Another fine game by Jesus, btw. Just puts in the hard graft taking up space & occupying defenders & causing them to have to think & look behind themselves.
Another fine game by Jesus, btw. Just puts in the hard graft taking up space & occupying defenders & causing them to have to think & look behind themselves.
No I think jabbronies has it spot on when his says that Euro snobs and average Joes don’t give a damn about watching the youth development, most want big names and MLSE finally figured that out hence Insigne.Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM
There is nothing stable around this team right now. Everything is in flux!Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM
Who are you promoting with the youth that will be here for years to come?? Not even BB knows who will actually come through at the end of this learning period. Who would've pegged Lucas Petrasso to be the guy we'd all be talking about? and how long is his streak going to last? is this just a fluke or can you drop a few thousand on marketing material to pump this guy up only to have him flake off in 2 weeks. Nobel Okelo is showing how 1 dimensional he is already, imagine if the team sunk marketing dollars on that? If all goes to plan JMR is slated to leave at the end of this year. Where is Shaffelberg? He hasn't been the starlet we all hoped for - Is it fair to shine a huge spotlight on him as he litteraly learns how to play his position?
This isn't the jays of 2019 where you have guys you know are the future of the club. TFC do not know what these kids can do. This is the trial period, you don't pump up the trial period. Maybe by mid-season, but more likely the end of the year we will get a better sense of who is the real deal and who is just another Gabe Gala.
The supporters are there for the ground floor experience. They can tout "I was there when..." Anyone who is interested in that type of thing will already be following the team. Marketing $$ is meant for those who are not already on board. Now is not the time to get them riled up.
This I can agree with. In game stuff is a bit much.Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM
Marketing doesn’t mean only pick one star and market the hell out of him or her. Sure that’s the NBA but it doesn’t have to be everything.
There’s lots to see here. Sure, there will be more with Insigne. But there are lots of great stories around this team right now and they need to be told, even if it’s just for the 25,000 they should be getting every game. Piggyback onCMNT if you have to but at least start people talking about the club and the team
Difference now is that we have a manager with a proven track record of using and developing young talent, especially in MLS. We never had that before with any manager. If there is a time for optimism regarding the futures of our young domestics then it's now and I don't see why we wouldn't promote them in some way.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbronies
Promote JMR as the next Alphonso Davies and people interested in soccer will want to see him. We don't often have a young player rated top 100 in the world under 20.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultra & Proud
We "borrowed" the idea from the Bundesliga. ;) A lot of "our" ideas aren't exactly original. But point well taken that we don't need some announcer, or mascot :puke:or cheerleaders to tell us when and how to do things.Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM
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Originally Posted by Ultra & Proud
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Originally Posted by Canary10
I'm glad you brought up Bob Bradley in this conversation. I'm pretty sure he has some say in a lot of things going on around the club, including how much unfair exposure he wants his players facing. He also doesn't want over exposure to cloud his project this early in the plan.
You don't do this to kids, especially a 17 year old kid who already have the weight of the world on his shoulders from irrational fans and media valuing him at $20 million without barley stepping foot on an MLS pitch. Comparing him to Davies? c'mon man. That's totally unfair pressure.
Anyways, I've made my point. I won't be keeping receipts on this because I'm 100% confident there won't big marketing pushes for this club until at least Insigne arrives, and even then, only if things stable out and there is a product that is worth selling this early in the project. But Insigne will be the thing the next marketing campaign you see will be selling.
I'd love to know of any creator, anywhere in the world in any industry, that would want big marketing pushes for a product they have barely started working on.
Yeah I agree with this, it was more an out there example to show it's possible. I do think a "meet the future" kind of campaign featuring the kids is possible. And a skilled communications department can have a phased campaign that moves into the LI era fairly easily. There are tons of examples of that, it's not crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbronies
Case in point: Freddy Adu. He was very promising youth with DC United who got overwhelmed by excessive hype and ultimately never reached his potential. Now playing for a Swedish team in a tiny remote village with a stadium that seats max 1000.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbronies
Good point. But at least we are derivative of other supporters, not some corporate message on a Jumbotron like “noise”Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldtimer
I agree re JMR. But not about the rest. Silence is never a good marketing strategy, particularly given the past two years for TFC. The club will either be ignored or the doubters will create a negative narrative.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbronies
“New beginnings” would be enough. Doesn’t have to be oversold. Create some buzz. “An air of anticipation”
The middle ground is that they’re probably promoting, they’re just keeping it to trad media like ads, billboards etc and ignoring social media.
