OK....sponsorship.

What's on offer? Small fan base, minimal exposure in the press and TV, half (more like 2/3) empty stadium and apathy from the population of Greater London.

What's a possible solution? Contra deals with the free papers?

Maybe. As I have alluded to earlier, the ad industry is on it's @rse, so there may be a way to get a higher profile for little or no outlay. Have you EVER paid full ratecard for advertising??? No, I didn't think so



Do you think there may be a connection between the £12,500 spend figure for 4,000 extra fans at the Manly game? 4,000 tickets at £15 is £60,000......
What's 20% of £60,000?.........
Mmmmm...I wonder? Was this an example of a successfull CPA deal?

£50,000 cash for access to 50,000 fans all season? Unlikely.

I am not saying I have the answer, but I can say from my first dealings with the marketing team at the RFL in 2005 to the present, the general mood up there has been one of frustration at the percieved lack of effort from the club!

Swift edit on your previous response I notice.

I have no idea. Let me see. I'll go for British Airways, plenty of planes fly over our stadium, so it makes sense.

[url=http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/Innocent[/url

A local (ish) business, a market leader, with an ethical reputation and nationwide brand awareness.

Although being associated with a sport that is essentially blokes knocking lumps out of one another probably doesn't suit them.

Disregarding the fact they are rank

You've tried them?

I thought you lived exclusively on ale old chap

So on that basis.............................

Porsche because lots of cars drive by the Stadium?

My bird tricked me

Whooooosh.

You asked a stupid irrelevant question so I gave you a stupid irrelevant answer.

No, i asked a relevant question.

You dont seem to think that the sponsor now is suitable - so i asked you who you WOULD think was suitable!

If you know what isnt right - im kind of assuming you do what is right!

maybe it was just a stupid irrelevant question because you dont have a relevant answer!

So you dispute British Airways would be an suitable sponsor?

Lehman Brothers.

My broker tells me the stock has nowhere to go but up.

That's a classic case though, it's about positioning what we have to offer in conjunction with what any sponsor sells and wants to sell more of by sponsoring QRL/Rugby League and to a degree that's where I agree with Gutters regards a commercial side of the club being required.

Too often in the past companies have been approached by the club with an almost naive concept based on the lines of " we are in <whatever location we were at the time> and so are you, so how about it then"? the year we took Bartacard on as sponsors NC had approached more companies than I have had hot dinners, but the proposition was never good enough for any of them to spend hard cash on sponsoring us.

As exiled states, what exactly is it that we have as a brand to offer somebody who wants, especially in these times, to ensure that every pound spent gains it's metrics back at least fourfold?

I actually think having Lehmann Brothers as our sponsor would reap positive rewards, it would certainly get us plenty of media attention, more than I imagine the ground breaking announcement of St Marys College will do anyway

One of the problems with Marketing professionals (and this is not a slight on you or your kind) is that over the years, you have had your views blurred by the b0ll0x Spouted by advertising agencies. Demographic/Mozaic profiling, market research annalysis, blah blah blah...
Marketers are employed to make decisions, but few of them ever do. Advertising agents used to come up with clever ideas....they now are responsible for everything, from planning, design, building, buying, implementation, reporting and assesment......all a marketing director has to do is listen to 3 pitches and select an agency and give them the budget. The agency then get 10% retainers and then turn over the suppliers for another 20% agency discount....SMOKE AND MIRRORS...Simple as that.
The TNT model used for Manly worked and should be continued...or at least tried again 2 more times this year.

If TNT pick up another pair of £12,500 cheques, I would think they would see the benefit of generating £175,000 in revenue next year from 14 games....just a thought

After years of reading thousands of posts on this site, i can't hold my tongue any longer.

I used to accept that the fact we are based out of the rugby league heartlands meant that commercial opportunities would be limited and the magic figure of a 5000 average attendance would never be achieved.

However, we have been shown up by the success story first of Catalans and now even Celtic Crusaders. They both operate in an area where union reigns supreme much more so than in London.

In just a few years look what they have done. they have amassed a fan base not much off the size of ours and both have real sponsors (idec and brains) who actually pay them money and don't happen to own the club.

At what point do we acknowledge whilst everyone off the pitch work very hard, they are not up to the job. I cant help but feel if you gave the boards of Catalan and Celtic a city like London to operate in they would take advantage of it.

