Why a new Brand Strategy for Rugby League can give fans hope

I’ve read a lot about how 2022 is a seminal year for Rugby League, with lots needing to change in order for it to survive. Recently, somebody within the game said “we need to make changes that widen the appeal of the sport”.

I am somebody who is open minded about where Rugby League can go. It’s in a decent position with lots of positive assets waiting for its potential to become a reality.

Most of what I read generally comes in good faith, with the game's interests at heart. But, the articles and quotes never present any new evidence or ideas on how to change. When they do, they focus on changing the structure of the game or tweaking the rules. Sometimes ‘marketing’ tactics are thrown in for good measure. At times it's interesting, but it's often frustrating. There are shortcuts to obvious and repetitive suggestions that lack any useful insight. That's useless to the general rugby league fan that is searching for answers. There's not much that inspires and convinces that the game indeed has a bright future. In short: people need more reasons for them to be open minded. And it’s important that they are, because the sport does need change.

In a series of posts, I will provide my thoughts about what Rugby League could do to unleash its potential. There are two reasons why. The first is that I want to. I will find the process of putting my thoughts on paper cathartic. The second is that I want people who care about the sport to find it interesting and inspiring. I want it to bring them peace of mind that the sport can indeed have a bright future with growth at the top level.

They will cover a lot of topics, and over time I will delve into each. But I'll admit that they will not be comprehensive. It's not a complete works. It's not a bible. It's my ramblings. They are thought starters for those who are interested.

For the record, there's a lot of talented people working in Rugby League. They don't deserve some of the stick they get. This isn't intend to knock them in anyway.

For ease, I'm saying that I will talk about Brand Strategy. You may call it Marketing Strategy. I can't be arsed getting in to the technical definitions.

My day job is in comms, which would fall in the 4th P of the traditional marketing mix - Promotion. This will resonate the most with fans as most commentary centres around this. "How can we promote our great game?" is the usual question asked. I will delve deeper than just this though, because this is where the bigger hurdles for the elite game lie. The Brand or Marketing Strategy.

I won't pretend to know all the answers, or suggest solutions, to all areas of Rugby League. I don't know how to fix any issues at community level, for example. I don't know which structure is best either. I see advantages and disadvantages in promotion and relegation as much as I do in licensed models. There's merit in discussions around more radical approaches too, such as centralised models. You can look at the MLS in the United States for a good example of that. Team owners make collective strategic decisions that benefit the whole game. That sounds appealing to me. No infighting. It's not insular. Maybe you need that when fighting bigger sports?

While I will cover some Strategy broadly, and other things more deeply, I will aim to spark a thought or two from you. Please do comment with these as you go along this journey with me.

Also, you could apply this to the game as a whole (in the UK/Europe) or to individual clubs. There's obviously differences, but you can interpret it to either.

I'm going to structure this over three areas: the Diagnosis, the Strategy, and the Tactics.

So let's take a step back.

Diagnosis

The game needs a strategy. I don't know what it is, but I will make assumptions. I'm assuming the purpose, mission and vision is 'grow the game to be more accessible and high quality'. Or something like that.

There should be some strategic business objectives that are linked to performance. These could be for a team to win a major trophy, or to increase participation (players, coaches, refs, volunteers), or more diversity and better culture, or increase schools and community engagement and increase TV and commercial revenue. You get the picture.

There may even be one overarching main aim, such as generate a X profit or sell X number of tickets.

Those are all crucial in creating the foundation that we can build our Brand Strategy on. Putting the consumer at the heart of everything is vital too. The business objectives should complement the consumer needs, wants, and what their decision-making process is. Having a good strategic plan for the business is so important. Without it, how are you supposed to move forward, if you don’t even know why, or what you’re moving forward to?

The diagnosis is an important first step. One that must be done before you can do anything else. This is missing from most commentary pieces. I understand why, of course, but it's frustrating that it's not done when trying to present answers.

Diagnosis allows us to discover what's going on internally and externally. We can explain the challenges that the sport / team faces.

