How to Make Orienteering Fashionable

[SeanC]

Re how much marketing/advertising we can expect from BOF. I would have thought the kind of things suggested in this thread given the limited resources. I understand there is a marketing officer.

Found an interesting link to a piece of research from a few years ago now on the BOF site, which no doubt many are aware of. My interpretation of the conclusions are that,

1) its very important
2) Changes to the product to make it more "accessible" may help
3) given the funding constraints on BOF, marketing/advertising initiatives have to be provided by clubs, with BOF acting in a support role only.

So we're back to the same old issue, how do clubs find the time and money for non-core activities? And maybe MADO type initiatives are the best way to make the sport more fashionable.

Here's the link:

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/d ... kkprep.doc



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Skip this if you dont want to read from the report
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Relevant bit:

"A BOF ‘Promotion & Membership Working Party’ is currently considering issues relating to the marketing and promotion of orienteering. It is not the intention of this report to pre-empt its findings or conclusions. There are, however, several issues relating to this subject that emerged during the research. These include the need to:

· facilitate increased TV exposure through appropriate orienteering disciplines i.e. Park O
· maximise potential of World Championships 1999 and World Cup 1998
· improve general public understanding/awareness of orienteering
· improve internal promotion

The importance of increased and improved media exposure was recognised by virtually all consultees. Similarly, the development of new technologies has been consistently identified as one solution to current presentational problems. With new sophisticated technology it is widely thought that orienteering could become an accessible, attractive and media friendly sport. Views vary about the extent to which orienteering is able to adapt to and utilise new technologies, however it is widely thought that without greater media exposure orienteering is likely to remain marginalised.

This is considered to be particularly true in relation to young people. The fall in numbers of young people participating in orienteering is attributed partly to increased competition from other sports and youth activities. In the view of consultees, orienteering suffers from being less attractive and more difficult to ‘find’. Improved marketing and promotion is thought to be only part of the solution. Changes to the ‘product’, possibly in line with the way that Park O has evolved, may enable orienteering to successfully compete with established sporting ‘favourites’.


At a local level, in common with most voluntary sector activity, professional help and advice with marketing and promotion for clubs can be very effective. To this extent, improved support for clubs (e.g. PR guidelines and press releases) could potentially make a significant impact in terms of profile and recruitment."

[SeanC]

sorry, the second sentance doesnt make sense. For

"I would have thought the kind of things suggested in this thread given the limited resources."

read

"I would have thought the many of the things suggested in this thread cant realistically be done by BOF given its limited resources."

[Axel]

The only way we will attract people to Orienteering is by advertising and publicity, until we as sport spend money in these areas we don't stand a cat in hells chance of bringing the punters in. I have never seen a local paper or to that matter any paper with a notice in advertising Orienteering events.

I seen plenty advertising road races and such like, why because they are often support a charitable cause and thus usually get free publicity. I can't think why no ones mentioned it before but most of the 5 km, 10km, HM, FM, fun runs and just about every other type foot race these days have a charity angle to them. The charity theme seems to attract punters because it makes people feel their doing their bit for a good cause, getting a bit of fitness in and at the same time getting a lung full of fresh air. I can't think of any Orienteering event that I have been to that has linked up with any of the big charities as a joint effort.

Charitable events usually attract wider publicity, especially when the charity markets the event at corporate level.

Also what about latching onto obesity and get fit angle. Target local government to advertise events in their publication of activities in the local area. Tell them it a good way fight the flab, get and keep families fit. Especially around the half term periods, parents are always trying to find ways to keep their children occupied, put CTI events at some of the Forest Activity sites. I know theres PC at most these sites but no one makes families aware of them. Clubs spend some of profit from your C3's, get a club tent and banner up, set up a string course, use the PC and give the kids a lolly when their finished. Some ideal areas especially in the south that attract lots of families during half term are the Lookout Centre, Alice Holt, Moors valley. We do this at our events but why don't we do it elsewhere.


Just some passing thoughts.


As a by the way, if you believe a recent survey the fight the flab angle might work better in the North of England

[NeilC]

The only way we will attract people to Orienteering is by advertising and publicity, until we as sport spend money in these areas we don't stand a cat in hells chance of bringing the punters in. I have never seen a local paper or to that matter any paper with a notice in advertising Orienteering events.

In our experience most local papers are more than happy to include news about orienteering - especially if they include a photo of someone with a trophy or England/GB top etc. Of course it requires someone to send the story in - one can hardly expect anyone at BO central to do this.

[SeanC]

I dont think we should dismiss advertising. With advertising you control the content, message and size so you can make the sport seem as fashionable as you want. Advertising must work, otherwise why would anyone buy a Fiat? On other threads, Mrs. H has explained how the MADO events successfully combined advertising with more traditional publicity such as NeilC describes.

Out of interest. Advertising experts out there, what advertising can I expect to buy for say £150 and how successful do you think it would be?

