Marketing Shots – Man U, AFL, Detroit Lions and Fitness First Update

This not one of my traditional posts where I try and encourage comments and discussion but I have a few little “Marketing Shots” that I wanted to share with you …

EPL Ambush Marketing Opportunity

I was watching the Man U vs Arsenal game at Old Trafford on the weekend. Have you seen the plush seats that the subs, coaching staff et al get to sit on? They are basically leather car racing seats. Nice big red ones with Man U logo and the Audi logo on it. Sneaky thing is that they also make the visiting team sit on the Man U/Audi branded red seats as well. Bet Wenger, Benetiz and co hate that!

So why don’t the opposition take their own club branded covers to slip over the top. Bet that would piss off Man U! They’d probably get in trouble but geez it would be funny and the visiting club’s sponsor would get heaps of publicity (and probably a round of applause from everyone that hates Man U).

Noel Gallagher would probably be impressed by this tactic. Gallagher said, after the Arabs bought Man City, that “Every time a Manchester United supporter fills up their car with petrol, they put a little more into Manchester City's transfer budget”.

The AFL Thinks I Shouldn’t Miss a Game of NRL

I was looking up the broadcast guide the other day for the AFL and a banner ad for Foxtel IQ was running at the top of the page. Here are two screen shots of the dynamic banner ad. Anything strike you as odd?

I would have at least thought the AFL would think its own product was more unmissable than a rival codes.

Over Paid Graphic Designers

Saw this snippet in the SMH the other week … talk about crazy!

Fitness First Case Study Update

Thanks to Hayley_Gleeson, poptrashmusic (do you have a link?), James Duthie, Hayley_Gleeson (again :), Matt Moore, Zac Martin (barely) and Rowan Wilde who all provided great comments, and very lengthy ones at that on my post about Fitness First and Can You Force Word of Mouth. It looks like it is a great way to get you all involved rather than the deliver a “sermon from the mount” which might not leave much room for you guys to add yours smarts to.

No word from Fitness First yet so they either don’t monitor this space or don’t care. Anyway, I am going to make sure they have seen all your comments as they are very insightful and they might just learn a thing or two.

The only thing I want to add is that they should put the power of recommendation more in the member’s hand. They present themselves as a polished brand, and even go to great lengths and cost to create a flashy magazine, but they don’t even email me with updates, newsletters, offers etc.

It doesn’t take much to promote the refer a friend scheme (with all your comments taken on board) through email and provide me with the ability to send it on to people who I think might be interested who could then contact Fitness First if they wanted. It would certainly get the relationship off on the right foot.

Plus, with the technology available today (e.g. www.emma.com which I use at work) they could track which members were forwarding on their emails and to who.

Thanks also to Mumbrella who provide some link love for the Fitness First post.

Can You Force Word-of-Mouth?

This week I want to take a little bit of a different approach with a marketing issue. Instead of telling you about an issue then offering my two, or maybe 10, cents worth, I want it to take a bit of a group case study shape. Hopefully it is a post that all you “lurkers” who read the blog but don’t comment will feel you can contribute as well.

The other week I walked into my Fitness First gym (what? you couldn’t tell I work out?) and could see it coming a mile off. Fitness First’s sales approach is known around the place as being pretty strict and I have heard of sales staff not being allowed to go home until they had made their quota of sales bookings (I am not even sure this is true but that is what someone told me) as well as them making it as difficult as possible for people to cease being a member. For the record, I am very happy as a Fitness First member.

What confronted me as I made my way to the change room was 3 of the sales staff and a small display. You know the feeling you get when you are at the shops and that annoying credit card bloke tries to catch your eye? Same feeling here. I just prayed they wouldn’t say something to me. But resistance is futile … you know you can be 10 meters away and they will call out to you.

As I tried to get past they asked me if I had any friends who would be interested in joining the gym. I kind of feel sorry for the situation the company puts them in (with unimaginative ways of finding leads) and so I didn’t want to just say “No” and keep walking. So I offered something like “I don’t have any friends who would be interested thanks”. But that didn’t appease them.

“What about work colleagues?” they pressed. “Just give us their names and numbers and we will get in touch with them and if they join you will get $5 a month of you membership”. I mumbled something dismissive and kept walking.

Ok, so now comes the hard bit. I really want to tell you exactly what I think of this approach, its chances of success and what I would do if I was in their situation and was looking to generate new leads. But instead I want all you smart readers to tell me what you think and contribute to a group case study.

Do you think Fitness First’s approach to generating word-of-mouth is a good one?

Would you offer up the names and numbers of your friends and work colleagues for a cheaper gym membership (or discount of any product for that matter)?

How would you change or improve this approach?

I will follow your comments and contribute my thinking as well. Who knows, we may come up with a win-win where Fitness First get some new ideas for generating leads, or harnessing word-of-mouth, and gym members won’t feel uncomfortable when all they want to do is get in, get change and get started on their workout.

Over to you … I am looking forward to hearing what you think.