SPOT ON! eusa_clap.gif

Would think that both of those clubs, while remote from the heartlands are nicely positioned as "community" clubs and have sold themselves accordinglyto the sponsors who can see a local reward..................used to think that Youngs or Fullers would be probably the only brands likely to associate with Broncos/QRL at the Stoop but for some reason it never happened.

Greene King being one, VB being another and let's not forget Fosters.

Thats poor, I am not sure how the club structure at Quins works but it may not have been the development officers fault, maybe the ticketing & accreditations department, perhaps marketing?

Junior Ticketing works, its one thing that I feel that the Quins as a club should implement immediately to all juniors who play RL in London. There is a sever lack of kids at Quins games. But we'll save that for another thread.

Being associated with a nomadic club thats on the verge of going bust, having done so already just three years ago? Count me in
And tell you what that free box i get will be great to wine and dine people.
What better way than to look like a major player than to bag exclusive tickets to a three quarter empty event?
Why didnt I get a box at the stadium across the road you ask? couldnt afford it and anyway this is where its at.

No

A community tie up with strong links to the area helps us build up our identity and help it bed into the area and it helps St Marys reach a wider audience and increase awareness of it and links it in peoples mind to west london rather than as a remote outpost.

DarthChris

Thankyou - my drivel was trying to achieve exactly what you just said!

Quote ="100%Legume0%Onion"Just on that point - season tickets were promised to junior players but at the club where my sons play they did not materialise because one of the community coaches (now moved on) didn't get his act together to make it happen. Whilst it made no difference to us because we had had tickets anyway it did discourage some of the parents/kids from attending. There is a lesson for the club about attention to detail there - not always easy given the lack of resources.'" Have you emailed the club about this? ebonyb@quins.co.uk is the address for Ebony Blake, the Community Development Manager. Tel: 0208 410 6000

Quote ="100%Legume0%Onion"Just on that point - season tickets were promised to junior players but at the club where my sons play they did not materialise because one of the community coaches (now moved on) didn't get his act together to make it happen. Whilst it made no difference to us because we had had tickets anyway it did discourage some of the parents/kids from attending. There is a lesson for the club about attention to detail there - not always easy given the lack of resources.'" Have you emailed the club about this? ebonyb@quins.co.uk is the address for Ebony Blake, the Community Development Manager. Tel: 0208 410 6000

Wow, what a thread.

Hi there EFH! I too am a sports events and marketing proffesional, albeit an Australian one who has recently arrived in town and is looking to get back in the industry. May have to chat to you sometime.

There is a lot guessing going on here at the moment, we do not know, and probably will never know the exact details of the shirt sponsorship. I for one, hope that the deal is not contra, as I am unsure of what benefits the university can offer the a RL club.

Listy, you are critical of the choice of jersey sponsor. Howevr EFH has raised some good points with regards to the Quins RL market. Who are we exactly? The one thing for sure is that we are a very small, but seems dedicated group. From reading these boards, I am sure that the club would yet to have any research on Quins RL fans and may have to rely on general SL research to sell the product. What company is willing to shell out £'s if they dont know who they are targeting?

EFH, you are right, finding a perfect sponsor is the holy grail. The smart ones out there know that with any major sports sponsorship they should be willing to back up their investment in the club/event with the same amount in further promotions related to the said club/event. You would be suprised by the amount of companies/account managers who havent taken this into account and therefore reducing the impact of the investment.

Without ranting on for too long and losing my way, the jersey sponsorship comes back to the front office once again. As long as the club is operating on a shoe string budget, they are going to be taking tiny steps towards growth.

OK. Simple lesson in sales for all those on salaries who have never had to rely on commission payments to pay the bills:

1. Believe in what you are selling (see above comment from Chris). If you do not believe in it, then how the feck to you hope to sell it?
2. Enjoy what you do. If you don't pitch with a smile, then don't bother.
3. It is a numbers game. Every sales person I know has to make more than 1 call to make a sale. Yes, some products are easier to sell, but the rewards are often less. If it requires 100 telephone calls to get a sale, then make those 100 calls as quickly as you can.
4. There are 2,500,000+ registered companies in the UK, so you will never run out of leads.
5. Think outside the box. Look for a company in the TW area that would possibly target our Northern brothers. The people who advertise on Sky TV during the day perhaps? Yes car Vredit, ambulance chasers, Loans, etc....We may only get 3,500, but Leeds and Hull certainly don't.
6. Go back to point 1 and start again.
IF IT WAS EASY, THEN EVERYONE WOULD BE DOING IT! That's why it's called Sales..........because you SELL stuff