[johnloguk]

Regarding getting orienteering in the media I can confirm that it is possible to do because we've done it. I have a habit of repeating myself across threads, for which I apologise, but I think it does bear repeating simple things that work.

The key to getting something in the press is making it relevant to the audience, so local interest is the key here. We got a good splash in the press earlier this year when LOG hosted the East Midlands Champs. We sent out a press release, didn't cost anything, it went by e-mail, stressing that this was the first time our club had put on an event of this stature, and what an honour it was for us to be asked. Local press always like this angle, it makes them feel good, people coming to our patch for a prestigious event etc. After the event we sent them another release, focusing on the fact that one of our members won his class, again a perfect angle for the press "local boy whups big city slickers" etc. We even got a nice big photo of said EM Champ striding down a track at the event. It helped that he was a photogenic 18 yr old, sadly they wouldn't have been so keen on a middle aged beardie!

Did we get any new members out of it all? We'll never know. But it did raise the profile locally, we went on to have our most successful Summer League ever by a country mile, and we are now poised for another media blitz for the Lincolnshire Bomber Weekend next January.

We have got sponsors on board for the Bomber, which helps provide lots of prizes and deflects some other costs. But the free column inches that we'll get in the press, and hopefully even local TV, will be worth thousands of pounds worth of advertising. Not just for attracting competitors, but more relevantly for getting us up there in the public eye again.

You must have noticed all the "news items" about movies just as they're about to come out, or someone's new book, even on the "advert free" BBC? Why does anyone bother to pay for advertising when you can get it for free as a new item? Yes the media can interpet things negatively given half a chance, but don't give them that chance. Send out a press release that ticks all their boxes and they'll run with it.

[Mrs H.]

£150 will buy you a 9x14cm full colour ad in the Malvern gazette - and if they accidentally leave off the dotted line and scissors which you requested (twice) you will get money off the £40 follow up ad. My latest campaign went like this
week 1 small artcile about new MADO season
week 2 Large advert for whole series of events
week 3 small event specific advert + beautifully timed large (hopefully) news artcile relating to a certain young Neville gaining a British Schools Score gold at his last attempt with a really good action shot (+ possible podium pick of younger friend gaining bronze) with hefty plug for MADO 1 at the bottom.
week 4 follow up article on event.

That is probably £200 on advertising but the big one is a one off. £50 an event should do it for the rest of the season - they have a corporate look about them (in blue) so people can pick them out each month - very simple really I'd attach the ads but I just don't ever seem to get this attachment thing to work!

ps - I think someone else has mentioned this but - it's just landed in my e-mail box

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/b ... 350242.stm

[Safety]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned, but I feel it needs it.

A few years ago the whole emphasis of encouraging Orienteering to expand was done through the schools. Loads of schools leagues were set up around the country, (In the North West every club had one) But that seems to have fallen by the wayside recently. Yes many of the leagues still run, but people have said participation has dropped. Contact from my parents who ae still involved with it indicates that our (MEROC's) league dropped from 10 or 15 schools down to 4 or 5.

As I have said before I felt a lot of this was because children took up the sport to gain D of E awards and then gave up. However should we not still be trying to encourage more schools. Orienteering was on the National Curriculum (don't know if it still is). And as a sport that is easy to arrange on a small PE lesson level, (admittedly not as easy as 4 cones and a football) but still it isn't hard and can easily be fitted into an hour long lesson. Where has the encouragement gone for children to move onto the next level if they enjoy it.

At this point, surely it is an advantage that Orienteering isn't the most spectator friendly sport, as if we can encourage school children to participate then parents come along and the opurtunity should be there for them to participate as well rather than sitting around in cars.

Sure this will spark a fury of replys from teachers saying they don't have time, etc which is true, and why the support should be there from BOF, maybe covering the cost of mapping school grounds etc. for interested schools as that is the biggest preperation needed. And i'm not on about running school teams either as that requires people to give up their saturdays to take the school team rather than going themselves. But encouraging the people who enjoy it to attend local events, maybe it isn't the coolest sport, but there are obviously people out there who like it else none of us would be here.

hope that made some sense.

[SeanC]

My wife is a PE teacher, she tells me that orienteering is on the national curriculum for secondary but it is optional. Schools can choose to do the "outdoor and adventurous sports" option. Apparently a school doing this option could choose any combination of outdoor sports which may or may not include orienteering.

Re the publicity stuff. I wonder if clubs dont do as much as they could because it's a bit intimidating contacting newspapers? And maybe clubs are put off paying for advertising in case they make an ineffective advert and get accused of wasting money? Has there ever been a course to teach orienteers how to do publicity/advertising? I guess this is where RDO's could really help?

[Harley]

[quote="Safety"]if we can encourage school children to participate
quote]

This has been discussed to death in other threads. I think the consensus of opinion is that (apart from a few special cases) going down the schools route gives clubs an incredibly low rate of return for the effort involved. What does work is to target families direct, as the MADO and other evidence shows.