Research should collect and analyse data from a range of sources, and find out what affects behaviours of existing and potential fans. Do a SWOT analysis. Dig into the sports' 126 year plus history (or the club / league you're applying this to). If you can, get a range of qualitative, quantitative and secondary research done on the sport. Look at audience segmentation. Look at perceptions. Speak to Rugby League loyalists - why do they stick around?

By looking at the audience, market research and context, the picture becomes clearer.

We take the time (and are given the budget and resource) to do research to know where we sit.

Strategy

This is the chunky bit that makes it or breaks it (well, that’s not true — good strategy can be undone by poor execution).

Strategy is identifying what the goal is, what's the problem that’s getting in the way of the goal, and what the solution is.

It will guide the actions that come next, which are the tactics. It’s worthwhile saying too that it can say what you’re?not?going to do — the adage ‘less is more’ can come in handy!

Market segmentation was done in the diagnosis, so at this stage we now define who our target audience is. We will say who we will go after and who we won’t, based on our long- and short-term marketing split (brand vs performance).

We’ve got to look out our positioning — what our brand stands for. A lot of people would call this our image.

Our target audience needs to know that we exist for them, and we need them to think a few particular things about us. Those things? That’s our positioning. And that needs to be things that the consumer wants. And things that we can actually deliver on. And communicated better (or at least more interestingly) than any competitors.

The final part is SMART objectives that outline what the strategy will achieve and help us reach our business goals.

It’s who we're going to target, what we want them to think of us / do, and how we're going to get them to think / do that.

Tactics

This is the last bit that everyone gets stuck on, or stuck into, without having done the dirty work up front. The?tactics?are the actions we’ll take to deliver on the strategy. They’ll be coherent and coordinated.

This is all about the 4Ps — product, price, place and promotion. (I’m sure I’ll talk about 7Ps at some point).

Product - on the face of it, it's obvious. It's the on-field product of Rugby League, and how it solves the problems that the consumer has. Within that is a mix of other products - tangibles and intangibles (experiences), such as tickets and media consumption. But as in any sport, there are actually lots of other products too. Leagues, teams, events, experience products, athletes, services, sponsorships, digital stuff (apps), merchandise, support stuff (equipment), the venues, sporting goods. There's new opportunities / ideas for products too, depending on the changing customer needs, preferences, competitors etc.

Price — what are we selling our product for? We've identified that there are lots of things that you can buy, but our focus here is ticket pricing. We've researched the consumer and their problems and the wider context, so we should know their financial situation and where we sit in the market. We can price our product well based on real value and perceived value; the price can influence consumer’s perceptions on the quality. (We can also look at premiumisation of the product and pricing too, later down the line).

Place — this is where we are bought. So, where can consumers / fans buy our tickets? Online? Where online — through a vendor or direct? Retail? At venue / stadium? When do they want us? Where do they want us? How do they want us? Let’s think about geography too — do we have teams and events in the right locations? What time of day? What broadcast channels? There’s also all the merch considerations — where are they available? Where are we consumed on TV, radio, internet? It’s about fishing where the fish are.

Promotion — you'll get stuck into this most. How do we communicate everything we want the consumer to know? Advertising. PR. Social. Name any channel you want.

A consumer-centred comms plan is vital. And within that is fan engagement and how we build and maintain relationships. Rugby League fans claim that it’s the best game, but that statement doesn't sell itself. Even if the product is the best, and we get our positioning right, we need to communicate it to the target audience. The biggest untapped part of Rugby League comms is the athlete product. We need to tell stories about them. I cannot understate how important athlete amplification is. Wrapping up the most notable other elements is how we work with stakeholders such as sponsors and broadcaster partners.

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That's an overview of what I’ll dig a little bit more into. Let me know if it’s given you some food for thought and encouraged you to be more open minded about the potential of Rugby League. Share your initial ideas if you have any. I'll start sharing mine.

This article was originally published on a blog I started on Medium. But I'm scrapping that and doing it here instead.