marketing plan for popularising womens football

Dissertation Proposal

MSc International Marketing Management

Marketing Plans for popularising Women’s Football in England.

Abel Mathew Jacob

April 2010 Student Number: 200300522

Index Page

1.0 Abstract 032.0 Introduction 043.0 Overview of Women’s Football In England 044.0 Literature Review 065.0 Vision 106.0 Mission 107.0 Goals 108.0 Research Methodology 109.0 Implications and Conclusions 1110.0 Reference and Appendices 12

10.1 Simplified Model of Supplier - Consumer Relationship in the Sports Industry 1310.2 The Sports Product map 1410.3 Model of Sports Marketing exchange Process 1410.4 Strategic Sports Marketing Process 1510.5 Malcolm McDonald Model of Market Plan 1610.6 A Brief History of Women’s Football in England 1710.7 Gantt Chart 18

11.0 Fig and Tables Fig 4.1 Perceived benefit of implementation of the new marketing plan 07Table 4.1 Marketing variables and its Implications 08Table 4.2 Activities Associated with Implementation 09Table 4.3 Measuring Results 09

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Abstract:

An emerging phenomenon in sport is the rise of women involvement in the sport market place. Male sport has a well documented history whereas their female counterparts have often been less appreciated. This proposal is a marketing plan for increasing the popularity of Women’s Football in England. A concise and pertinent secondary study will be undertaken to understand the strategic marketing plans implemented by Football Association. The study aims at understanding the present marketing plan followed by Football Association and attempts to suggest a plan to eliminate the gaps in the existing model. This proposal will follow the Malcolm McDonald’s marketing model and Strategic Sports Marketing Model. This dissertation would rely heavily on secondary research to understand the market served and will implement marketing concepts like Ansoff’s Matrix to form the marketing objectives. Following this a new marketing strategy will be conceptualised centring on Positioning/Branding, Product/Price/Promotional/Place elements. Further ahead, Forecasting and Budgeting will be executed. The entire marketing plan shall be shown by a detailed plan of action. Subsequently, implementation and controlling the marketing mix shall be addressed. For addressing the plan it is imperative that the strategic sports framework be evaluated. This plan proposes goals, executable ideas and time bound milestones.

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2.0 Introduction:

Mullin et al states that “Sport Marketing consists of all activities designed to meet the needs and wants of sport consumers thorough the exchange process” (2000, pg 9). Further to that “Sport Marketing has developed two major thrusts: the marketing of sports products and services directly to the consumers of sports and marketing of other consumer and industrial products or services through the use of sports promotions” (Mullin et al,2000, pg 9). Marketing concept has been the corner stone of marketing discipline; I wish to implement the marketing concepts to endorse a rise in spectatorship and participation in Women’s Football (Kholi and Jawaroski, 1990). This marketing plan aims to match the capability of Women’s Football run by the FA and customer wants which is fundamental to the commercial success of this sport. The plan revolves around understanding the consumer requirements and tweaking the marketing strategy to pull hordes into the stadiums. This plan will be based on secondary studies and will be instrumental in formulation of new marketing mix strategies. The strategic marketing framework would be explained to give a better understanding of the strategic sports marketing process. This framework provides the base for action for most sports industry and allows exploring the complex relationships that exists between elements of sports marketing. The marketing concepts, when applied to sports, take a complete new dimension. This proposal shall draw its data from research papers, news papers and published articles to showcase a new marketing plan for implementation. As this is a result of exploratory research (Malhotra, 2007) this proposal aims at presenting a marketing plan within professional sports i.e. Women’s Football, with an aim to improvise the tangible and intangible benefits associated with women’s football concentrating specifically on building and leveraging the brand equity of professional sports clubs, to further enhance the Brand image, Revenue and daily attendance.

This marketing plan is a vision, implementable by the authorities to enhance the reputation of the women’s football, and a guide to an improvised execution of the marketing principles and sports marketing framework.

3.0 Overview of the Women’s football in England

“‘The future is feminine’ declared Joseph Blatter, general sec of Federation International de Football Association (Fifa), the international governing body of football in 1995” (Hong and Mangan, 2004, pg 7).

Football which supported patriarchal view accepted women’s view by pre-1960's (Thompson 1992). A greater variety of team sport was available to women during the 1960's and 70’s

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(Burton Nelson 1991). The power of spending of women has risen considerably added to their positive attitude towards sports (Kane 1999) and which has opened up a new perspective for the liberated women who began to be involved in greater numbers than before.

