Disturbing comments re Revenue & Sponsors

[kaos theory]

SR – you are still not getting it. Have you read my posts?

I’m fully aware that there are many different types of arrangements with potential sponsors. That is NOT the point. The point is that other clubs can secure a stable set of sponsors that stay over a number of years. In fact a sponsor will also generally prefer this arrangement. This, under whatever model you want to use to analyse it, is far more profitable than having to work hard each year to find a new ‘niche’ sponsor.

Because of incompetence, RB and his board have been unable to achieve a preferred arrangement with key sponsors. It’s that simple. The ‘niche’ market players bit is just BS to cover up his failings.

[saintsRrising]

SR – you are still not getting it. Have you read my posts?

I’m fully aware that there are many different types of arrangements with potential sponsors. That is NOT the point. The point is that other clubs can secure a stable set of sponsors that stay over a number of years. In fact a sponsor will also generally prefer this arrangement. This, under whatever model you want to use to analyse it, is far more profitable than having to work hard each year to find a new ‘niche’ sponsor.

Because of incompetence, RB and his board have been unable to achieve a preferred arrangement with key sponsors. It’s that simple. The ‘niche’ market players bit is just BS to cover up his failings.

You are deluding yourself if you believe that ALL other clubs have stable sponsors....and that over the years there is not change.


Yes some clubs have had more stable sponosorships than others.




If it is ONLY RB....then why in the many years prior to RB did the Saints not have the one stable major sponsor?




BUT as you state it is so simple...Westaway will obviously deliver a mega-sponosr who will sponosr us for a minimum ofa decade....otherwise he will be a failure????????????????????

[saintsRrising]

that stay over a number of years. In fact a sponsor will also generally prefer this arrangement. .

and I know for a fact that not all do.


Apart from having companies sponsorr things that I am involved with....Iihave also often been a sponosr myself. & in particular in my past career where I wa sa national marketing manager.



Sometimes I chose one off events....sometimes it was longer term.

I had one regular event that I sponsored for 6 years.....and then dumped when what the thrust of what the organistion was promoting changed.



Major sponosorships are not about sipping wine at the footy (though obvioulsy minor ones often are..)....but about adding value to a companies bottom line.

[kaos theory]

SR - I will try this one more time....I will make it as simple as I can:

Over the last 4 years we have been in the top 6 clubs based on attendances, memberships, supporter base, finals appearances, and TV ratings/appearances. We have the potential to do better based on our colours, name, star players and latent supporter potential.

Our revenue and sponsorship performance over the last 5 years ranks in the bottom 3 (if not last).

I had NOT anywhere stated that all clubs have the one consistent big sponsor or consistent set of major sponsors. I don’t give a f*** about all clubs, I’m only interested in where we stand and relative to that, how we should be performing on revenue & sponsorship.

I have NOT anywhere stated that all companies want fixed long-term agreements with one body. Again, I don’t give a f*** about ALL the companies, I’m just interested in what the saints should be doing and the type of sponsorship we should be securing.

If I had a national sales manager working for me who had responsibility for a significant proportion of my company’s revenue, and he was performing very poorly on a consistent basis, relative to the comparable competition, he would be called in for scrutiny. If he explained this failing as “…not all sponsors want a stable relationship with one company, some chose one off events…blah, blah, blah".... I would show him the door and hire someone who could do the job.

It’s that simple….

And that is my concern with the RB board…..At very least SFF has recognised this problem and proposed a vision to address it, while RB tries to push it under the carpet with BS. SFF has also assembled a team with far greater skills & capability than the incumbent to carry out its vision.

[saintsRrising]

Our revenue and sponsorship performance over the last 5 years ranks in the bottom 3 .

Do you have seperate figures for just major sponsorship???


Also why is Westaway bothering with all these new minor sponsors.????..he has said that he has 3 who combined will bring in $1 million. Sounds like Westaway is chasing some niche sponsors to me....and not just a big whale.


Hey we would all love to landa Whale.....but if you cannot get one you do what you can rather than just keep looking fora whale.


PS.. My sponsorship management which includes niche sponsors is obviously crap despite the fact I have increased it about 500% in three years since joining. If only I had gone for the one big sponsor I would have been much better off. What a fool I am.

[Oh When the Saints]

Geelong - Ford
Kangaroos - Mazda
West Coast - Hungry Jacks/SGIO
Port Adelaide - Scotts
Adelaide - Toyota
Sydney - QBE

They are all long terms sponsors ... noticeably interestate clubs.

