Planning a promotional activity for Fenerbahçe S.K. football team
Fenerbahçe Sport Kulübü (also known as Fenerbahçe) is a Turkish sports club based in Istanbul. It includes football, basketball, volleyball, athletics, boxing, rowing, sailing, swimming and table tennis teams. As football is the most widespread game worldwide, the club is mostly associated with its football team, to which this work is devoted (later on ‘Fenerbahçe’ will refer to the football team only).
Established in 1906, Fenerbahçe is one of the most famous and titled football clubs in Turkey, along with Galatasaray S.K. and Beşiktaş JK. Having won the Turkish Championship (Süper Lig) on 18 occasions, Fenerbahçe trail on these terms only to Galatasaray, whose 2012/13 title became the nineteenths in the club history. Beşiktaş is lagging behind with 13 league titles; notably, the trio combines for 50 out of 57 Turkish championships held – only to other teams (Trabzonspor and Bursaspor) managed to win the league.Fenerbahçe had been a consistent participant of UEFA Champions League – the most prestigious European-wide competition – having reached quarterfinals in 2007/08, until 2010/11, when the club was suspended due to ongoing match-fixing investigation. In both 2011/12 and 2012/13 Fenerbahçe failed to reach the group stage having lost in qualification.
It is safe to assume that football in Turkey is triopoly with three Istanbul clubs – Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Galatasaray – sharing most of glory and, accordingly, most of national fan-base among themselves. While it may appear that football (and sports in general) is the market where the customer (fans’) loyalty is almost unlimited, Tapp (214) suggests that fully relying on supporters’ loyalty would be a huge marketing mistake as not every category of supporters has loyalty as a trait. Indeed, even if an individual is a lifetime supporter of a team, his/her willingness to spend on stadium tickets, paid channels to watch the games and merchandised products is likely to diminish if performance of team deteriorates. Denir and Danis (59) find evidence that share prices of three leading Turkish clubs fluctuate in accordance with games outcomes, with domestic competitions surprisingly having bigger impact than European ones.
Feberbahce’s recent struggles are not only football, but also political. Aziz Yildirim is now serving the fifth term as a club’s president, but his position has been shaken by the accusations in match-fixing, which eventually cost the team place in the European Competition. Given how much loved Yildirim is, the fans are likely to be by his side, but, in my opinion, organization of a big pre-season event to emphasize his contribution would help to strengthen his position (Yanarocak, 2).
Usually, pre-season events include the master-class exhibitions from the stars and activities for the supporters – while this should remain, the biggest part of the event would be a presentation of Fenerbahce development under Yildirim, his personal contribution to the success and achievements the club since 1998 – the year when his reign began. The presentation should include the videos with the most memorable moments of glory the club went through, as well as the speeches by the former players. Improvement in financial position of the club and its infrastructure should also be emphasized.
8-hour Members Day is expected to be organized in the following way: 3 hours of open training/players’ master class, 3 hours of activities for the supporters and two-hour presentation devoted to Yildirim and his achievements. The presentation should be concluded by his speech, in which he gives his interpretation to the latest events related to match-fixing, the hard times the club is going through at the moment and how the club is planning to overtake the obstacle. The supporters who participate should get Fenerbahce-related souvenirs and/or discount for piece of club’s merchandised products.
Strengths. The strength of this tactical move is mentioning all the great things Yildirim has done for the club. Any potential ambiguity in the supporters’ minds should be waved off by his immense contribution to the development of the club – the titles the club has won and the improvements in infrastructure.
Weaknesses. The weakness of such an event is that skeptical observers may find such an activity annoying, as there is sense of propaganda in it. The whole event is implicitly organized to glorify the president of the fan club in time of controversy, and some fans may suspect that Yildirim fear to lose support.
Opportunities. The event should strengthen emotional connection between the supporters and the club and provide unlimited support for the current president, which is vastly important. The room for doubts in president’s integrity must disappear, and his well-being must be associated with club’s well-being.
Threats. Should Yildirim give a speech, this speech will be aggressively-defensive – the current position of Yildirim is that Recep Erdogan, the Prime-Minister of Turkey and Fenerbahce supporter, tries to seize the control over the club from him using foul tactics. Claiming it openly before 50,000 crowd would deteriorate the relationship between two further, and the reaction may be severe given that Yildirim is already flirting with a jail sentence.
Works cited:
Demir, Erden, and Danis, Hakan. “The Effect of Performance of Soccer Clubs on Their Stock Prices: Evidence from Turkey.” Emerging markets finance and trade. Sep/Oct 2011: 47, 58-70.
Hill, Brad, and Green, B. Christine. “Repeat Attendance as a Function of Involvement, Loyalty, and the Sportscape Across Three Football Contexts”, Sport Management Revie. 2000: 3, 145-162.
Tapp, Alan. “The loyalty of football fans – We’ll support you evermore?” Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management. April 2004: Vol. 11, Issue 3, 203-215.
Yanarocak, Hay Eytan Cohen. “The Last Stronghold: The Fenerbahçe Sports Club
and Turkish Politics”. Tel-Aviv Notes: An Update on Middle East Developments. May 28, 2012: Vol. 6, Number 10, 1-5.