I suspect Jabbronies’ logic on this one is right in that they’re not going to blow it out until Insigne gets here. But it’s likely MightyDM is right in that they’re not doing “nothing”, because when you’re in a lull as a business retaining visibility is essential.
But who knows. I used to ascribe all sorts of logic to companies but you realize as you age that sometimes they’re just doing a bad job of something because the right people aren’t paying attention, or aren’t the right people.
I am still not sure that they have their fingers on the pulse of the market. Whenever I am debating renewing, my ticket rep always seems surprised that there is no secondary market for my tickets. If I can sell them at all, it is almost always at a 30-40% loss. The early days of waiting lists have distorted their perspective on the market.
Anyway - back on topic, I was surprisingly impressed with Chung. Seemed to take him a little while to settle (maybe nerves - I think it was his first game at BMO) but I though he put in a really solid performance. Petrasso has been great as well. And I still really love what Oso brings to the team - bring on the haters ;)
Who are these Oso haters? I've never seen them before. The guy is a solid TAM player IMOQuote:
Originally Posted by JonO
I worked in Ad agencies for over 10 years. I'm in the mobile games industry now and still work closely with the marketing departments. General rule for established products is to never spend money to promote a work in progress, the return is almost never worth it. Maybe your loyal supporters would appreciate to see the progress, but the masses don't care about that. If you sell to your loyalists you do that on smaller/cheaper channels. You don't spend mainstream budgets on something that isn't where you want it to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by jloome
This is a 4-5 year plan and the centre piece of this whole thing isn't even here. MLSE is smart to keep that money in hand until Insigne comes in. When he does - you sell the crap out of him until the team catches up.
I hope Canada clinches tomorrow, but god I hate international breaks.
For the most part, I really liked what i saw. With that said, DC United are not a very good team and we still went down early. I am hoping we continue to develop chemistry for all and learn to pay tighter as a team but lots of fun last weekend.
This isn’t a work in progress. It was a work in progress, in terms of the marketplace, in 2006.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbronies
It’s a work in progress in competitive football terms, but that’s different from the franchise being a work in progress. Whether it’s competitive or not it still has to draw fans in the first half of the season, try to get points, try to set the stage for a more successful second half.
You’re in software, so consider the gaming equivalent. A game goes gold and launches, it’s not technically a “work in progress” — an alpha or beta — it’s a finished product. Now, typically for competitive reasons these days the practical reality is it needs bug fixing and constant improvement from day one, but technically, it’s a finished work.
I think your position makes sense, and some software companies clearly are smart enough to go with ‘soft’ launches sometimes to meet obligations. But it’s far more common to see them (see Cyberpunk 2077, about a million others) hype the hell out for it to get initial sales, then admit almost immediately that it’s incredibly broken and won’t be ideal for six months to a year.
I sell ebooks for a living now, and most of my colleagues are better at it and more successful than I am. There are so many entertainment options out there that the best know they have to be ever-present, with podcasts, chat groups, guest appearances and constant, constant advertising.
Yes, when they have a launch they spend five times as much as during the rest of the year, and I imagine we’ll see a big swell of MLSE publicity when Insigne gets here. But they’re not going to completely ignore advertising and publicity for the rest of the year.
I’ve spent my entire adult life around advertising people, going to marketing meetings at newspapers. I’ve never met one yet who thought “go silent” was a good strategy except during periods of scandal or public embarrassment. I suspect these days, with attention spans shorter than ever, that that has never been truer.
