Wow.... didn't know that a few marketing questions would spark such a fire. This is good stuff.
Mr. Heather.... due note that neither Paul or I are criticizing Connie or other volunteers efforts. Actually, Paul praised her efforts. We are just curious about whats going on. Questions are good things not necessarily threatening things.
Aquageek and Gull....... I'll have to agree with the evil one on this issue. It never hurts to be creative and throw out a new idea or a question on a subject. Gets the creative juices flowing.... :-)
John Smith
Don't get me wrong--I would love to see some slick commercials promoting Masters swimming, for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that it's a healthy lifestyle). As for print advertising, I don't see how you can reach a broader audience if your magazine is not available on newsstands.
By the way, I've never liked Mercedes. And I don't play golf, either.
Jumping into this thread quite late, excuse me...
The cost of training for competition is already so high I wouldn't pay a higher fee and travel expenses when there's not much in it for competitors. Masters swimming just doesn't get the exposure other events do.
Swimming is a fine sport, but like surfing, it's just not that exciting to watch. The sports are a lot alike - wait wait and go - then it's over. Not much to see other than people moving in water. That's the perspective of outsiders.
I think swimming and surfing should pair up because both could use more exposure. Surfing goes year round pretty much and a lot of Olympic swimmers are into it. Likewise, surfers are swimmers.
Speedo makes more than just swimwear and so does Billibong and Quiksilver. For so little advertising and despite the fact that surfing isn't an Olympic or age-oriented event, the sponsorship in surfing is diverse and easier to come by.
Pair swimming and surfing and at a minimum you reach a wider audience. It just seems so unfortunate that Speedo and Nike are pretty much it and you only matter to them if you were in the Olympics.
Masters swimming needs something.
Connie- referring to earlier misunderstanding with Skip: problem is, you're just out of practise in dealing with with misleading, inflammatory & non-factual statements 'cause we've had no VO2Max 'contributions'
I thought we had already courted a national sponsor with our musings on 'Viagra' awhile back.
Paul, c'mon, you can lead the way with sponsorship from Mr. Big & Tall with co-sponsorship from a major brewery.
GoodSmith could be a guest host on 'Crossfire'
Originally posted by Paul Smith
Connie, I'm glad that USMS has you as well as all the committed folks that help run it but the truth is that USMs has not shown any ability to take marketing up to a level beyond flyers, bulletin boards, etc. etc. all things that advertise to our small exisitng base.
John nailed it, our membership demographic is a gold mine to sponosors (something Mel has mentioned many times) and we should be aggresively attempting to meet and cobrand with companies such as: Centrum, Mercedes Benz, Carnival Cruises, etc. etc..
Does anyone recall seeing any sponsorship banners surfing this site by the way? Ok, you found them....how about non swimming? OK, how many advertise on TV or magazines and tie into USMS?
The problem I saw at my last convention however was that a large part of the markting folks had a real fear of going out and "selling" our product (conact list) to these types of sponsors.
Bill, love the new rag but look at your sponoors (look hard to find them)? Great work on the one hand, but man if you came to my fortune 500 company and I saw your demographic but how little representaton you we're giving advertisers I wouldn't be to keen.
There are far more experienced PR/Marketing types on this foum than me......what say you folks?
All I can say right now, if I get my way, so to speak, lot of this will start changing.
Too bad you weren't at the Mission meet, where we took good care of our sponsors and advertises....
As for people like Mercedes Benz and many companies with national or world wide exposure an entity with 40 or 50,000 members nation wide is really not that attractive, not to a point that they will come flocking if we just said yes. It takes time money and and effort to prepare a professional looking package that will attract those advertisers. For one, as long as many people whimper and whine about whopping 30 or so dollars a year that they have to pay for their annual dues, we'll be hard pressed to have the professional marketing and advertising presentation that there people are used to participating in.
One can't create a professional representation when there's 6 months worth of roadblocks to go through just to get a little brochure out.
Part of last years controversy about the magazine can how the decisions were made to go about changing a publisher, IMO, came out of the similar frustration with many good efforts being fillibustered by doom and gloomers, and skeptics unable to make a decision or take on even the smallest amount of risk.
