Bristol City FC unveils new season ticket marketing campaign
Bristol City Football Club (BCFC) unveiled a new marketing campaign at this Saturday’s Npower Championship League match against Leeds United at Ashton Gate.
At a time when overall season ticket sales throughout the Championship are in decline, the new campaign boldly aims to increase the Club’s season ticket sales by around 10% for the 2011/12 season.
Devised by Bath-based branding and marketing communications agency, Mr B & Friends, the campaign was designed to reflect the Club’s new brand positioning strategy: ‘Brilliantly Bold’.
“Brilliantly Bold is a reflection not only of the ambitions of the Club, but also a cultural reflection of Bristol as a City,” explained Mr B & Friends managing director, Simon Barbato.
“The campaign is fun, relevant and exciting and will feature some of the City’s star players in cartoon strips that portray the Club and its 2011/12 season card offer as the ”must have” ticket for football supporters in Bristol and across the West of England,” he added.
BCFC has been making a number of investments to raise the sport’s profile in the region, including well-advanced plans for the construction of a new world-class regional stadium, and investment in new players, including England goalkeeper David James, who joined the club at the beginning of this season.
“The fact that, for the time being at least, Bristol remains the largest city in England that is not currently home to a Premier League football team is a massive opportunity for us” explained Guy Price, commercial director for Bristol City.
“We are absolutely determined to change this, and our investment in a new brand positioning strategy is one of a number of new initiatives that we are taking to enable us to bring people across the whole of the South West together to share our bold and exciting plans.”
The Club is also launching a number of special offers to fans, including an ‘earlybird’ offer that will make BCFC’s season tickets the lowest priced in their Championship history, a ‘recommend a friend’ offer and the offer of a free ticket for one of the current season’s remaining games for new or returning season ticket customers.
Mr B & Friends, which has previously worked with Fulham FC on its brand and marketing, is also working with BCFC to help develop the Club’s new brand identity and positioning, however it’s likely fans will have to wait until an official launch when the stadium plans start to become a reality.”
Meanwhile, Mr B & Friends has also appointed Nicky Hurran to its team as account director.
Hurran will have senior responsibility for all client accounts, support Barbato with company strategy, lead the client service team and play a significant role in developing junior members of the client service function.