can see how powerful it is -- one only needs to look at BHBAS to see how a very tiny grassroots activity can have great community leverage because of technology: it has inspired at least three newspaper articles in mainstream dailies, which is essentially free publicity, and BHBAS (apart from some FDOTM activity) isn't even particularly strategic!

An organised and concerted strategy to hook the kids (the McDonalds strategy) will reap huge dividends in the future -- small clubs don't become giants overnight, but it has and happened (small companies become giants all the time), and a great opportunity is right on our doorstep. One hopes that the club realises this and will not miss it.

[Mantis]

I should also mention that since North Melbourne has started it's affiliation with Werribee the number of school visits by North players to this young fellows school has gone from zero to a visit every second month. He says the number of kids who now support North in his class has gone from 1 or 2 to 6-8.

The west should be our heartland, especially the developing west so you would hope that our club starts putting in a bit more work with the kids to develop & promote our brand.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

When I was a young Lad we would have players come to our school at least onse a year I remember a young Scotty West, Brad Johnson and Adam Contessa running PE having a kick with us during Lunch Time. My Primary School was in Altona Meadows.

And my High School had Gia there for 6 years straight talk about commitment, though at the time he was promoting the Hawks.

Your High School had Gia come and promote the Hawks?

[Mantis]

Your High School had Gia come and promote the Hawks?

I am pretty sure he meant that Gia was a student at his school and was a Hawks supporter growing up.

[LostDoggy]

Your High School had Gia come and promote the Hawks?

I think he may have meant that Gia was a Hawks fan throughout highschool. My bro went to school with him, but I don't remember him ever telling me that!

I went to primary school in Kingsville in the early 90s and we had heaps of players visit us, one of my only fond memories of school! There was a program where about 3 or 4 players would visit each term and host a bulldogs breakfast, where we'd all bring a bowl and spoon and they'd feed us! Not to do with the school being pov but more to do with promoting healthy eating. They also teamed up with the local police officers for visits which was a great idea. I remember seeing Grant, McPherson, Grgic and Westy (amoung others) at my school at least once a year.

The program also encouraged the kids to sign up as Squadron members, and a bus would take us to all the games. It was great for the multicultural kids because if their family wasn't into footy, they still had a chance to go with the school.

Fantastic program, my old buds who don't follow footy still remember the players names and how much fun we had when they'd visit.

[Sockeye Salmon]

We really can't tell how well (or otherwise) our club does this.

Each of us has only a snapshot that relates to our own experience.

The only way to judge this is on raw numbers - how many school visits do we do a year and how does that stack up against the other 15 clubs.


Are we better off concentrating our efforts on fewer schools giving them multiple visits or doing one visit to every school in the West?

[strebla]

I have a friend who has children at Iramoo which is a bulldog friendly school and every couple of months he has had bulldog players there including Gilbee so we are still busy with our bulldog friendly school campaign but maybe we need to grow the number of schools under the umberella

[comrade]

I've raised this many times with the club, and I don't believe we're doing anywhere near as much as we should be. Our marketing department is pretty anachronistic in its approach, professionalism and creativity, very old school (pardon the pun).

As a smaller club, it is all the more incumbent upon us to be proactive and highly creative in our promotional activities as we really have to get the bang for the buck that bigger clubs can forego.

The use of technology and social networking tools to promote the club are near non-existent, although we can see how powerful it is -- one only needs to look at BHBAS to see how a very tiny grassroots activity can have great community leverage because of technology: it has inspired at least three newspaper articles in mainstream dailies, which is essentially free publicity, and BHBAS (apart from some FDOTM activity) isn't even particularly strategic!

An organised and concerted strategy to hook the kids (the McDonalds strategy) will reap huge dividends in the future -- small clubs don't become giants overnight, but it has and happened (small companies become giants all the time), and a great opportunity is right on our doorstep. One hopes that the club realises this and will not miss it.

A thought provoking post Lantern.

If you had to present a marketing plan to our administration, with a particular focus on finding new long-term members (kids, basically), what would your five key points be?

