Orienteering's Public Image

[Gnitworp]

OK, let's have a vote. I'm not sure my options are ideal though.

[EddieH]

The answer is all of the options.

[AndyC]

I think the target audience is part of the question
1) Hairy Chests (with all due apologies to the top ladies)
2) Families
3) Other Adults/Sportspeople
4) Youth

[Scott]

I think the target audience is part of the question

[Gnitworp]

The answer is all of the options.

Option 2 surely, Eddie

[Scott]

If you try to market orienteering as the sport for everybody, everybody will end up with the impression that it's the sport for somebody else.

[EddieH]

Gnitworp wrote:

Option 2 surely, Eddie

No i mean all the options have their place. Personlly I'd be most attracted by no 1, but that is hardly likely to appeal to a large range of the current molly coddled population. They might want an adventure but find a park adventurous enough.

[Gnitworp]

Personlly I'd be most attracted by no 1

In 1976 that's all there was available, and one year after WOC that year BOF membership had increased by 50%. Thanks in no small degree to a late lamented journalist.

[SeanC]

When you say "how should Orienteering promote itself" do we mean "BOF" or do we mean "our clubs". BOF have the problem of so many different types of orienteering and having to please different clubs with different strategies. At the club level it's a lot easier - I think different events can be targetted at different groups - eg midweek street O's and park O's with a base at a pub or running club house are perfect for adult runner types, small local events with white/yellow/orange colour coded courses with short walks to the start/finish are better for families etc.

I suspect promoting classic forest O to non-orienteers is harder now with increased competition from other sports and social changes. Families are less likely to let their kids out in a massive forest on their own, people expect less rough and ready facilities and perhaps have higher expectations of "customer service" (ie they would want lots of help and coaching). But I don't think we are always very good at promoting classic forest O within the sport - to people who have done some club nights, street/park O or local events and are ready for something more challenging. A lot of fliers for district/regional events assume you've been 100 times before and don't really sell the event to the unconvinced. Compared with running clubs for example, there isn't the same culture of promoting events and competitions within clubs (CompassSport cup is perhaps the exception).

So to answer the question i would suggest:

- Promote urban/street/ midweek park/easy to access woods with TD 2/3/4 standard orienteering to young adults/runners/active types
- Promote family friendly events with short courses and junior competitions in safe, easy to access areas with good facilities (country parks etc) to families.
- Promote classic forest O to people who've done a bit of orienteering (not necessarily club members)

[Gnitworp]

As I said, Sean, my options were not ideal, but I have at least stimulated more useful consideration and suggestions, particularly from yourself.

You will see I have changed the Thread Title, so, for the purposes of this poll, assume it's how British Orienteering should promote it on their website.

[andypat]

I think we sometimes get confused between promoting and encouraging participation. These are two separate things.

Promoting the sport is advertising. Football gets this done for it by the Premier League matches on the telly - top level competition by elite athletes (usually). Pretty much the same for athletics. We all have our favourites or role models we look up to or (at least in our youth) aspire to be like. You dont see football or athletics saying "its OK to walk round if you like" do you?

This should be how we promote orienteering. Not with pictures of families walking round a park. We should be celebrating our elites ( and junior elites) , make them role models, show off a bit! Compasssport does a good job of this but its visibility outside of O is I suspect low. BOF need to take a lead.

Encourage participation by ensuring people have access to enough events at their level, but if people dont have aspiration to get better they will lose interest.

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

Scott said: 'If you try to market orienteering as the sport for everybody, everybody will end up with the impression that it's the sport for somebody else.'

and Sean talked about clubs doing the local promoting. We discussed promotion of the 'orienteering product' at Coaching Conference last weekend and the problem is that there isn't one 'product' so what clubs have to do is decide on the market and which 'product' they need to promote.

The problem is that clubs are 'event organising bodies' and the community coaches enjoy putting on fun sessions but not many of us are interested or good at doing the promotion work. Food for thought.

Do we do what Netball did and focus entirely on a slice of the possible market? In their case getting women who played netball at school to come back - and they have been very successful at doing just that.

[greywolf]

Any promotional message needs to suit the intended audience: naturally we’d emphasise different aspects of the sport for government funders, commercial sponsors, etc, but when the promotion is for the purposes of recruiting new orienteers then it makes sense to target the most likely audience.

Orienteering is thriving up here: the growth is almost entirely due to the recruitment of young children and their parents. MOR, INVOC and MAROC all do things slightly differently, but emphasising the accessibility, safety and family-friendly nature of the sport has been a key part of getting families to try orienteering and then keep coming back. That has meant (for MOR, anyway) organising lots of schools events in urban parks and local Saturday events in quiet streets, school grounds and scraps of accessible woodland (and a relentless local press campaign) - but it doesn’t mean that’s all we do: the club still puts on plenty of “proper” events too, all that’s changed is that there’s a larger customer base for them.

In another thread Mharky mentioned the array of elite talent at Darnaway last weekend. That event had about 200 competitors (not bad for a colour coded on an icy day at the far end of the country, especially when there was another popular event on the same day in the same region), including a very significant proportion of recent recruits, some of whom will be the elites of the future. They may begin by walking round, but once they get the hang of it they get hooked, start to progress, and get interested in and inspired by the “big” races and the elite stars (especially when they are good enough to pose for photos )

A couple of the 14 year-olds are already bombing round the Blue course and putting most of the adults to shame, whilst nearly half of the 33-strong Light Green field were 12 & 13 year-olds: btw anyone who thinks that we are dumbing down orienteering to bring in families ought to check out that course on routegadget…

I’m not suggesting that this is the only way to increase participation, and that young juniors & parents are the only possible target group – and I’d be really interested to hear of any non-Uni club that has found ways of significantly increasing M/W21 participation – but the evidence from this part of the world is that promoting the family-friendly, accessible nature of the sport brings results.

[King Penguin]

Some really challenging legs on that Light Green; harder than many a TD5 leg we could hope for in many areas down south.

[EddieH]

That's because sadly most forests in the Midlands don't actually have ANY terrain that can accomodate TD5.