'Hot Topics': Replies from the marketing department (#96)

[markeeeebeeee2005]

My first thought is you can't polish a turd, however that's not very helpful.

Look at what German clubs do,universally cheap tickets (I'm talking season tickets through to single tickets, not gimmicks)this will fill the ground and improve the atmosphere. If you are not filling the ground you need to look at why, if you can't improve the product the price needs to come down, atmosphere will follow this.

[paulcomben]

Improve the core product. Play entertaining football. Be competitive. Everything else is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Then, the marketing department would not need to bother begging for ideas from diehard fans.

[bertlambshank]

If its bums on seats you want,tell Randy hoofball is not a good fit.

[Legion]

They're not begging for ideas. They're genuinely interested in hearing things from our perspective. They do a job. We can suggest ways forward from our more subjective opinion on all things claret and blue.

[KRS]

The whole branding and identity of the club is wrong in my opinion, which makes marketing much harder. The image of Aston Villa is first seen in the badge and the famous claret and blue colours.

The new badge is a branding and marketing disaster. It looks weak and cheap. First and foremost this needs to be scrapped and go back to the drawing board with a strong powerful badge that inspires not only our current fans but generations to come.

Our merchandise has been very poor for years. This goes for the kits to the training kits to the casual department to the fun bits of tat such as mugs. I would like to spend money in the Villa shop but almost everytime I walk out empty handed as I very rarely see anything I would like to buy. I know claret and blue arent the easiest colours to work with, but with a bit of imagination and designs combined with other colours (not forgetting incorporating our new badge design) we really should have a strong line of products available whether its clothing or general household tat.

Get the basics right and then start flooding the Midlands with advertising and making our products available in more outlets. Simples things like educational programmes into schools/youth clubs and getting our merchandise into all sports shops alongside the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool should have been in place years ago. Once the Midlands is saturated then role it out across the country and then strategically across Europe and beyond.

I know it sounds ever so simple! lol

[Greg N'Ash]

A calender with detactchable pictures so instead of having to look at a month with a player who's been flogged, you can replace it with a youth player or a new signing (joke!)

Reversable football shirt. Home kit on one side/ away on the other. Obviously not made of the same material as the normal shirt, but sold at christmas as a collectors item.

I'm can let you have more ideas for a small fee.

[Billy Walker]

The whole branding and identity of the club is wrong in my opinion, which makes marketing much harder. The image of Aston Villa is first seen in the badge and the famous claret and blue colours.

The new badge is a branding and marketing disaster. It looks weak and cheap. First and foremost this needs to be scrapped and go back to the drawing board with a strong powerful badge that inspires not only our current fans but generations to come.

Our merchandise has been very poor for years. This goes for the kits to the training kits to the casual department to the fun bits of tat such as mugs. I would like to spend money in the Villa shop but almost everytime I walk out empty handed as I very rarely see anything I would like to buy. I know claret and blue arent the easiest colours to work with, but with a bit of imagination and designs combined with other colours (not forgetting incorporating our new badge design) we really should have a strong line of products available whether its clothing or general household tat.

Get the basics right and then start flooding the Midlands with advertising and making our products available in more outlets. Simples things like educational programmes into schools/youth clubs and getting our merchandise into all sports shops alongside the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool should have been in place years ago. Once the Midlands is saturated then role it out across the country and then strategically across Europe and beyond.

I know it sounds ever so simple! lol

I agree with all of this.  For me, our unique selling point and the cornerstone of the "brand" should be McGregor and our place as Creators of League Football.  I've lost count of the amount of times I've read and heard of Villa being "one of the founder members of The League".  That's not good enough.  The club has to invest and actually work to change this perception of the club.  Dare I say it, I think it would add value to the club.  If our teaming up with Nike had counted for anything we could have launched a kit that celebrated McGregor in some way and tied it in with the unveiling of the statue a couple of years back.