Not arguing either way ... just throwing something up there.

[SENsei]

Geelong & Ford's partnership has been going for over 30 years, am I right?

I believe the GIO/Hungry Jacks West Coast deal has been in since WCE's admission to the AFL in 1987. QBE have been with Sydney since the late 1980s. Adelaide & Toyota have been together since inception also, with their song originally being "Camry Crows".

Traditionally, Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Kangaroos & Melbourne have struggled to hold onto sponsors long term.

Not discounting what has been said previously, my personal opnion is that we should be aiming at a big company for our club. Coca Cola. Pepsi. Panasonic. Sony.

I'm sick of these small fly by nighters like Mortgage House and Bill Express. We need and should be with the big boys.

[Mr Magic]

[quote="SENsaintsational"]Geelong & Ford's partnership has been going for over 30 years, am I right?

I believe the GIO/Hungry Jacks West Coast deal has been in since WCE's admission to the AFL in 1987. QBE have been with Sydney since the late 1980s. Adelaide & Toyota have been together since inception also, with their song originally being "Camry Crows".

Traditionally, Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Kangaroos & Melbourne have struggled to hold onto sponsors long term.

Not discounting what has been said previously, my personal opnion is that we should be aiming at a big company for our club. Coca Cola. Pepsi. Panasonic. Sony.



Geelong/Ford is a special case. Ford is the major employer in teh Gelong/Bellarine area and their sponsorship of the area's Football Team should not be compared with any sponsor of a Melbourne Metro Team.

Similarly with Adelaide and Toyota - a major employer in SA.

Port Adelaide has Scotts Transport - are they any bigger/smaller than Gregorys Transport? If similar size then why is it totally out of the question that our long term major sponsor will be Gregorys Transport?

I don't think you can actually get a Coca Cola/Pepsi/Sony etc because they are either a major sponsor of the AFL or a competitor of a major sponsor of the AFL.

We have had major sponsors of the ilk you call for but the AFL have deemed them as unacceptable and we had to sever ties with tehm. Remember Philip Morris, Tooheys.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

Geelong & Ford's partnership has been going for over 30 years, am I right?

I believe the GIO/Hungry Jacks West Coast deal has been in since WCE's admission to the AFL in 1987. QBE have been with Sydney since the late 1980s. Adelaide & Toyota have been together since inception also, with their song originally being "Camry Crows".

Traditionally, Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Kangaroos & Melbourne have struggled to hold onto sponsors long term.

Not discounting what has been said previously, my personal opnion is that we should be aiming at a big company for our club. Coca Cola. Pepsi. Panasonic. Sony.

I'm sick of these small fly by nighters like Mortgage House and Bill Express. We need and should be with the big boys.

Trouble with shooting for a big multinational sponsor like Vodaphone is that at the end of the day, they don't need the Saints very much. They do an ROI measurement, consult their tea leaves to judge the campaign, and when they need that revenue for the next place, they go to the next place.

Geelong and Ford are a very special case, with the Ford plant right on Geelong's doorstep, they've been very successful in branding the town as a result. Similarly, at the time, the Crows and Eagles grabbed BIG marketshare in those towns. Even the Sydney Swans have a cross marketing potential in Australia's biggest city which is quite possibly of more use to a sponsor than it is to the Swans and AFL itself.

Big companies don't hang around as major sponsors (ie naming rights kind of stuff) out of the goodness of their hearts. It's branding, name awareness and advertising potential.

What do the Melbourne clubs have to offer on the same scale? It's not to say they can't attract big sponsors, they offer more limited branding potential, but certainly good name awareness opportunities, but the general advertising potential is much weaker... less TV share, less fanbase, less long term interest from a multinational.

For the Melbourne clubs, signing a long term deal is probably disavantageous at the end of the day, as they'll need to discount their branding power to make it fly. As a result, for large companies, the AFL forms a niche that they're presenting to, and therefore the Melbourne clubs form a short term solution as a marketing question. However in dealing with the smaller multinats, the Australian companies, whose vision is centred on Melbourne and Melbourne B2B, the Saints (and other Melbourne clubs) can offer attractive packages over a longer term through facilities like the medallion club, finals and grand final tickets, and other corporate access.

