As A Marketing Stunt, Demon Sponsor Hits A Subterranean Low
The Age
Wednesday March 19, 2003
No shortage of tripe as roll models ham it up.
All summer long, footballers have been jumping on and off trams, leering out of the doorways of trains, disporting with wild animals, kickboxers and grand prix drivers, dyeing and cutting their own hair and dyeing and cutting one another's hair.
Far from frowning upon these pranks as frivolous, idle and ill-becoming of role models, clubs organise them - sometimes with officials in the thick of the action - and make sure there are accompanying photo opportunities and press kits. What was once the work of lairs and louts is now called smart corporate strategy.
In the shameless, shiftless world of marketing, any publicity is good publicity. Yesterday at the Junction Oval, this phenomenon reached a new low when Melbourne introduced Subway as its new shorts sponsor by having coach and captain feign to take bites at a two-metre-long sandwich.
It is the sort of stunt that Lou Richards in his heyday would have pulled for the fun of it. Now it is pulled for the sake of a promotion and a buck. Expect Subway in its annual report to drool about value of air time and column centimetres it attracted, and, because marketing has no pride and knows no embarrassment, to include these few centimetres, too.
The accompanying press release was noteworthy in several ways. One was for its lame puns and hyperventilating exclamation marks. ``Melbourne is looking forward to making a real impact in season 2003," it read. ``As Vardy and Moorcroft go in for the crumbs; Robertson hams it up after a goal; and as White takes a bread and butter mark, Melbourne will be aiming to roll their opponents on a consistent basis!!! And it all begins when the Demons devour the Hawks in round one!" Melbourne fans, your memberships are helping to pay for the writing of this turgid tripe.
The author resisted a crowning double entendre about the relationship between the Demons' new sports sponsor and its oh-so-long and oh-so-thick product, but it was clear that Melbourne was very happy to see it.
President Gabriel Szondy certainly was. The release quoted him thus: ``In fact, the Subway product is well known to me and is always my meal of choice when I require a healthy lunch on the run!" With a turn of phrase like that, it cannot be long before Szondy is doing beds, fridges and washing powders, too.
Chief executive Bill Ellis told of how the Subway sponsorship was part of a strategy ``to increase the visibility and desirability of the Melbourne brand". So if you cannot stomach - pathetic pun intended - the ``Melbourne brand", you can always try Omo, or Vegemite, or that insurance company with the stupid name that keeps interrupting the cricket. The point about brands is that you can take them or leave them. But football clubs were never so.
Of course, there is method in this meaningless. It is called news management. The cameras turned up on cue, the tape recorders ran.
Stand by for the next outbreak. St Kilda is taking a gang of young supporters tenpin bowling this afternoon. ``Come and watch the St Kilda players STRIKE up a relationship in their SPARE time with young members,"exhorted the press release. It put in the capitals in case you didn't GET IT.
What the Canterbury Bulldogs get is that in this business, nothing is off limits. Yesterday they put out a release detailing how Trevor, a 29-year-old radio operator from Sydney, had just arrived in Iraq with ``only one regret", that he would miss the football. ``He is more concerned with witnessing Braith Anasta scoring tries rather than Saddam Hussein's assault on the world," the release read. Trevor hoped he would be home for two games at season's end. The Bulldogs announced that they had sent him a signed guernsey and a 2004 season pass, which should do wonders for visibility and desirability of its brand.
© 2003 The Age