Football WestHome of Football/For Football’s SakeCampaignCampaign analysis and recommendations2ContentsSection A: ……………………………………………………………………………….3Overview of the campaign ……………………………………………………3Analysis of campaign aims and objectives ………………………………..3Analysis of campaign message/call to action …………………………….4Analysis of stakeholders, publics and audiences ………………………..4Analysis of campaign strategy……………………………………………….5Analysis of campaign channels and tactics ……………………………….5Section B: ……………………………………………………………………………….6Strategic recommendations based on the above analysis …………….6Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………..73“FOR F@*%# SAKE”Football West’s campaign to build a central training and administrationheadquarters.Section A:Overview of the campaignFootball West is an independent sport organisation representing, supporting and promotingfootball (soccer) in Western Australia since 2004. The organisation is split between twophysical sites, which are poorly serviced for the sports requirements. Their campaign goalis to achieve $20 million in local government funding for a “Home of football”. While the“Home of football” goal has been ongoing since 2011, this current campaign “For football’ssake” is far more focused and bigger than has been tried previously.The basis of the campaign revolves around an online petition to the four major politicalparties in WA. Launched a month before the state elections it aimed to capitalise on theparties fight for votes and the increased media coverage. The petition is located atwww.homeoffootball.com.au which briefly outlines the goal and provides a form to submit apetition. Traffic is driven to this website by a viral video, featuring famous football playersand media personalities.Additional media presentations by Perth Glory, the states A-League football team, were alsofocused on driving publics to the Home of Football petition. Alongside the public support,there were also direct personal communications by Football West’s chairperson and CEO tothe premier.Analysis of campaign aims and objectivesPrevious campaigns to gain funding from sports and government bodies have neverengaged the fans of the game quite like this campaign.With the launch, a month prior to the state elections, the aim was to create enough publicsupport to push the parties to publically state, as part of their election pledges, to committo Football West’s headquarters and training ground build. There were 2000 petitionswithin the first 24 hours of the campaign launch, and by election day there were over10,000 petitions submitted. While there was no specific petition numbers aimed for,410,000 is clearly an influential number. However, a week out from election day thepolitical parties only offered “support” of the campaign (Stirling Times Feb 26. 2013).The timing of this campaign required the issue of the Football West sports headquarters tobe a key topic during the election. With the states infrastructure build currently inprogress and planned for the future (http://getthebiggerpicture.wa.gov.au/), it wasperhaps hopeful this issue would become a key topic. As it eventuated the riversidedevelopment and the metro rail lines became the election infrastructure hot topics(http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/state-election-2013/personalities-projects-and-polls-20130308-2fq5a.html).Analysis of campaign message/call to actionThe “Home of Football” slogan provides a succinct message, supporting the call to providefunding for a development headquarters. Retaining this slogan reinforces a consistentmessage, even though the campaign methods and the details of size, cost and locationhave changed since the original launch. Consistency has been shown to strengthenawareness as campaigns change (Navarro-Bailón 2012).The current campaign message was “For football’s sake”, clearly a play on “For fuck’ssake”. This was spelt out at the very start of the campaign, with the initial email titled“FOR F@*%# SAKE: JOIN THE CAMPAIGN” and the first sentence bleeped as BobbyDespotovski says “football”. This would have likely created some controversy. While PerthGlory fans are accustomed to this kind of language at their matches, not all football fanswould have found this appropriate. The initial email was quickly followed up the same daywith another email titled, “FOOTBALL IS NOT A DIRTY WORD”, with a link to the nonbleeped version, perhaps to offset any aggravation the first caused or to create a stir thatwould gain publicity. Suggesting football is a dirty word could have stirred fans loyalty andsupport the campaign.While the controversy didn’t appear to gain traditional media attention, it did gain onlineattention. Viewing the statistics of the two videos on YouTube, the controversial video wasonly on the Home of Football website for one day while the normal version has been onthere since. Both videos have around the same number of views (~2500), which indicatesthe controversial video has been shared by users more than the clean version. Outrageoustriggers encourage people to share (Meerman 2011, 100-101), and this viral form ofsharing, a kind of online word of mouth, is ideal for gaining additional support (Brown,Broderick and Lee 2007). Interestingly, the clean version had women 45-54 as one of thehigh demographics, whereas the other video only had males in the top demographics.The emails and media stories all direct users to sign an online petition on the Home ofFootball website, which is sent to all four political parties. All communications indicate thisis the purpose of users going to the website – this was consistent even in offline mediacoverage. A clear and consistent call to action was a benefit to the campaign (Theaker2004, 268).Analysis of stakeholders, publics and audiencesThe stakeholders of this campaign are Football West and its members, Perth Glory and theirsponsors, the Football Federation Australia, and also Football West’s sponsorship partners.Their platinum partners are the State Government Department of Sport and Recreation andHealthway, again funded by the State Government. As Football West receive the largest5part of their funding from these organisations they had to be careful not to alienate thegovernment with their campaign. As well as being stakeholders, the members of FootballWest are also it’s publics, as are Perth Glory fans. These publics make up the majority ofthe potential supporters of this campaign. However, it emerged there was unexpectedcelebrity support from the likes of Robbie Fowler and Les Murray via social media, helpingfurther promote the campaign. This demonstrates how social media breaks down locationboundaries and allows publics to be reached beyond what is initially envisaged (Munro andCiobo 2012).The campaign has two distinct audiences, football fans and the political parties. Thecampaign nicely brings together both using quite different approaches. The videos wouldnot be at all suitable to influence the political parties, but ideal to encourage football fansto join the campaign. The campaign communicates with the politicians by firstly using thepublic petition, but also