Competing in Perth's Sporting Market

Hi all

Over half way through my internship with the Perth Heat, and really enjoying the wide array of opportunities it has presented me with. Things are starting to heat up (pun intended) in the office as well, with the official season launch a mere 4 weeks away.

My primary task during my internship has been to draft, and implement a full scale communication policy for the Perth Heat, as they did not have a current policy. For this blog post I want to talk about what I consider to be the main obstacles and opportunities for developing sporting brands in Western Australia. To do this, I have categorised the Perth Heats main competition into 3 categories (team based sports only).

1. Dominant Perth Sporting Brands
- West Coast Eagles (AFL)
- Fremantle Dockers (AFL)
- Perth Scorchers/Western Warriors (Cricket)

2. Emerging Perth Sporting Brands
- Perth Wildcats (Basketball)
- Perth Glory (Soccer)
- Western Force (Rugby Union)
- West Coast Fever (Netball)

3. Niche Perth Sporting Brands
- Perth Heat (Baseball)
- Perth Thunder (Ice Hockey)
- WA Reds (Rugby League)

Obviously the long term goal would be to become a dominant brand, but realistically that would take at least 10-20 years of solid following. The goal therefore is to become an emerging sporting brand, and build on that. Possible obstacles towards this goal include.

Obstacles

1. Lack of Funding - Perth Heat have a limited budget, and do not allocate a lot of this towards media and communication. This means that traditional advertising (print, radio, tv) is not really an option. With the rise of social media this is not as much of an obstacle as it was 10 years ago, but it still places a limitation on the degree of brand success you can achieve

2. Concentration of Media Availability - If you ever watch the nightly mainstream media news, you will notice a pattern in its reporting of sports based stories. AFL gets first billing, followed by Cricket and then summaries of all the Golf, Tennis, Motorsport and Soccer news are jammed into the remaining 2 minutes of the segment. The last piece of Baseball news that was reported on mainstream news, was the Perth Heats 2013 Premiership Win..........which was in March.


It is not all doom and gloom however, especially given Perth's recent history of adopting and re-invigorating a number of key sports (I recommend people look at the history of the Perth Glory and Perth Wildcats during the mid 2000's). A number of opportunities do exist for the Perth Heat to develop a strong local brand.

Oppurtunities
1. Get Involved in the Perth Community - Any brand wanting to gain acceptance in the Perth market, should be actively involved in Perths Event community. This week the Perth Heat have been set up at the Perth Royal Show, and have seen a steady increase in ticket sales and membership as a result

(This Photo was taken during one of the quieter parts of the day...)

 

2. Utilise Online Communication - This has been at the forefront of Perth Heat's communication efforts, in order to boost the awareness of the brand. In 2012, one of our rival teams the Melbourne Aces created a viral video (through the help of an advertising agency) that sparked a huge increase in Baseball in Melbourne, and resulted in International News Coverage.

(I will let you guys decide whether or not you think this video is real or not)

 

Without giving too much away, there are similar plans in motion to create a video for the Perth Heat in order to create viral interest in Baseball in Perth.

The Perth Heat have their first preseason game in around 4 weeks at the Barbagallo Ballpark. It is a great time to be in the office, given the players will regularly come into the office to talk with everyone, and there is a general sense of excitement. Having never attended a Baseball game in my life, there is also a personal sense of excitement about the launch of the 2014/2015 season.

Till next time

Simon Kerrigan

Life on the floor of the cutting room: the importance of grunt work.

If there is one thing I've learned over the course of the last ten weeks of interning, it's this:

Grunt work is the life blood of the industry.

Coming into the role of intern at a small firm that is currently in the middle of repositioning its entire PR and marketing strategies, I was expecting to be handed the medial tasks that although important, were entirely secondary to the ultimate outcomes. That is, the tasks that no-one else wanted to do because they were tedious or repetitive or simply considered too unimportant. Therefore, it was interesting, and slightly unexpected, to receive an email from one of the women in the office tasked with the overhaul of the firm, including its public relations practices, telling me to keep my chin up and saying that "even after 25 years in the industry, grunt work is still the bulk of the job!"

It's easy enough to look at the glory of marketing and successful PR practitioners when the effects are visible and presented to the public through philanthropy projects, crisis management and campaigns. To speak in AFL terms (hello, finals series!), these are your forwards, your spearheads, your goalsneaks who press the immediate advantage to the scoreboard for all to see. Those who are seen when the crisis hits, when the crucial moments of the game are in play are recognised as the heroes and the hard-workers. The same can be said for PR: when considering the Johnson & Johnson crisis of the 1980s, the credit for the successful public relations strategy is placed almost solely upon the CEO of the company, with occasional reference to the standing values of J&J that steered the response of the company.

As with anything, however, there is another dimension, an undercurrent of planning and application of skill that is often overlooked when considering the aspect of the result rather than the whole of the circumstance and effort leading to the result.

When it comes down to it,  the Buddy Franklins and Hayden Ballantynes of the world would be hard-pressed to deliver a 6-goal game without the delivery of their midfield and the support of their backline. To quote a cliche, the organisation must be greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts must each work together to create the greatest possible team for both smooth operation and longevity. The support staff, the assistants and the interns, like myself, must have performed their tasks admirably in order to secure a platform from which those higher up the chain may strive for long-term success in the public eye.

It can be difficult to see the beauty in the details or the light at the end of the tunnel when your central tasks are proof-reading, summarising and then being told to proof-read your summary. One of my tasks was to identify stakeholder groups and create a targeted mail-out to identify potential areas for philanthropy and public outreach for Meridian. As simple a task as this sounds, I knew I was never going to be around to see results from my work. Whilst my endeavors were setting the company up for the long-term, my services as an intern were fast coming to a conclusion. However, the greater picture was at stake and the email from my colleague placed a different perspective to everything I am delegated during the course of my work. A media release, carelessly written or viewed with tired eyes, would fail to create an image for the company that external stakeholders would take seriously. Email correspondence without tailoring to specific stakeholder requirements will fail to make the impact necessary to create a lasting relationship with key publics. The devil is in the detail, and someone must always have their eye on the devil.

To be the greatest, you must work your way from the bottom and be able to not only match, but surpass those who set the benchmark; in doing so, you must also both acknowledge and raise up those beneath you whose efforts not only support your endeavours, but take them from the impossible to the probable. I want my impression upon the world of public relations to be that of a Matthew Pavlich: one who achieves greatness and respect without shunning the grunt work, who delivers the results that are required and goes above and beyond the call of duty and, most importantly, sees the team and themselves as part of something larger.

In short? Be the change you want to see, but do not hide those that helped you create that change.