Women’s football has been a part of the social and cultural history of Britain for over a century. However academics have chosen to oversee the historical importance of Women/Girls indulgence in football, prior to 1900. This form of sport had rebuked and despised by many, as it was thought to be too scandalous for pretty girls to be involved. The Football Association (from here FA), deemed this game to be too risky to be played by the women and hence banned all formats of women’s football in the year 1921 (Jean, William 2003). In retrospect, this decision could be pointed out as the major reason for an under developed Women’s Football and it has never been able to recover from the depths of isolation and neglect. Jumping years ahead, the Women’s Football Association (WFA) was formed in the year 1969 with 44 league teams (http://www.thefa.com). In the year 1971 the FA lifted the ban which forbade the women from playing on the grounds of affiliated club (http://www.thefa.com). Inspite of the annulment of the ban, there was much to be desired out of the inaction of the FA to promote women’s football.

“Women’s football and girls football in England stands at the threshold of becoming one of this country’s most established and respected Female Sport” (http://www.thefa.com). According to the memorandum submitted to the U K parliament by Sue Lopez MBE states that FA had started supporting Women’s Football since 1993. Since then the FA has managed to bring an unprecedented change in the participation, infrastructure and management of the Women’s Football. A testament to FA’s commitment is the number of active participants in the affiliated league and cup competitions. The number today stands at an astounding 147,000 when compared to just 10,400 in 1993(http://www.thefa.com).

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http://www.thefa.com/





4.0 Literature Review

“Football has an enormous amount to offer. It stands in a uniquely privileged position with regard to financial power, media coverage, infrastructure, participation and national affection. This powerful position makes football ideally placed as a delivery mechanism for a whole myriad of public policy priorities ranging from social inclusion to literacy to health. To that end it has already contributed a great deal however it is within women and girl’s football that the full potential has yet to be realised" (www.publications.parliament.uk).

There is a strong post modern wave passing us and the current post modern era, (Best and Kellner, 1997) that we are experiencing, is an invitation to the marketers working with product or services (Firat and Venkatesh, 1993, 1995; Sherry, 1991). Sport is one of the largest derivatives of human passion considering its worldwide appeal. “Capitalising on the emotional attachment of the consumers (fans) toward the team, the event or the symbolism associated with the brand can enable a sports organisation to trigger trust and loyalty toward the brand” (Richelieu and Boulaire, 2004). This trust and loyalty earned will help the sports team generate additional revenue with the sale of goods and services within and beyond the sports arena (Gustafson, 2001).

Sports’ marketing is always construed to be the glamour child of sporting industry, where it is mistakenly thought about dealing with sponsorships and promotion. Webster’s defines sport as “a source of diversion or a physical activities engaged in for pleasure.” Sports industry today serves as an entertainment (Shank, 2002). They have competition from contemporary forms of entertainment like music, television, music etc. Shank says “Organizations that do not recognize the relation between sports and entertainment are said to suffer from marketing myopia”. Marketing myopia, a term coined by Theodore Levitt, is the practice of defining a business in terms of goods and services rather than in terms of benefits sought by the customer. This marketing plan seeks to eliminate the marketing myopia by focussing on the needs of the customers by emphasising on the tangible and intangible benefits that the Football Association has to offer. This process of emphasising on the consumers of sports whilst keeping in mind the objectives of the organization i.e. The Football Association, is called marketing orientation (Heiens, 2000).

The sports industry is estimated to be worth an unprecedented 500 billion according to the Global Sports Industry Congress (http://www.eventica.co.uk). “The Games are better, and well the athletes are just amazing and it happens 24 hours a day” (Shank, 2002). There has been a growth in paid attendance and viewership of women’s football in U K.

Fig10.1 shows the model of the consumer – supplier relationship. “In general, highly-involved consumers consume sport with an intangible desire for long-term associations and active participation with a team sport or a branded product (Jowdy and McDonald, 2003)”. The most difficult part of sports marketing is in understanding the sports product. A figure representing the differentiation of sports products as goods and services is given in Fig 10.2. If the goods and

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http://www.publications.parliament.uk/


services are produced they must be exchanged to for a marketing transaction. Traditionally the transaction involves a consumer giving money to receive the goods or service. In this case the game itself is the form of pure service (Lovelock 1984; Groonos 1982; Parasuraman et al 1985). Fig 10.3 gives the model of Sports Marketing Exchange Process (Milne and McDonald, 1999).

Fig 4.1 Perceived benefit of implementation of the new marketing plan

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“Strategic sports marketing process is the process of planning, implementing, controlling marketing efforts to meet organizational goals and satisfy consumers’ needs” (Shank, 2002). “Sports’ marketing can be deconstructed as the application of marketing principles and processes to sports products and products through the association with sport” (Shank, 2002). Fig 10.4 represents the Strategic Sports marketing Process.

