Direct Disasters

I have always believed in the direct approach, and that public relations face to face is one of the most powerful tools DM in building a brand. For a football club, desperate to sell merchandise as well as tickets, the chance to meet 120 football mad kids in a secure environment, when it would cost little more than fifteen minutes of anyone's time, ought to be too good to miss.

So my trip to take my son to a Chelsea Elite Training Centre tournament at the Chelsea training ground in Cobham ought to have been a treat and a pleasure. The Chelsea In the Community team are brilliant with the boys. Despite being a passionate Arsenal fan, my son has benefitted from excellent training and treatment from the Chelsea coaches since he was four, and they have played a big part in making him a promising nine year old.

On Friday morning, the tournament happened to coincide with the Chelsea first team training session in preparation for their Saturday clash with the mighty Southend. Precisely 200 yards from the kids tournament. Whilst waiting to begin, we watched all the Bentleys arrive. Then the boys went to warm up, and the parents were given a welcoming speech that amounted to instructions not to look, wave, shout or generally breathe in the vicinity of the first team Gods. Not that we were about to rush over the ten foot fence, dodge the burly security men, and strip the clothes off of Frank Lampard for souvenirs...

Personally, from a marketing point of view, would it have killed a couple of players to walk a few yards just to say hello to the boys? They are all football mad. Half of them actually support Chelsea. My son was thrilled just to be able to see them in the distance, over the top of the fence, doing some light jogging...so a chance to see one up close would have thrilled him. Unfortunately, that did not seem to occur to Chelsea. In awe to the ego's of their young millionaire's, they would rather insult the intelligence and maturity of a few parents.

Obviously, we all had a good laugh about it, but it seemed rather sad. Football clubs, like any business, cannot afford to miss any chance to drum up support and goodwill. That is why the sales force and the call centre of any company are so important - they directly affect the way a customer feels about a brand.

Generally, so many people seem to have forgotten this. I had an amazing run-in with Virgin Media before Christmas, when they had overcharged me and told me it would take weeks to raise a cheque, even though they have my direct debit details and could easily transfer it straight back to me. It made me so angry I nearly switched to Sky on the spot. I am sure everyone reading this could recount a similar tale.

One of the first lessons I learned in business is that it is more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing ones. DM plays a huge role in this. Direct communication of any kind influences people. Chelsea struggle to sell out Stamford Bridge. Mr Abramovich is one of the hardest hit by the credit crunch, and he needs his highly paid employee's to help bring in the cash. This attitude that the great unwashed are beneath contempt will see many a football club struggle in the coming months if they don't wise up.

So, the lesson for today is look after your existing customers and take every opportunity to make them feel good about your brand. Because right now, you cannot be sure when a new one is coming along.

Hallelujah You can teach an old dog new tricks

Happy New Year, one and all.

On New Years eve, just before the witching hour, I downloaded my first song. Previous to this momentous moment, I had stuck to the old ways, in other words, buying CD's...although I still call them albums of course. I do not own an iPod. And I was quite happy letting all this stuff pass me buy.

Then, enraged by Simon Cowell's treatment of Leonard Cohen's masterpiece, I had an urge to show my son that there is an alternative to X Factor manufactured pop schmalz, and I downloaded Jeff Buckely's rather excellent version of Hallelujah - the album version, of course, for the princely sum of 79p.

My son still prefers Alexandra, of course. Teaching new dogs commonsense is almost impossible, but it did get me thinking. One thing that recessions always bring is a new broom. So much dead wood is thrown out, that there almost always has to be a new way of doing things. So, for direct marketing, maybe there has to be a different way.

One inevitable consequence of this downturn is that a lot of businesses will disappear. Some consolidation will take place. Then, out of the ashes, new entities will emerge, hopefully learning some lessons from the past. It is essential that the industry focusses on good data, and on protecting and improving that data. If DM is to have a bright future, we have to win back to confidence of the end user, as well as our clients, and let's face it, there is a lot of rubbish out there.

To a great extent we have tolerated it, because it is hard to do anything about it. When clients have demanded cost savings, we have all even indulged ourselves, sometimes, in the old game of selling rubbish straight to the landfill. No more, please. Clients, whose money it is we are spending, should be encouraged to look at the quality of the data they are buying, to make sure it is right for them. We need strong data, that is well maintained, so that we can target effectively, giving us an argument against the accusations of junk mail.

We all need to think about what we are doing. Something went wrong in the last few years. It all got lost in the jargin somewhere. Hopefully, when we put the roof back on, things will be a lot different.