How to Make Orienteering Fashionable

[SeanC]

mmmmm, national marketing/advertising campaigns to promote the orienteering brand. Sounds great but that presumably means paid BOF officials and a marketing/advertising budget. How much money are we talking about. 50K, 100K per year? I'm not optimistic that the orienteering community as a whole can be persuaded to pay for this. What do you think?

Having read nopesport for the last year, I'd say that local publicity campaigns targetting specific events seem more cost/time effective, with BOF there as support for clubs. By support I mean all kinds of straightforward things that BOF currently does and could be expanded, an RDO network, publicity officer courses, or simply posting examples of good practice on the BOF site. Of course this might need some money too!

London is a special case though. There are quite a few clubs and any cross London publicity might need some co-ordination. Those outside the south east might not know that the is a really good summer London league, the Frolics series, which ticks many boxes

- yellow course for beginners
- low key informal events that are easy(ish) to organise
- light green and sprint courses that are popular with experienced orienteers
- in the larger london parks that need some orienteering skill
- in the summer months
- club competition where more or less any London club has a chance of winning (I get the impression that many clubs are more competitive about this league than the south east league where few clubs have a chance of winning).

I dont much like the name, but it might be easier to spend the effort publicising this series rather than going to the trouble of organising a new event?

[Oldman]

Opening up this topic again and commenting on some of the postings, I wouldn't object to a change of name for orienteering. Even now, when I tell friends or colleagues that I am an orienteer, some associate it with not necessarily enjoyable school or scouting trips to the countryside with rucksacks, bobble hats and 1:25,000 OS maps. They are often surprised to learn that it is a competitive running sport for all ages on varying terrain.

I offer again my favourite new name - "Map racing".

[Carnage Head]

I accept the point about the need to avoid the 'o' prefix/suffix in events targetted at beginners.

Instead, perhaps we could make use of the popularity of 'sat nav' to call any national charity event 'Nav London'/'Nav Leeds'/etc.

And how about a slogan on posters which could run a bit like 'You've tried sat nav, now try fast nav'?

[Mr. Furness]

map racing is nearly there, but it doesn't describe it properly.

carnage head close, nav is (i think) well understood abbreviation of navigation, so how about...

Nav Racing?

To mean, navigation racing, an exact yet not boring desciption of what happens.

[rosco]

sounds a bit like naff racing...

[Mr. Furness]

Navi-Racing.

[Crispy]

Sounds like two canal workers going head to head!!!

[johnloguk]

"Locked together" no doubt! Ouch, sorry

I think there is definitely something in a name change, re-branding etc, if not why would so many very profitable companies do it. I'm not sure that "british Orienteering" is a big enough change to make much difference, but at least it shows some thought on the matter.

I'm a bit nervous about this as I actually love the sport pretty much as it is, and I have a personal aversion for re-branding because it often means conning people that something has got better when really nothing has changed, but.....

I do like the idea of the word "race" as a way of making orienteering more attractive, and eventually more fashionable. Ages ago someone made the simple suggestion to stop advertising Orienteering "events", and start calling them orienteering "races", a good move in my opinion.

I know our club are looking at holding some "street-O" next year, mapping housing estates with lots of parks and other green spaces, based on sports centres. Maybe they should be called "Street Races", I think that has a certain ring to it, even (dare I say it) suggesting something a bit anarchic and edgey? Rat Race type events trade on that sort of image very successfully. There are City Races already I know, but does "street race" sound better?

That type of image might horrify and alienate some people, but I'm sure it would attract many others. It's not about replacing "traditional-O", just adding an alternative version. 5-a-side football leagues co-exist perfectly alongside mainstream soccer, as does street hockey with it's traditional cousin.

For most of us the big Scottish forest would remain the true test and the perfect day out, but it doesn't have to be the same for all "orienteers".

[Gnitworp]

I mentioned in an earlier post that both the French and Germans call it 'orienteering race', never just 'orienteering', i.e., course d'orientation and orientierungslauf respectively.

[freaky_phil]

The Fit for a Change TV programme is going out on ITV (Wales) on Friday Feb 2nd at 11:00 - 11:30pm. It was filmed at Cwm Lickey and 8 hours of filming has ended up with an 8 minute slot. Look out for SWOC members especially James Clemence (Clem) who co-ordinated the day.

[Haze]

if you got heaps of glasgow lads into it then it could be call chav racing.

sorry

[PeteL]

if you got heaps of glasgow lads into it then it could be call chav racing.

sorry

NED Racing, surely???

[Gross]

But a NED is (or was) a member of the National Elite Development Squad

[Haze]

nope sorry it would definately be chav!
keep up!

[PorkyFatBoy]

We do try to keep up , but based on this thread:- http://www.nopesport.com/forum/viewtopi ... 02&start=0
I would have said Ned too.