It is very essential to understand the consumer market and then act on the sports marketing mix. Market selection decisions are referred as STP i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Segmentation may be carried out on the basis of demographic, geographic, behavioural tendencies. Target marketing allows choosing the segment that allows an organization to establish its marketing objectives (Evans and Berman, 1992).Positioning involves fixing the sports product in the mind of the consumer. Marketers making marketing strategies should be able to target the right segment i.e. families and females per say, as there would be an increase in other female & family profiles, that can be targeted, which is interested in Women’s football.

Marketing mix decisions follow the selection of the market. “The objective of the marketing Mix is to implement the positioning established by the chosen target market. This is done by coordinating the marketing mix variables – product, price, place and promotion.

Table 4.1 Marketing variables and its Implications

Peter Drucker states that “The best plan is only a plan – that is, good intentions – unless it degenerates into work” (1974, pp. 147)”. “The distinction that makes a plan capable of producing results is the commitment of key people to work on specific tasks (Drucker, 1974, pp. 147)”. This is the implementation stage. Once all the planning is complete it is imperative to put plans into action (Gupta and Govindarajan, 1984).

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Table 4.2 Activities Associated with Implementation

Table 4.3 Measuring Results

Final stage of the plan is the control stage, where comparing results with the marketing objectives and modification of the plan to achieve the desired result is the basis of it’s conjure.

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5.0 Vision of The Football Association:

1. To protect football’s status as the nation’s favourite game.

6.0 Mission of The Football association:

“Championing growth and excellence (www.thefa.com).”

Mission of this proposal: This marketing plan seeks to leverage the brand equity of the women’s football. The core mission is to

1. IDENTIFY ways to increase the average attendance at a women’s football meet by 10-20% in the coming five years.

2. INCREASE the brand awareness

3. APPRAISE the broadcasting rights and Maximise revenues through new initiatives.

4. Build a long term relation with the consumer.

7.0 Goals of the Proposal:

1. To be Nations most preferred women’s’/ girls game in the country.

2. Grow and retain participation.

3. Increase awareness and positive perception of the game.

4. Increase the commercial development and the profile of women’s football

8.0 Research methods

The methodology undertaken for this proposal is going to be qualitative and the research (Malhotra, 2007) will be exploratory in nature. In addition to the above I shall also proceed with content analyses (http://www.readership.org) of

1. The Football Association, the women’s sports teams’ in England.

2. The Internal and External Contingencies surrounding Football Association and their marketing plan.

3. Websites interviews with managers of Football clubs.

4. Scientific papers, sports articles, and media articles (print and electronic).

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9.0 Implications and conclusion

This proposal seeks to work on the strategic sports marketing frame work as a tool for altering and modifying elements that play a big role in the influence of sports marketing as a whole. This is also an attempt at appreciating the growing popularity of the women’s football. Though the focus would only be on the marketing mix aspects of the strategic plan further study will also be conducted on consumer behaviour and services marketing, as both play an huge role in sports industry per say. This study seeks to undertake a successful implementation of the academic knowledge and apply it to the real world. On the whole this is an attempt to understand the core concept of marketing in context of sports and a comprehensive attempt at gaining an insight into the functioning of Women’s Football in England.

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10.0 References

1. A. K. Kholi, B. J. Jawaroski, “Marketing Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications,” Journal of Marketing 54 (2): 1- 18.

2. Anon (2008). [WWW]. Available at http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/ReportFinancialStatements2008.ashx/ReportFinancialStatements2008.pdf. [Accessed 9/4/ 2010].

3. Anon. [WWW]. Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sport. [Accessed 15/4/2010].

4. Anon (2009) [WWW]. Available at http://www.eventica.co.uk/files/GSIC_eng_s.pdf. [Accessed 15/4/2010].

5. Anon (2005) [WWW]. Available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmcumeds/1357/1357.pdf. [Accessed 9/4/2010].

6. Best, S and Kellner, D. (1997). The Postmodern Turn. New York: The Guilford Press. 7. Boulaire, C. and Richelieu, A. (2005) A post modern conception of the product and its

applications to professional sports. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, 7 (1), pp 24.

8. Burton Nelson, Mariah (1991). Are We Winning Yet? How Women are Changing Sports and Sports are Changing Women, Random House:London.

9. Drucker, P. (1974). Management: Tasks, responsibility, Practices. New York: Harper Row. pp. 147.

10. Evans, J. and Berman, B. 5th ed. (1992). Marketing. New York: Macmillian.11. Firat A. F. & Venkatesh, A. (1993), ‘Postmodernity: The age of marketing’, International

Journal of Research in Marketing. 10(3), 227-249.12. Groonos, C. (1982) A Service Quality Model and Its Marketing Implications. European

Journal of Marketing. 18, pp. 36-44.13. Gupta, A. K. and Govindarajan, V. (1984). Build, Hold or Harvest: Converting Strategic

Intent Into Reality. Journal of Business Strategy. 4(000003), pp. 34-47.14. Gustafson, R. (2001), ‘Product brands look set to gain new advantage’, Marketing (5

April), 20.15. Heiens, R. A. (2000). Market Orientation: Toward an Integrated Framework [WWW].

