How is everyone feeling

Quote: Adeybull "Its interesting that those of us on here who have engaged with more senior non-playing/coaching staff at the club have tended, in the main, not to have had much contact with those charged specifically with marketing and revenue generation. I certainly have not.

Its also interesting that I have seen some others who profess to have some first-hand knowledge of the situation, usually it has to be said in the occasional pools of lucidity on the T&A Rantaforum, say precisely what you have said. And be quite critical. And some of those comments came across (to me, at least) as being more than just people firing off.

It seems to me that, whereas in the early days you got the impression the club was driven primarily by marketing, it is now driven almost entirely by the FD saying what the club can and cannot spend money on. And, speaking as an accountant myself, in my opinion the last thing you want is to have a business, especially one where marketing is so important, in the hands of just the accountants. You need a balance. In the years up to 2006 we probably saw too little influence of the accountants; the consequences of that is we now see almost certainly (and, sadly, unavoidably) too much.

OK, generating increased revenue is of course not the easiest of objectives, and the more you have cut costs the harder it is to then provide the resources to get out and do that. But I suspect you make a fair point. And yes one that has not necessarily enjoyed the profile in debates as it should have.

We have a recently-appointed Marketing Director. It is to be hoped that we see some of your concerns - indeed, all our concerns - addressed as a result?'"

Precisely.

One thing is also abundantly clear from the study of any high quality enterprise, that without doing something different you will remain stagnant at best. Impactful, quality marketing doesn't have a cost on the simple premise of the revenues it generates, short and long term. Marketing is only ever expensive when it fails. People assume it has an initial cost. Does it? When an organisation has a PR Manager in place, he/she is already salaried. It is said persons job to generate information and deliver it to the masses no matter how trivial it may be. A smart PR person creates daily stories about every element of the organisation, it's services, interacts with it's customer base and critically, takes that consumer on a journey, effectively the ongoing story of the brand - and indeed that they are a key part of that. But that relies on a high quality individual being in place. Not a desk attender. Nike, Apple, Virgin etc didn't achieve greatness by shrinking, thinking small or plodding along. Their initial marketing strategy was around being smart, different and causing a stir.

However, what tends to happen is poor marketing strategies are implemented, everyone points the finger at the concept being ineffective and the word is never mentioned again. The very same people who if they were to split up from a boyfriend or girlfriend wouldnt bat an eyelid and would move on to the next. Because something doesn't work once, doesn't mean it's ineffective, it was just badly delivered.

The club needs PR and marketing people to do things differently, in a resourceful, fun, engaging way, daily about every element of the organisation. Tescos don't just sell Mars Bars. The Bulls of "old" were smart because they didn't rely on one core product (the game). Some may flag wave about the subsequent financial losses, this wasn't the result of marketing (since that generates revenue done correctly) but instead the excessive costs exiting the business. So the marketing strategy was labelled as a frivolous expense. Genius.

The club is very quick to invest in it's junior talent. Rightly. How about it invests in the fans of today and tomorrow. Now wouldn't that be revolutionary.