Another simple fix is using the McGregor Statue and Holte End more in club photo opportunities.  For example, if we sign a player why not have the media take snaps with the signing next to the statue or in front of the Holte?  Such easy ways to build the club's identity and brand.   (The amount of times I have seen the press filming and photographing from in front of the North Stand - probably the ugliest stand in the Premier League - has made me want to weep.)  Even the Holte Pub could be used more for photo opps and branding.  At present it's a fine building going to waste.  I believe, however, that we are missing the obvious, it's true value lies in its history and the way it looks.  We are wasting a fantastic asset.

I would compare and contrast our use of the media for branding purposes with Arsenal's.  I know they have the advantage of being London based but that is no reason for us to sit back and act like amateurs.  Nike gave them a new kit to celebrate their 125 year anniversary and the newspapers are all over their plans for a new statue.  Not only that but Jack "Bloody" Wilshere's Tweets seem to be everywhere in the press, too.  Is there no way our club could actually headhunt a top PR person from London and actually do something with our history?  (By top PR person I mean the genius who has managed to get Jack Wilshere on the cover of FIFA 12.  Possibly it's the same person who is behind Tom Daley (the diver) being everywhere, too.)
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys - and that goes for off the pitch as well as on it.

[Billy Walker]

Other ideas, while I'm on a roll!

On the official site we are described as the fifth most successful club in England.  Is there any way of correcting that and writing "fourth"?

Scarves.  What about launching scarves that celebrate our history?  A Billy Walker scarf or Pongo Waring scarf, for example.  We could do so much more to celebrate our legends.  What about a scarf that says " Creators of The Game" on it in the same way that Man Utd peddle scarves saying "Theatre of Dreams" on them?  Simple items that will sell and establish the brand all at the same time.  Imagine that: kids with scarves that say "Aston Villa Football Club" on one side and "Creators Of The Game" down the other?  In an instant we'd have a product that instills pride in the club and establishes  a very unique brand and identity.  You could show a scarf like that to a Liverpool fan, Man City fan, Real Madrid fan, Barcelona fan and actually do so knowing your club is a cut above them all.  None of them can compete with that.

[not3bad]

Our merchandise has been very poor for years. This goes for the kits to the training kits to the casual department to the fun bits of tat such as mugs.

I totally disagree with this.  I think the training kit especially from this year and last year was great. 

[andyaston]

They're not begging for ideas. They're genuinely interested in hearing things from our perspective. They do a job. We can suggest ways forward from our more subjective opinion on all things claret and blue.

Exactely, most successful orgainisations listen to ideas of what their customers want and try to put it into action.

[Vanilla]

A calender with detactchable pictures so instead of having to look at a month with a player who's been flogged, you can replace it with a youth player or a new signing (joke!)

Reversable football shirt. Home kit on one side/ away on the other. Obviously not made of the same material as the normal shirt, but sold at christmas as a collectors item.

I'm can let you have more ideas for a small fee.

We could have a Guess Who panel instead of the team picture, so we can flip down the images of those who have disappeared just before the season starts.

[rob_bridge]

What active PR to we do in peripheral towns within an hour or so of Villa Park to try and nick fans from the Big 4/5/6?
E.g. Northampton, MK, Worcester, Stafford, Cheltenham, Burton, Loughborough. Most of these are pretty affluent places with thousands of arm chari fans - subsidised or sponsored travel ?

[Virgil Caine]

As a season ticket holder and an owner of an Ipad2 (oooh- get you) I would like, if at all possible, to have a free wi-fi facility in the Holte Suite.

Also, a minor point this, save the areas needed for the TV screens in the Holte Suite there is an awful lot of white space- can we not have large photo's of Villa icons to break it up a bit?

[KRS]

Can we please please please have the 1980-81 shirt replicated in a modern day version...may be even switch back to Umbro for the finishing touch. PLEASE!!!

[hawkeye]

The product is not fit for purpose.