Available from http://www.amsreview.org/articles/heiens01-2000.pdf [Accessed 19/4/2010].

16. Hong, F. And Mangan, J. A. (2004) Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation- Kicking off a New Era. Frank Cass Publishers: London. pp 7.

17. Jowdy, E. And McDonald, M. (2003) International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship. 4 (4). pp.

18. Kane, Courtney (1999). “Want to reach female viewers? The NFL asks marketers if they’re ready for some football”. New York Times. December 22.

19. *3 Lamb, C. Et al. 2nd ed. (1994). Principles of Marketing. Cincinnati: South Western Publishing.

20. Levitt, T (1960). Marketing Myopia. [WWW] Available from http://0-web.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=106&sid=ee3fd6e2-bbcf-4562-9e0a-9c3adae88448@sessionmgr112 [Accessed 19/4/2010].

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http://0-web.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=106&sid=ee3fd6e2-bbcf-4562-9e0a-9c3adae88448@sessionmgr112



http://www.amsreview.org/articles/heiens01-2000.pdf

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmcumeds/1357/1357.pdf

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmcumeds/1357/1357.pdf

http://www.eventica.co.uk/files/GSIC_eng_s.pdf

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sport


21. Lovelock, C. Services Marketing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984).22. Milne, G and McDonald, M. (1999). Sports Marketing: Managing the Exchange process,

Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. 23. Malhotra, N. K. 5th ed. (2007). Marketing Research- An Applied Orientation. New Jersey:

Prentice Hall. 24. Mullin, B. J et al. 2nd ed. (2000). Sport marketing. Champaign, IL. ; Leeds: Human Kinetics.

25. Parasuraman, A. et al. (1985) A Conceptual Model Of Services Marketing and its Implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing. 49, pp. 41-50.

26. Peer, L. and Nesbitt, M. (2004). Content Analysis Methodology [WWW] Available at: http://www.readership.org/new_readers/data/content_analysis_methodology.pdf. [Accessed 17/4/2010].

27. Shank, M. T. 2nd ed. (2002) Sports Marketing: a strategic perspective. Published Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, Prentice-Hall.

28. Sherry, J. F. (1991), ‘Postmodern alternatives: The interpretive turn in consumer research’, Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Harold H. Kassarjian and Thomas S. Robertson (eds.), 548- 591. Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

29. *Smolianov, P. and Shilbury, D. (1996). An Investigation of Sports Marketing Competencies. Sports Marketing Quarterly. 5 (4), pp. 27-36.

30. Thompson, Shona (1992). “Men play Football, Women wash the dirty socks”. Refractory Girl. 2-5.

31. *2 Zeithamal, V. (1988). Consumer perception of Price, Quality and Value: A Means- End Chain Model and Synthesis of Evidence. Journal of Marketing. 52 (3), pp. 21.

10.0 Appendices

Fig 10.1 Simplified Model of Supplier - Consumer Relationship in the Sports Industry

In: Shank, M. T. 2nd ed. (2002) Sports Marketing: a strategic perspective. Published Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, Prentice-Hall. pg. 12

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http://www.readership.org/new_readers/data/content_analysis_methodology.pdf


Fig 10.2 The Sports Product map


Fig10.3. Model of Sports Marketing exchange Process


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Fig10.4 Strategic Sports Marketing Process


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Fig10.5 Malcolm McDonald Model of Market Plan

Malcolm McDonald’s model (McDonald, M. 2002. pp 568)

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Fig10.6

http://www.thefa.com/GetIntoFootball/Players/PlayersPages/WomensAndGirls/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/WomensStrategy.ashx/WomensStrategy.pdf. pg. 43

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http://www.thefa.com/GetIntoFootball/Players/PlayersPages/WomensAndGirls/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/WomensStrategy.ashx/WomensStrategy.pdf

http://www.thefa.com/GetIntoFootball/Players/PlayersPages/WomensAndGirls/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/WomensStrategy.ashx/WomensStrategy.pdf


Table 1 – Gantt Chart of Activities to be developed in the next 9 weeks

Week NumberActivities 1&2 3&4 5&6 7&8 9&10 11&12 13 14 15English Football Assessment1.External and internal audit2.Swot Analysis 3. Critical Success Factor

Formulation Marketing ObjectiveSegmentation, Targeting and PositioningConduct focus groups Gap Analysis and Services /Marketing StrategiesProduct and Pricing StrategiesPromotion and Distribution StrategiesPlan of operationImplementation of the planControl stage and monitoringPlan for evaluationConclusion and Proof reading

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marketing plan for popularising womens football

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