First off - good convo hereQuote:
Originally Posted by jloome
I work in Mobile gaming. So for new releases we do beta testing - which means quietly launching in smaller markets without any marketing what-so-ever. Not until we work out the kinks and are happy with the product. Only then do we launch. Now that console games can be DL'd from the online stores, you'll start to see this practice more with console games as well.
Brining it back to football, and TFC specifically - they don't need to market for the first half of the season because they have more than 3/4 of their season seats sold at this point. They are not hurting for in stadium support they are pulling in 21K per game.
TV contracts are not going to be harmed because they are handled by the league and have already been dealt with. If Insigne pans out like they are planning, then second half ratings will more than make up for whatever they don't get in the first half.
Ads and Sponsorships have already been agreed upon for this season. They know Insigne is coming, they are not waiting until he gets here to sign on with the club, that $$ is already been spent/promised to the club.
Everyone involved knows when he arrives that is when the push to get eyeballs on the club will happen. That is the most logical time to do that. Until then, the team can figure their shit out without having the spotlight on them.
^ I could understand either strategy: more marketing or less marketing now.
But what I'm REALLY not sure about: how much of what they are doing, or are not doing, is strategy? I mean you would think a big operation like MLSE and TFC (TFC is big within its league) would have a strategy, would adjust it to reality, would follow it.
But then over the years you see such BONEHEADED things, both on and off the field. And then you see other things work great, out of pure luck. And of course you also see stuff turn out great and just as planned.
Honestly, do we REALLY know what is what? Especially until it's hindsight? And even then we don't always know!!!
Yeah, very true. This has never been a firm with military precision. The laissez faire behavior of the Mo/Earl days seemed to disappear under Lieweke and BEz, but I'm not sure Curtis or Manning were paying nearly as much attention to fine details on the business side. Based on their record with the roster, one would have to assume not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Auzzy
Jabbronies, good point on the seasons tickets. IF they're 3/4 sold out they're probably not going to worry much about hype when we're losing. They've covered the superficial bases already.
My frustration from years in the media is how little they take advantage of the constant need for content out there now. They do some great stuff, like the All For One series, but for the most part the day to day is silent.
I’m in communications, not marketing. The idea that you would go silent at a moment like this is anathema to our field. I get what Jabbronies is saying about the very short term ie they don’t need to sell anything for the next few months so why promote, but I really don’t see how that applies to a long run project like a soccer team. This team COULD have a great narrative about new beginnings, youth etc and they should decide on the narrative and then be telling that story every day. Doesn’t have to be big $$ but it needs to be consistent and authentic. Define yourself or others - or events - will do it for you. Chris Armas was defined by events after a failed narrative - failed because it was inauthentic. The Vanney / Bez era was defined by Tim L - “why can’t we be great” It didnt that matter that not everyone was listening then because once they were that was still the narrative. In this case, if the team struggles the narrative will be “why is Insigne coming to a lousy team” or similar. But if it’s defined as “the best young Canadians are going with the best Italy can bring to Canada” or similar it creates room for the expected ups and downs. At a moment when the CMNT is poised for historic success, it’s an narrative that has legs, too. How do you do this? Make the spring all about the yojngsters, as a group. Their families. Their youth soccer. Their brothers and sisters who play. Human interest about a relative who was a great athlete on a different sport. And meld in stories about young players BB has molded. All of this is nearly free. But it creates a concept about the team that is positive and can get embedded in the local consciousness, including among the press. I might not have it perfect, but it’s something like this.
It's always been one of their biggest shortcomings. They have all these unique stories of perseverance and passion about the sport, and they restrict it to basically "All For One", which is fine but so not enough in terms of PR and storytelling.Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM
Totally. I revised my post before I saw this, BTW, but I couldn’t agree more.Quote:
Originally Posted by jloome
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Originally Posted by jloome
Rogers & Bell are not exactly known for their innovative marketing - like it or not, the template for marketing in this town is drab boring banks who think putting a nice & good looking black guy behind a desk while talking to people is ground breaking.
yes but its a really really good looking guy.....Quote:
Originally Posted by OgtheDim
Totally agree. There are some angles to be worked hereQuote:
Originally Posted by MightyDM