Best supporters in the land
So, England’s football team have qualified for the World Cup next year in South Africa, with a one hundred per cent winning record so far and comfortably ahead of schedule. It all seems a far cry from that fateful evening in the rain two years ago when a brolly-bearing Steve McClaren watched his career as England manager get washed away along with the hopes and dreams of a nation of football fans.
Papers, blogs, comment channels, emails, Facebook, Twitter are now all a buzz with what this means for our chances of winning the World Cup next year. Views fall into three camps. Firstly, we’re going to win it, no question. Secondly, we’ve got a good chance, but let’s not get carried away, we haven’t faced any tough challenges yet. And thirdly, we’re still rubbish and we’ll never win it.
Doesn’t really matter which camp you fall in to, this is not a discussion of England’s footballing capabilities. It is a discussion of support and what that means. In a sporting context, it can mean unswerving loyalty, passion, standing up for what you’ve chosen to back, it can mean spending hundreds if not thousands of pounds a year, passing on the love to your children, talking to others and building friendships on a shared support, defining yourself to some degree on the basis of your fervour.
People may feel uncomfortable with the use of the word brand in a sporting context but that’s because it’s usually given associations of commercial enterprise at best and exploitation at worst. Look at all the football fans with three lions tattooed on their arm/chest or their club logo and then say that ‘branding’ has nothing to do with sport!
For many years businesses have sought to build those same qualities in their relationships with their customers. After all, which company wouldn’t want a customer who keeps coming back no matter how badly you perform and how many times you let them down? That’s the ultimate power of a brand relationship.
The discussions currently raging about England prove two things – one, you can never, ever control everything people are saying about you. The same performance can create very different viewpoints and that’s life. Two, the strength and influence of dialogue has never been greater. We are all discussing more than ever before.
That’s why businesses are looking for new ways to create that dialogue and engage with their customers. Witness the immensely popular Facebook page for Marks and Spencer. It’s broadly a long list of how much people love the brand with some interesting suggestions thrown in there for good measure. I’m sure it’s given M&S plenty of food for thought (pun intended). Then there’s Gap, moving into the Facebook arena with its new site, which will use the platform to tap in immediately to existing connections that individuals have with their own social networks.
Go to where the people are, don’t make them come to you is the message and it’s working well. As Oscar Wilde once said, there’s only one thing worse than being talked about behind your back and that’s not being talked about behind your back.
Brands are finding the real value in turning to face those talking about them, discovering that giving people more opportunity to have their say is actually a good thing, listening to what they’ve got to say and acting on the information. It is, I guess, the equivalent a football team moving from playing games on TV only, to opening the stadium doors and giving the fans a voice to be heard. A brand that plays behind closed doors is increasingly putting itself at a disadvantage.
I suspect however that we are a long way from Mr Capello launching his own Facebook site to gather the views of England fans on his tactics in advance of a trip to South Africa next year.
What do you think?