PLATFORM:In today's marketing environment, is a story is more important than talent or winning, asks RICHARD GILLIS
CANTERBURY, THE rugby kit-maker, is selling a red “99” shirt this summer, a reference to the British and Irish Lions’ famous 99 call, part of the folklore of the legendary 1974 series in South Africa. It was a signal for every player to drop what they were doing and throw a haymaker at anyone in a green shirt, a sort of precursor to the GAA’s International Rules series.
Depending on your point of view, Canterbury’s initiative is either a crafty way of selling a Lions shirt without forking out €2 million for the privilege, as Adidas has, or it’s a marketing masterstroke, talking directly to the real fans, those who get the joke and are up to speed on Lions history.
Either way, it shows the importance of a story when selling sport. And, as the number of new events proliferates year-on-year, it’s those who can tell a tale or two that will survive.
In this way the Lions are no different from Susan Boyle, Stavros Flatley or any other reality TV act: in today’s media and marketing environment, story is more important than talent or, in the Lions’ case, winning.
It’s 12 years since the Lions won a series – against South Africa, as it happens, in 1997. As every series passes in this age of sports science and team-building, the chances of an old-style touring team beating the World Champions are declining by the year.
But oddly, as their results have got worse, more money has flowed into the Lions’ St Stephens Square offices. This year, according to John Feehan, the chief executive of British and Irish Lions Ltd, it will make a substantial profit on costs of around £10 million (€11.4 million). Revenue has risen steadily each year since the company first broke even in 2001.
Extending this strange phenomenon further, how long will it be before these two trends diverge? Can the Lions survive another mauling this summer? Or is the brand so tied up with history that it is no longer important that they win?
I asked this question of Giles Morgan, head of sponsorship for HSBC and the man who okayed the £3 million sponsorship deal which sees the bank’s logo appear on every one of the 24 (count them) varieties of Lions shirt being sold by Adidas this summer.
“It’s not important that they win,” was Morgan’s interesting reply. “It’s important that they are competitive.”
What defines “competitive” in today’s rugby world is not clear. A 10-point loss? Twenty? Two tests to one defeat? The line is blurred, and there is a reliance on the charm of the Lions with their myths and legends to make it through. But it makes you wonder – how strong is the Lions brand?
This brings us to the dreaded P word: whenever two or more marketing people gather together, they will inevitably reference the “passion of the fans”. In this context, passion really means their irrational buying behaviour. In America, exploiting the P word has been turned into a science. Fans of Nascar (the Pixar film Cars was itself a form of merchandising) are known as being particularly devoted to their heroes, and per head outspend fans of any other of the US major league sports. Coming up quickly in the fan obsession stakes are followers of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), the brutal no-holds barred cage boxing that is driving sales of the Affliction T-shirt brand, one of the fastest growing in the country.
The Lions have two other features that make them peculiar among sports brands: they only play every four years, and they always play away from home. Rather than detract from their allure, this seems to add to it, both deleting memories of previous defeats and linking the team with heroic struggle overseas.
Given these two factors, who exactly is the Lions fan that is spending their money on shirts, DVDs and two-week rugby holidays to South Africa this summer? It’s remarkable that Lions Inc have this store of goodwill which they can access every four years without needing to spend fortunes, as football clubs do, trying to keep in touch with fans. Could it be that the Lions fan is the ultimate big-game junkie, in it for the buzz of being around like-minded people more than for the result?
As long as the Lions keep touring every now and then, the fans will keep spending, grateful for the sense of community it gives them at a time when lives are becoming more atomised. High-spending, low-maintenance: sounds like the perfect combination.
Richard@gillisonline.co.uk