Please note that unleashing the fury that is Guy O’Keefe can not be deemed as a sustainable option ;)

[neodog]

The main goal of the marketing exercise is to not sign up new members in the short term but to maximise exposure and raise awareness of the brand/club/colour in the community. The club need to be open and multicultural and accessible in the eye of the community.

My 5 key points are;

1. Target them why they are young (ages kindergarten to high school)

2. Give away club coloured supporting merchandise - ie flags, footy, scarf, hats, key rings - This will obviously have a bearing on the costs but the return will be massive in the long run if we have a new life supporter/member. Also help the young impressionable mind to easily recognise and reinforce our color/brand everytime they see the club on TV.

3. Marketing budget should be agressive and take advantage in times of great on field success and be relaxed when we are not travelling to great.

4. Schedule Open public training sessions/at footy grounds all over the western suburb area. This will bring the club to the people and there should be lots of fanfare. (ie. flags, highly decorated cars/buses etc... to show that the doggies are in the area)

5. Get on other minority ethnic group tv, radio, newspapers and performed short interview or explain a simple rule in the AFL . Again the idea is not about the interview but the exposure to the bulldog brand/club.

[Dazza]

It'd be very hard to convert kids with footy mad parents. Maybe they should focus at the migrant communitys and get in first. I've noticed us doing this a fair bit though. Really the greatest marketing tool would be winning a flag. I can remember Essendon converting a HELL of alot of kids when they won the flag in 93.

I went to a school where the only dogs supporters were me and my brother.

[lemmon]

When I was a young Lad we would have players come to our school at least onse a year I remember a young Scotty West, Brad Johnson and Adam Contessa running PE having a kick with us during Lunch Time. My Primary School was in Altona Meadows.

And my High School had Gia there for 6 years straight talk about commitment, though at the time he was promoting the Hawks.

Ah another St Pauls boy, good to see. What Primary school was that mate?

[Wally G]

I work in a local primary school and my experience is that when you get past the gate keeper (no easy experience) they are generally fantastic, but it is too corporate and too hard to organise for the average hard working primary school teacher to bother with.

[LostDoggy]

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan).

Well now...that's a big call ;) LOL jokes aside... We all know there are lots and lots of youngsters who are just as passionate for the dogs as each other!

All really really good points in this thread. But why does it have to be promoted in the western suburbs only? I do understand that the idea is to get more members coming out of the western suburbs, as it's been stated before that there is a majority membership in the east. BUT, there are enough players to go around to send a couple out east occassionally.
Especially since it's much much harder and time consuming for us out here to get over there to catch training with our kids. Or to just 'pop' into the whitten oval (or bulldogs shop). It would be great for the kids on the east side of town to have access to what the west side and get much quicker and easier (if that makes sense?) Actually in saying that, it is virtually impossible to get ANY Dogs merchandise out east, it's all Richmond, Saints and Essendon gear. It's so annoying!

So getting to kids at an early age is important - as we've seen with Seb. Seb's been lucky enough to be noticed by the club and this will hopefully go along way to nurturing a long lasting relationship. It's just that we feel so far away and so out of touch with what's going on at the club. It's only because of WOOF and our hours of trawling the web that we are able to keep abreast of what's going on over there in the West.
Funny this should come up actually, cause just yesterday we were fanticising about the Dogs making Waverley their home :rolleyes:

Anyway it's all relative to the area you live in, but those who follow teams not in their home suburb (or state) for that matter should be given thought whne it comes to marketing for membership too. It all come down to money I guess!!

[strebla]

Quite right GoDoggies we are a little selfish with our posts on this thread maybe the Dogs can train once a month in suburbs across the westgate to allow our friends from afar the privelege of watching them train

[Prince Imperial]

The team does train annually in Glen Waverley in the East West day in March. I've lived in the east of Melbourne most of my life and Dogs supporters are pretty thin on the ground - I can well remember being the only Footscray supporter in my entire school.

Our club has limited resources and players can only be expected to spend a finite time on fan development exercises (in fact the AFL Collective Bargaining Agreement places limits on appearance work). I've got no problem with the club focusing on the West.