But as I said earlier, let us not confuse 'raising the profile of the sport' with 'increasing membership'. These two do not necessarily correlate directly, but if we succeed in the former then the latter should follow - if we are smart enough to react to any increased interest with suitable events and lots of encouragement - again look at how 'sticky' MADO has turned out.

[The Loofa]

Can anyone from SLOW advise whether they have any evidence that this interesting initiative has resulted in any new Club members?

SLOW have gained a few members who have done Trail Challenges but not many. Harley called for Extreme Reds which is a pretty good label and what Gnitworp said was spot on. Other factors are
- event centre. Try where poss to base it somewhere with showers and a bar
- prize-giving. Always done and very important. Wine, beer choc, jam.
- Recognised length (10km, half M). Planned so that straight line is 85 % of advertised length, so that people cover roughly right distance.
- Course marshals (who applaud the leaders and assist the stragglers)
We publicise them with local running clubs and on the Runners World web-site with the latter being the most fruitful source. Most race fields have around 65% non-orienteers. Although many local runners come back for more, we have almost negligible take-up of anyone converting to mainstream O. Disappointing but we have to take that as a fact of life and keep plugging away as the number of entries increases steadily each year and runners go away thinking they’ve been orienteering and they’ve enjoyed it.

On the wider thread of whether O should attempt to be all things to all parties, I feel strongly that it should but even more strongly that it shouldn’t attempt this at every event or indeed at any one event.
Clubs should work out who their target market is for the events they put on, whether they are attempting to replicate MADO, stage Trail Challenges or just appeal to the regular orienteer. If we work that bit out, we should see more variety in the fixture list which would be a big bonus in itself. Clubs need to work out what’s best for them given what terrain and maps they’ve got and what local people they might appeal to. SLOW went through this strategy process on 2001 and decided to target local running clubs and 20somethings in London. Hence Trail Challenges. If any other club thinks this through and ends up wanting to stage a “have a go if you’re think you’re hard enough� long-O with goody bags, T shirts for all and a £20+ entry fee, good on them and go for it.

Andy

[AndyO]

I agree with johnloguk about being pro-active with publicity. Having a good contact with your local paper is a great way to get publicity without having to pay for advertising, and they will print if you give them material that's good, snappy, and with local interest - action pictures welcome. The key is having a "press officer" at club level who will put the time into it on a regular basis.

Safety writes about working with schools, and he and others have noted the low return for a lot of work, but I'm pleased that he believes that we should keep encouraging schools. Schools provide a base of potential recruits to the sport through club membership in future, and it's up to clubs to find ways of reaching that market while they have the enthusiasm. That means getting the families involved for transport reasons. Schools can also be helpful in educating kids by increasing awareness of the sport.

To increase participation by a significant amount, a large number of people will have seen orienteering as something that they want to do. What will make them think that way? Higher profile in the media? Coverage on TV? British successes in international competition? Probably all of these together, I believe, but the foundations have to be at club level with links with schools, encouraging and supporting newcomers, and generally appearing professional and competent with our organisation so that competitors have a good experience when they come along, and want to return.

[SeanC]

It seems really obvious to me how combining traditional publicity and advertising could multiply the effect of both. Lets say a club publicity officer does a good job and gets a news article in the local paper. Great - but I would imagine editors are not going to use many column inches describing the boring details of forthcoming events (location, start times, course lengths and difficulties etc), they would be more interested in the story. That's where a carefully placed advert comes in. Someone reading the news story and thinking "that sounds good" then sees the ad with all the necessary details of the forthcoming events and can immediately make the necessary arrangements to go to an event. OK, lets say most orienteering news stories end in something like "for more information about BogMouth Orienteers see http://bogo.org.uk", but this is giving the newcomer a barrier. By the time they are next on the computer they might well have forgotten all about orienteering and the opportunity is lost.

I'm labouring the point a bit here! The bottom line is that last year MADO generated 87 new members*, I'm not aware of any other orienteering initiative bringing in so many new members so quickly so its worth looking very carefully at how the publicity was done. The big problem with advertising is that it cost money, and I suspect many orienteers used to cheap membership and entry fees will need convincing before even modest sums are spent.

BTW, Rob Lines from Southdowns tells me is to star in an orienteering feature on "Brainiac". To be shown on Sky One in March 07.

*I think, according to a previous Mrs. H post.

[tim sleepless]

It's also worth noting that your chances of getting decent local press coverage increase significantly if you are taking out advertising as well

[HOCOLITE]

Tim Sleepless I disagree. I have often submitted articles to the press. You just need a picture and some success and then put your info in about your event. As long as it is short and to the point they tend not to edit it. They want local news about local people cos thats what sells their papers. Very few people buy the papers for what's on or the ads