Monday, May 17, 2010

Marching on Together

Leeds I’m a massive Leeds United fan – the club where Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka became household names. In recent times they have gone from being a top 4 team to being relegated from the English Premiership and then from the Championship to spend 3 seasons in League 1 (3rd division).

Two weekends ago they won promotion and are now back in the Championship with an eye firmly on the Premiership where they belong.

They are a massive brand with fan clubs all over the world - the biggest global fanbase of any English Club outside of the Premier League. This week they are attempting to capitalise on the support of the club to try and propel the club’s theme song “Leeds, Leeds, Leeds”, sometimes called Marching on Together, into the number 1 spot.

A Facebook site, titled Celebrate Promotion by making Leeds, Leeds, Leeds (Marching On Together) number one, quickly amasses 30,000 fans and apparently many wasted little time in downloading the track.

The song has been digitally remastered and was released on Sunday. leedsunited.com report that “The club's anthem quickly hit number one in the Amazon Download chart and was also faring well in the iTunes chart and the play.com chart.” Currently it sits at 8 in the UK iTunes chart.

They are estimating that around 50,000 downloads would be enough to take the song to the top of the charts next weekend or 30, 000 to keep it in the top 10.

It’s certainly a great strategy during a time of strong engagement with the supporters not to mention the income it can generate for the club. If 50, 000 people download it at $1.69 that’s $84 500.00

Even though I already had the old version (current play count = 100) I still bought a copy. Get yours here then pump up the stereo and wind down the window!

It would be a massive guerrilla marketing achievement considering the original song was a b-side released in 1972.

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