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Open letter to ARU about NRC's lack of marketing and promotion

Roar Rookie
2nd September, 2014
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Roar Rookie
2nd September, 2014
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This is the edited text of a message I submitted on the ARU website via their contact us section regarding the lack of marketing for the National Rugby Championship.

I encourage others to send their feedback to the ARU, and welcome ideas and feedback from any readers on The Roar as to how we can improve the coverage of this great new competition.

Dear Bill Pulver and ARU,

I’m a keen rugby supporter and advocate of your new NRC competition – I think it’s a great innovation. So well done. But the lack of promotion and marketing around it is astounding.

On Sunday I had to follow Twitter feeds to find out how the matches – Brisbane City versus Perth Spirit and Melbourne Rising versus Sydney Stars – were going. Where are the live streams on the ARU website or via YouTube? You didn’t even have the Twitter feeds on your website.

Even going to the ARU website’s news section on NRC has the latest updates being about the Rugby Sevens coach liking the idea of the NRC and about an insurance company sponsorship.

Is that the best you can do? On the NRC homepage there are photos with headlines of the matches, but when you go to the NRC news page itself there is nothing about these games. I feel like this competition is being run in spite of the ARU, rather than by them.

The media coverage is woeful as well, shouldn’t your marketing and PR people be promoting this game to the media and the general public? I receive emails from the ARU promoting merchandise for the Wallabies but nothing promoting the games. Why is that? I received one email saying the competition was starting, but nothing more since then.

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We own a family membership to our Super Rugby side, and have two children playing junior rugby, you should get the picture that we might be keen supporters. Yet we get nothing about the NRC games coming up. Is it so hard to send emails to your mailing list letting them know what games are on this weekend and where they are? Maybe add some links to the teams and information on some of the key players.

How often would someone in Perth get the chance to see James Horwill up close and personal like they did on the weekend? Wouldn’t it have made sense to email all of your West Australian contacts to encourage them to come along?

Yes, I realise that Rugby Western Australia could and should have done that, and I don’t know whether they did or not (I’m in Queensland), but given the number of Force players on the field, the small crowd present would suggest that they didn’t.

Since it is ARU’s competition, wouldn’t it make sense to use your resources to promote these matches? Are you encouraging your state unions and their clubs who feed into these teams to get involved in promoting the games and having activities to engage the spectators? They’re your branch offices so asking them what they have planned to promote the branch isn’t that much to expect.

Get the families along and you encourage the kids to become rugby players. What about promoting your new non-contact Rugby Sevens at these matches? Get junior players participating in games before the match and at halftime – that’s community engagement and we need more of it. But I’m not seeing any of it from ARU, just a focus on the Wallabies. I understand that they’re your cash cow, but Australian rugby desperately needs to build stronger foundations, hence why the NRC was developed.

Please take a look at what you’re doing with the NRC and put some effort into raising its profile. It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money – we’ve all heard about the financial situation – but you have staff who could send the emails out and update the website. Shock horror, a sports organisation updating their website over a weekend when their key matches are being performed.

Don’t you think it makes sense? If you don’t have the staff with the motivation to do this then contract someone who is, who can see the point in letting fellow rugby fans know about the games and really help to build those foundations.

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I don’t wish to be negative but there are some great matches being played in the new NRC and some good talent being given the opportunity to shine, but if not enough people get the chance to see and hear about it then it will be a wasted opportunity.

That’s the message that I sent the ARU, now what about the clubs themselves?

To all NRC clubs: what are you doing to promote your games? What’s being done to engage the supporters when they’re there? Are you doing anything to draw in the casual rugby supporter or completely new supporters? What more could be done to help you reach these people? Have your state unions allowed utilisation of their database of supporters in your area to promote the games?

What ideas do readers on The Roar have about improving the promotion of the NRC and getting better coverage? I really like this competition but don’t want to see it shelved like last time because of a lack of interest from the public.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The ARU are currently marketing the NRC through advertising on The Roar. The Roar is also investing heavily in coverage of the tournament, with both experts and Roarers engaged to provide the most up-to-date news and game updates.

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