Football for a fiver

Normally, I’m pleased when I see an advert for West Ham in a London Paper. I’m pleased when we get a bit of press, because we’re an ace team, and it’s good to see that reflected in print. But lately I’ve noticed some absolute clangers coming out of the West Ham United marketing team – and I’m starting to cringe more and more when I read some of the ways they attempt to brand and market the club.

Now, I know it’s easy to make odd calls in marketing. I was once responsible for mixing up photos of super poisonous flowers for violets in a German advertising campaign (you know what Germans are experts on? Poisonous flower identification.) It happens. But the amount of annoying, silly, miscommunicated, and downright bizarre marketing decisions West Ham have made this year leave me scratching my head and wondering what it is about our club we are aiming to communicate.

Firstly we advertised the Manchester City game as an opportunity to “See the Stars of City” (the headline on the advert.) David Gold admitted it was a mistake and we countered with a new ad that highlighted “might see the return of Joe Cole” as the main selling point of a Cat A game. If those were the two best reasons to see a Cat A game at home, it makes me think the marketing team is not actually bringing their creative A game to the table right now.

They’ve also tweeted a great 25% off Adidas.co.uk voucher from the official club twitter. Annoyingly, it was a direct link to pretty much four pages of Chelsea kit, which this idiot scrolled through before realising we are in no way mentioned on or associated with the Adidas website. If you search for West Ham it has no results. Kinda awkward.

But the marketing decision that has really provoked heated discussion was the decision to offer £5 tickets to our Cat A game v Manchester City to charities and vulnerable community organisations.

Wait, hang on Emily, are you trying to say we shouldn’t give cheap tickets to the community? Are you gonna cancel Christmas next?

No. I have absolutely no problem with making football affordable— but I do have a problem with not making it affordable to everyone.

I’m categorically in favour of providing cheap tickets to the community. One of the main reasons I’m looking forward to heading to the OS is that tickets will reportedly become more affordable to fans and allow more people in difficult financial situations to come to the games. It’s my hope that more teenagers will be able to afford support their local club, and that parents will be in a position to bring their children to games other than just on kids for a quid day (which is also a great initiative.) I think that the more opportunities kids have to go to football, the less time they have for getting into trouble.

I’m also very impressed with Charlton Athletic’s Football for a Fiver for their recent game against Barnsley, and Brentford FC’s excellent ‘Pay What You Can’ initiative (tickets cost a minimum of £1, and they give some of the money to charity.)

The problem is that there is big difference between Charlton’s football for a fiver and our football for a fiver—Charlton displayed inclusion and clarity—and we did neither of those things.

It’s great that we were providing opportunities for people less advantaged to be able to attend a Cat A game, but why were we not shouting about this act of generosity from the rooftops, a la Charlton and Brentford? And are we actually giving away tickets in equal measure for cup games? The Capitol One Cup games have had empty seats galore, and I’d have absolutely loved to see them filled with affordable £5 tickets.

Why was there such an incredible discrepancy in ticket prices for this game? Moving just a fiver around makes the range so much more affordable as £10-£47 seems a little more agreeable, no? There is a colossal gap in ticket price between £52 and £5- especially when everyone’s had a chance to buy a ticket for £52, and only a few people had the option to purchase a £5 ticket.

We are a football club that is not based in a wealthy area. I appreciate so much that we don’t pay much for cup runs, that Season ticket holders for 5+ years are still working through a 5% per season discount, but the truth is, it’s very difficult for a lot of our fans to afford to see a game at Upton Park. A family of four attending the City game in Band 4 would have had to cough up £162 (£182 if they are not members.)

I’m all for affordable football, but we need to be transparent about it and not just release a statement after the fact to defend it. We should be proud of our community ties, not back-tracking to justify them. I think it’s wonderful to sell tickets cheaply to those in need, but when the club itself sits in an area where a lot of fans struggle to afford ticket prices, it becomes tough to judge who is in need of a £5 ticket and who isn’t. In equal measures, I feel terrible for the people who bought £5 tickets and then had to see an ensuing back-lash online and think we didn’t want them there on the day.

We just are not selling ourselves well as a football club by the marketing decisions being made lately, and I’m hopeful that the team making these decisions can learn something from their recent blunders. Marketing isn’t just selling; it’s understanding the brand you represent and maintaining loyalty and positive relationships with those associated with the brand. Maybe in future we should set aside a few of those £5 tickets for the West Ham marketing team, so that they learn a bit more about the club they represent.

What do you think? Should we be giving cheaper tickets to those unable to afford full price ones? Are you frustrated with the marketing team’s decision, or more frustrated by the fans’ negative reactions to giving seats to those less well off? Let me know below.