It’s the day before the start of the new football season - for teams in The Championship (division two for traditionalists) in England that is.  So tomorrow I’ll be at The Valley, full of hope and trepidation, as Charlton take on Swansea.  The result will almost certainly affect my mood for the coming week - it usually does!

I’ve helped a few Scottish football clubs with their marketing in the past - namely Celtic, Rangers and Hearts.  Being an avid supporter of a team myself was certainly an advantage when it came to working out the details of strategy and campaigns.  The only way to get results was to tap into the mood of the fans - get that right, and success would follow.  When the campaign launched, it was with nervous anticipation that we checked the fans’ message boards to get instant feedback on what they thought of the offer and how it was presented - real-time, unmoderated research!  Creating positive word-of-mouth momentum was essential. 

The internet has changed the way we support football these days - it’s made news so much more instantaneous, it enables you to follow matches as they happen from anywhere in the world and, if you wish, you can engage with fellow fans via blogs and message boards. 

I do log-on regularly to the Charlton sites, keen to keep in touch with the latest gossip and views.  Many of the topics aren’t directly Charlton or football-related either - it can be a fascinating slice of life and a way to read a wide variety of opinions from a whole cross-section of the population - a much more mixed bunch of people than I tend to meet and exchange views with in my normal business and social circles. 

That helps me to justify the time I spend on there, anyway!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under fraoch news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.