Unless someone can think of a company that needs to brand Moorabbin & southeast in the same way Ford Brands Geelong, the Saints are unlikely to attract a long term partnership of that sort.

[SENsei]

Fair enough. As I say, this isn't my area of expertise.

With Ford moving out of Geelong, is their deal in jeopardy?


Interesting about the 'branding of Moorabbin' concept. What does Moorabbin have to offer? Maybe the Peninsula, beach aspect is a better fit too.

How and who is beyond me though. Easy to question but harder to come up with the right answers.

[saintbrat]

[

Port Adelaide has Scotts Transport - are they any bigger/smaller than Gregorys Transport? If similar size then why is it totally out of the question that our long term major sponsor will be Gregorys Transport?

Not any more they don't

PORT LOSE SPONSOR
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 6:49 amBY NINO BUCCI

TRANSPORT magnate Allan Scott has withdrawn his major sponsorship of Port Adelaide, The Age reported today.

Scott’s Transport will no longer be involved with the Power, fuelling speculation that a long-time feud between coach Mark Williams and Scott was beyond repair.

http://www.footyheads.com.au/

[Mr Magic]

Fair enough.

Interesting about the 'branding of Moorabbin' concept. What does Moorabbin have to offer? Maybe the Peninsula, beach aspect is a better fit too.

The last major sponsor to try this was Philip Morris - a major employer in the Moorabbin area.

They used the Saints facilities quite a lot, for meetings etc, and regularly purchased game day tickets for their employees (hundreds even thousands) to attend Saints matches at Moorabbin.

Even then, the Sponsorhip was sold to Phillip Morris by one of their Directors who was a life-long Saints fan.

[Brewer]

That's all well and good, but how do you explain Collingwood?

Emirates
Lexus
Adidas
Wizard
McDonalds
TAC
Carlton Draught
Coke Zero
Telstra
Crazy Johns
Bega
HostPlus
Origin
Hard Yakka
PFD
GNC LiveWell


Sponsors are queuing up, and although the pies have a bigger audience than the Saints I don't think you can explain such a stark difference with a few thousand more fans.

They certainly don't have any regional advantage on ANY of those sponsors.

Face it, the simple fact is that Eddie and his mob are FAR better at playing the corporate game than Butterss et al.

[Mr Magic]

Brewer, the answer is demographics.

All these sponsors are trying to attract the 3 types of peole who support the Filth:-

Migrants
Women
People who know nothing about football.

We unfortunately have a much better class of supporter than the Filth and so these particular sponsors don't feel we are the right dempographics for their products/services.

[saintsRrising]

Face it, the simple fact is that Eddie and his mob are FAR better at playing the corporate game than Butterss et al.

PRECISELY...MEGA sponsors care about exposure and getting MORE people to use their product or service, or to use them more often.

Eddie delivers MORE exposure because Eddie is Eddie with a HUGE media profile...

Sponsors buying the Pies do not just buy the PIES...they are buying Eddie too...and Eddie is happy to facilitate this.

This is one of the reasons that Eddie is so good for Collingwood.

However expecting that RB should be as good as Eddie is just rubbish....and I can assure you that westaway will not be able to do the value added that Eddie does.




Servicing the sponsors better is all well and good....but better catering and follow ups probably will do wonders for the mid to lower sponsors who ARE influenced by ego and loyalty to the Saints.

But the likes of Telstra, Vodafone, Nike etc.....don't really give two hoots about their execs and clients having an extra chardy or two at the football UNLESS they see clear marketing value (ie measurable increase in sales) for their goods or service.

Some of my current sponsors include Shell, Mobil etc...so I am aware how the big boys think.

[Brewer]

Nobody's saying RB should be 'as good as' Eddy.

But to allow Vodafone to sign without mentioning that one of our biggest names is already signed to Telstra shows at best total ignorance, and at worst total disdain, for our sponsors and their commercial priorities.

Eddy moves heaven and earth to provide value to his sponsors at every opportunity. His media profile obviously helps, but there is a very clear difference in attitude and effort.

Our sponsors are suing us ffs.

[Shaggy]

After 7 years we know RB is not an "Eddie".

Westway is probably not either but at least some 3rd parties will give him a chance. RB has had his time and what you see is what you get which is bottom quarter revenue with a top team.

Lol - you have to laugh given 2 years ago we had the premiership by the balls until the Dockers game. The year after we spent the second lowest on recruitment .