[Go_Dogs]

I think the Bulldogs are a very young, exciting team and certainly very marketable to the younger generation. My little brother (12 years old) has become a very big Bulldogs supporter in our Crows supporting household at home. I think the attraction for him is that the side is full of young players (particularly a few from SA helps too) and play an exciting brand of football.

We are well positioned for the future imo - not many people dislike us, and with some success over the next few years the club can really consolidate it's position.

[LostDoggy]

The team does train annually in Glen Waverley in the East West day in March. I've lived in the east of Melbourne most of my life and Dogs supporters are pretty thin on the ground - I can well remember being the only Footscray supporter in my entire school.

Our club has limited resources and players can only be expected to spend a finite time on fan development exercises (in fact the AFL Collective Bargaining Agreement places limits on appearance work). I've got no problem with the club focusing on the West.

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids. And it's dissapointing for them that just becasue we live on the wrong side of the westgate that we can't even get merchandise without buying online (not eveyone has computer/internet), waiting for game day (which we may not be able to make it too) or travelling to the west. This doesn't necessarily effect me, but I know a few doggies supporters who find it difficult to get stuff for their kids and/or can't affor the time or money to travel to the west.
I'm aware of the ONE training session in Glen Waverley (if you can call it that!!). But is it enough, for an entire district. Perhaps it could be spread out with just a couple more, is all I'm saying.
Totally understand that the club has limited resources (and the whole AFL collective bargaining thing), but I think there should be slightly (I'm not saying HEAPS) more involvment than just one light trianing session in March.
We couldn't even get an AFL layer to come to our Auskick clinic this year. We usually get someone from Richmond, but not one club would ablige this year. I would have thought perhaps the Dogs may have jumped at the chance to promote themselves, they could have sent someone like Roughhead or a player who doesn't get heapd of games and is not in as much demand. It's wouldn't take much!!

[aker39]

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids. And it's dissapointing for them that just becasue we live on the wrong side of the westgate that we can't even get merchandise without buying online (not eveyone has computer/internet), waiting for game day (which we may not be able to make it too) or travelling to the west.

I agree with some of your points.

To have a retail outlet on your side of town would not be commercially viable.

If someone doesn't have the internet, they can ring the shop and order over the phone.

[Prince Imperial]

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids.

No I don't and I hope you are right and that there are a heap of kids in the east now barracking for our club but I'm a bit sceptical about how many.

The "East" is a massive area with the large majority of Melbourne's population and it must be difficult to identify which parts of it in particular would be worth servicing. The West is the state's fastest growing area with a lot of young families and I think we are better concentrating school/Auskick visits etc in that area to grow our supporter base.

[cambo]

I was over from WA during the last school holidays and went to an OPEN training session hoping for myself and my daughter to see our great players, get a few autographs etc. Whitten Oval probably had 200 kids there that day as it was school hols in Melb as well, do you know how many players bothered to come out and see the kids? 2 Tim Callan and Shaun Higgins both of whom were injured at the time. I left a very dissapointed member along with a host of angry parents. I rang the club and all they could say is the players give enough of there time during the year to members and supporters? Why would they not give the kids there time during school holidays? You do wonder if the marketing department etc are doing enough for the supporters and members when you see something like this. Sorry to ramble on but it was not good enough for our small club!

[alwaysadog]

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan). Anyway we were talking about the fact that in his his time at school he is yet to have a visit from any Bulldogs players which is upsetting to him. (He has had visits from players quite a few other clubs)

So the question I ask is, Is the club doing enough to promote our team & it's players in the fastest growing region in the west? We hear all the talk that we are the lowest supported team in Melbourne, etc, etc, but one would hope that the club would be trying to do something about it.

Is the school part of the Bulldog Friendly Schools Program? I'm pretty sure the club sends players to every school that gives them the opportunity. I've heard that a few principals who support other teams can make access difficult.

[LostDoggy]

Ah another St Pauls boy, good to see. What Primary school was that mate?

Queen Of Peace. Yourself lemmon?

But on Topic with efforts like the last two weeks the sales to the next Gen will take care of itself.