letters from the CEO and chairperson of Football West, and thechairman of the Football Federation Australia. Additionally they gained positive local andstatewide press coverage.Analysis of campaign strategyThe campaign strategy of influencing the government to fund $20 million to build a Homeof Football is sound and stays consistent with Football West’s long term goal. FootballWest observed other major sports in WA have received funding through state government,providing facilities and development funds. As football has the highest participation as ateam sport in WA, using the sports fan base to reach the government was utilising one ofFootball West’s biggest assets. Focusing the campaign online, and directing all traffic toone website ensured a cost effective and easily scalable result.Analysis of campaign channels and tacticsThe campaign utilised YouTube videos and a simple website at its core; these are suitablechannels considering Football West already have a 30,000 strong email subscriber list from37,000 registered members. Football West could be assured they would have a substantialaudience to communicate to. A day prior to the email, they launched the “For football’ssake” campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Both of these social media services aremaintained regularly to inform their publics, therefore, launching on social media wasnatural. The campaign garnered much of the unexpected celebrity support from those whofollowed Football West on social media.Email subscription lists can often become stale (iContact), by using “FOR F@*%# SAKE:JOIN THE CAMPAIGN”, this would have very likely broken through some of that staleness asit was so out of the ordinary.With the traditional media, they were able to engage TV channels ABC, 9, 10 and FoxSports, inviting them to a special Perth Glory training session where the team signed theonline petition in front of the cameras. Online media channels such as Sportal andfourfourtwo.com covered the campaign, as well as offline news media the West Australian,whom they have a media partner relationship. The website creators Bam Creative alsohave a partner relationship. Football West would have been able to create this campaignwith very little additional cost to the organisation due to the use of existing staff, onlinemedia and partners.6The petition channel to the politicians was most suitable as a democratic influencer, but itwas also backed up with CEO and chairperson personal communication to reinforce themessage. Additionally the parties were contacted to ensure the petitions were beingreceived and the campaign was on their radar. An observed issue was only that PeterHugg, CEO of Football West sometimes went off message in interviews; as an example,when the money being requested goes from $20 million to $25 million, it can appear as ifthe plan isn’t thought through completely and a loss of credibility ensues. All otherchannels remained consistent.Section B:Strategic recommendations based on the above analysisThe strategy of engaging the football community to influence the government was and is asensible one. The message to the fans was engaging and clear; this paid off in highnumbers of support. However, targeting the government with the message that “footballneeds a home” in an environment where infrastructure spend is considered high, especiallywith the wider public, perhaps the message could have been different. WA is the gatewayto Asia, however, our State is missing out on the Asia Cup. The eastern states arereceiving this fast growing sports competition, and the associated income. The argumentthat WA is lagging behind eastern states, and other Asian countries, is possibly a betterway to influence the WA Government.While the campaign engaged large numbers of the WA football community, it could haveperhaps reached further in to that community. For example, contacting all the local soccerassociations and clubs with a short message or media release that they could put on theirFacebook or websites, or even as part of any regular email newsletter. However, theattention grabbing swear word version would not be suitable as it could deter parents andmembers of junior football teams. On the Home of Football website there could have beena link or code to allow visitors who have the ability to either forward or embed this content(Weaver and Morrison 2008). Becoming fans of football communities blogs and socialmedia pages would allow Football West to monitor and respond to any questions ormisinformation, however, care must be taken especially when interacting with othercommunities (Carter 2012).After the petition is submitted it shows links to view the Football West Facebook or Twitterpage, this is a wasted opportunity. At this point it is clear the user is fully engaged andsupporting the campaign. If there is a link to Like the Home of Football Petition thecampaign will spread to the users Facebook contacts, some who will have not been reachedby other means. Even those who have already seen the campaign message will likely beencouraged to sign the petition if they see one of their peers has already signed it, this“weight of trust” (Lutz 2009) is very powerful. A specific call to action to Like the petitionso more signatures can be gained will make sense to the visitors.In summary, if Football West can get more involved in other online football communities,rather than broadcasting to them via email, and if the existing social media community canbe moblised and engaged in a two-way dialogue (McLennan and Howell 2010) there will beeven greater success in the future, and football will finally gain a home.7BibliographyBrown, J., Broderick, A. and Lee, N. 2007. Word of mouth communication within onlinecommunities: Conceptualizing the online social network, Journal of Interactive Marketing,Volume 21, Issue 3, 2007, pp 2-20, doi: 10.1002/dir.20082.Carter, S. 2012. Social Media Etiquette: 15 do’s and don’tshttp://socialmediatoday.com/node/616686List Fatigue, iContact, http://www.icontact.com/define/list-fatigue/Lutz, M. 2009. The Social Pulpit. Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit. EdelmanMcLennan, A. and Howell, G.V.J. 2010. Social networks and the challenge for publicrelations. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal. 11(1).Munro, P. and Ciobo, M. A. 2012. Social Media: Are you part of this conversation?ATKearney. http://www.atkearney.co.uk/documents/10192/bf3b4f77-6df8-45fe-9dcb-7126bfb18658Navarro-Bailón, María Ángeles. 2012. “Strategic consistent messages in cross-toolcampaigns: effects on brand image and brand attitude”. Journal of marketingcommunications (1352-7266), 18 (3), 189.“Political Play-Off.” 2013. Stirling Times, Feb 26: 11.Scott, David M. 2011. The New Rules of Marketing & PR : How to Use Social Media, OnlineVideo, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach BuyersDirectly. 3rd ed. WileyTheaker, A. 2004. Public Relations Handbook. 2nd ed. RoutledgeWeaver, A.C. and Morrison, B.B. 2008. “Social Networking,” Computer , vol.41, no.2,pp.97,100, doi: 10.1109/MC.2008.61
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