Ashley misses out on the best freebie yet!
Posted on June 6th, 2010 | 129 Comments |
It is of course the concept of communication, or the lack of it. First off, from my perspective of writing articles on here, a lack of communication and information is less than helpful over these quiet summer months, but that really isn’t the most important thing.
The most important thing has to be communicating with the fans. We know Ashley is a recluse, or so it has been said, which makes you wonder why he bought the 4th best supported team in England in the the first place, but look past that and you will see that he is also a successful businessman. I know what people will say to that, but the guy started off with nothing and has made over a billion pounds selling sportswear, which is impressive whichever way you look at it. His escapades at St James’ Park though are yet to match up to his success as a sportswear mogul.
That is the shocking part of things, how can a man that has made that much cash be so poor at communicating with his customers? Realistically, sports goods and football aren’t a million miles apart, it’s all business. By that I mean that the concept is the same, you market something and sell it to willing customers, in the case of football, the fans. The one big difference is that joe public are free to choose which shop they want to buy stuff from, whereas us fans can’t pick and choose our team, we are stuck with it.
That is where Ashley still needs to learn, although it appears he is unwilling to. He needs to realise that, as fans, we are more than just customers, we have more than just money tied to the club. We have an emotional link to Newcastle that can’t be changed, and that is regardless of where we all come from, where we live now, how long we have followed Newcastle for, we all put towards it in one form or another.
The fact that we have such a huge fanbase dictates that we should know what is going on at the club. I’m not talking like the extremes of what it was like under Freddie Shepherd, in fact I am glad I no longer have to see his face in front of the cameras spouting rubbish, but there certainly needs to be a middle ground between what we have now and what we had then.
The thing with a media blackout, is that people will just make their own stories up anyway. It’s a self-defeating philosophy. Yes, I can agree with some parts of it, like keeping potential transfer targets under wraps, but for other parts there is no need. That statement, whilst intentioned for clarity, was worthless as a PR exercise, but will it be worth it come the start of the new season?
Will those people who were debating whether or not to buy their season ticket be sold on what the statement contained, or will they think balls to it, my money is stopping in my pocket? That statement has been one of the biggest talking points of the summer, with the largest part of the debate concerning the “no new capital outlay” malarkey. The fact that there has been so much debate out that one point should indicate that clarity sought after had been missed.
The potential of PR is something that can be of great benefit, and make Ashley’s life much easier with regards to Newcastle. After all, communication is free, isn’t it?
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Over the last ten years we’ve actually been the 3rd best supported club in the country. Man City only just beat us this year.
Although I think our average crowd could well go down next season.