Rewrite

"I'm working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash"

-Paul Simon

I was so excited about the Crew's new "Dare to be Massive" campaign. The idea of working to get the season ticket base back up to 10,000 is an important step for the club and honestly is very overdue.

I said I was excited. Then someone decided to go and shit all over it. Honestly this article just re-hashes the same lame excuses that I've heard from everyone as to why the Crew aren't moving tickets. There was something that I found interesting in the article however. This quote:

“The Buckeyes dominate the sports landscape. They dominate the media and they extract a significant amount of resources from a small market,” (Mark) McCullers said. “If fans say we’re not marketing enough, it’s because we have a hard time getting a lot of attention because of the Buckeyes’ dominance. We spend just as much, or more, than most MLS teams in their markets.”

There's the key word there. SPEND. In case you didn't get the memo traditional advertising doesn't work anymore. That money that you are spending to advertise on the radio, buy billboards, put spots on TV? Why not just set it on fire? It would generate about the same amount of revenue.

Mr. McCullers. I beg of you to buy the following books.

Punk Marketing.

Creating Customer Evangelists

There is a reason the Dallas Mavericks attendance doubled under Mark Cuban. It had nothing to do with winning and it had nothing to do with giving away tickets on the radio.

It also probably didn't have to do with putting all of their advertising money in to promoting the AWAY TEAM.



Honestly. Kudos to the Crew for selling out the game tonight against LA, but I don't believe that the above promotion had anything to do with it at all.

Silence the Sounders?
Black out the Galaxy?
"It's Vancouver's first trip here so lets give them a not so warm welcome."

How do any of these tag lines convey what to expect at a game? What do any of these tag lines say about the Crew? What does a casual fan think when he or she reads/hears/sees these tag lines?

Direct quote from a friend of mine who is a 1 to 2 game a year attendee, but not someone who follows the team.

"Are the Crew so bad this year they have to promote the away team to get people to show up?"

That is the brand that these "marketing" messages are cultivating. The team is so horrible that nothing good can be said so the away team is the most marketable feature of this game.

This is the brand that the Crew have established for themselves.

Fortunately I don't believe it's too late to change this.

A few things right off the bat. Re-work the sponsorship booklet. Page 5 shows the Crew doing an appearance at a Home Depot. The only people there are the people working the booth. There are NO FANS in this picture. I've been to events where fans have actually showed up. Maybe next time someone could bring a camera? Also on pages 2 and 3 eliminate the pictures where you can see huge rows of empty seats. Why would anyone pay to sponsor a team when the materials that you distribute can't even show the best results?

Find a brand. "Work Hard. Play Harder." just doesn't say anything. Also it's not being paid attention to in the marketplace or there would be more awareness of the team. Pick something shorter that generates excitement.

STOP MARKETING THE DAMN AWAY TEAM. It's much easier to establish one really good brand than establish 17 temporary brands. Also when you focus your effort on branding the away team you give the casual fans nothing to hang their hat on.

On a related note... stop putting a large portion of your media spend on marketing the one game a year that sells out and instead focus on the other 16 home games.

Stop wasting money. When putting together next year's advertising budget take the money you were going to waste on television and radio and use it to hire someone who understands Guerrilla marketing.

This can be fixed, but it must start now.

"Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna turn it into cash"