A marketing pitch for next season
08/04/05 | by Alan Fisher

Whilst I’m not quite devoid of hope that we can get out of this, it does look rather insurmountable for us to survive relegation now, certainly with the levels of commitment and passion being exhibited by our current crop of players. That said, whenever I reel from another disappointing result and return to the relegation calculator, I still somehow – despite my best efforts to be pessimistic and/or unbiased – manage to find a way for us to scrape to safety. Of course, our players need to extract digits from rectums and tap up with a win or two – but it is still very much possible for us to stay up when we don’t consider how piss poor our team seems to have become.

Having said all that, considering many of my fellow fans have now all but written us off, it makes me think back to the start of the season. Can you remember the form of the season ticket renewal pack you received last season? It said: “We’re serious about promotion, are you?” It didn’t take long for that to be proven farcical – but let’s face it, the farce is complete if we manage to somehow get relegated in a season in which we were so serious about attaining the opposite.

So, since whichever internal entity or external agency did such a shocking job of a marketing policy for season ticket renewals, I’ve decided that – since I do have contact with folks who work in more effective marketing – that I’d have a stab at my own marketing pitch for next season.

The key thing we need to consider is that our supporters are going to be somewhat disillusioned with the brand that is Nottingham Forest. Indeed, our reputation as a supremely bad example of a football team will be well engrained – and the lack of brand equity will take some rebuilding.

This leads me to thinking across other industries – there are numerous tactics that a successful marketeer might employ to address issues of poor brand perceptions. Complex messages with subliminal offers of quality and assurance could build consumer confidence with an ailing brand name. Perhaps a successful relaunch would generate sufficient goodwill to persuade sceptical customers to reconsider resuming their relationship with a product. The problem is it is difficult to overcome a brand that has become as degraded as Forest has. Imagine Burberry trying to lose their chav associations, for example.

Which leads me to my next hypothesis – if we are unable to grow our brand equity, then the logical fix would be to maintain it, which considering our high probability of relegation is going to be virtually impossible. Next season, our already irreparably damaged brand will be degraded yet further. So we need to milk our brand. We need to take the piss. We need to do what Skoda did with their brand advertising: they realised they were viewed with contempt, ridicule and a whole raft of jokes – much as Forest are viewed both by other football fans and, increasingly, their own supporters.

So my pitch for marketing Forest next season aims to be honest, it aims to acknowledge the recent shortfalls and the deservedly poor rating the brand has attained over recent showings. Whilst somewhat distasteful, it aims to almost celebrate the fact that in the industry of attracting football spectators you can get away with almost anything and still depend on the loyalty of your consumers – taking all these factors into consideration I have come up with my advertising slogan for the forthcoming season for Forest:

“Like Syphilis, Forest is for life – you’re not supposed to enjoy it”

Perhaps not as ambitious or grandiose as the competing marketing pitches that are bound to be made in the close season, but I feel a prevailing message of honesty, good will and the ability of the club to amusingly view its own shortcomings will be sure to make the gullible bastards part with their hard earned cash again, erm, I mean, develop our brand equity with the majority of our valuable and loyal customer base.