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Sports Marketing Summit: Parramatta Eels’ brand GM Kate Chapman – ‘Never present a new idea in the boardroom’
Mumbrella's Sports Marketing Summit returns to Sydney this month. Kate Chapman, general manager of brand, social impact and fan development at the Parramatta Eels, explores the club's innovative strategy to engage fans in Western Sydney's diverse community.
In today’s fragmented media landscape, there’s never been a more timely Mumbrella Sports Marketing Summit than the 2024 edition, taking place September 21 at Australian Turf Club, Sydney
Kate Chapman is presenting “Raising The Game: A Purpose Led Approach to Winning Fans”, which examines the Parramatta Eels’ innovative strategy to engage fans in Western Sydney’s diverse community. In her session, she’ll explore the club’s culture and identity, forming the foundation of their impactful social strategy.
We sat down with her to chat all about it.
Marketing is at the heart of what you do. What are the key brand and marketing principles that you follow in your role?
Our whole strategy is centred around how we connect with existing and potential target audiences (fans). Our product, as a professional sporting club is incredibly unique and dynamic with many factors playing a part in how we are perceived, but we’re always coming back to the same thing all brands are trying to achieve. What makes our brand unique, how can we align with what’s important socially, and what space we can genuinely own. That’s how we develop our brand story, then it’s about how that story comes to life in the biggest and smallest of ways, like game-day where we can have 30,000 experiencing our ‘brand’ in the heart of Parramatta, or at a local level, in a school for example, where there might be 20 students.
Whether it’s at one of these one-to-one event moments, a marketing campaign, or a social media post, we see it as an opportunity for an existing or new fan to experience what makes us different from our competitors and bring them into the Parramatta Eels community.
What lessons from Sports Marketing do you think are applicable to brands outside sports?
I’ve been lucky to work both within and outside of sports marketing during my career, one thing I have learned, especially over the past few years, is how important it is to stay true to your brand proposition while also keeping an eye on what’s happening socially. In the professional club (NRL) landscape, we’re navigating team performance (wins and losses) literally week to week, which means we are regularly evolving the tone of our message based on fan sentiment. That’s just one example, then there are all the things that are happening in Western Sydney that’s important to our community, like cultural inclusion, cost of living, mental health, and other social issues.
“Reading the room” is critical to how we show up tonally, but we’re also acutely aware that we’re playing the long game, so coming back to the heart of what our club stands for will ensure we set ourselves apart from our competitors and not fall into the trap of trying to replicate what others are doing as an easy win. What works for others, won’t always work for us.
When you are dealing with internal stakeholders and aligning the business to your campaigns, what works best for you?
For me, there are two or three key steps that are crucial to getting alignment from stakeholders. It might sound simple, but the first is making sure everyone is aligned on ‘the brief’. Where things go wrong, is when we aren’t clear on the challenge we are trying to solve, and the objective or goal we are trying to reach. So that’s the first thing to get agreement on. Then it’s being really clear on roles and responsibilities. In an incredibly fast-paced environment that at times is working week-to-week, particularly in season, it’s knowing who is doing what (accountability is one of our Club values). Finally, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve received is to never present a new idea in the boardroom. Getting feedback one-to-one in the hallways, the café or the rec room over lunch before it appears in a presentation deck allows the opportunity for key stakeholders to feed in and gives you the chance to refine before the idea is presented. Our playing group and our fans are also critical stakeholders so engaging them as part of the journey where possible is also key.
How are you using technology and data analytics shaping the future of sports marketing?
As a self-described data geek, we’re using data and insights almost daily to inform our marketing decisions. We’re looking at national representation data of our fans and communities along with bespoke surveys amongst own databases and direct fan feedback (through social media and fan forums) as well as global trends, to inform what we’re saying, how we show-up, and what we’re selling (our retail products). The use of data and insights is really important in ensuring we’re creating a club and content that resonates with our target audiences, existing and new fans. This also enables us to track the make-up of our fan base and ensure this reflects the community in our catchment area. If we’re seeing that we’re losing share of fans in our territory, or our demographic make-up isn’t aligning with the geographic representation, we know we need to make change in how we do things. We’re also looking at how AI can help improve our brand tracking and inform our decision making in this area. There are so many incredible platforms and tools now that enables efficiency across multiple departments.
What advice would you give to brands looking to leverage sports partnerships for maximum engagement?
I think it’s really obvious when a brand doesn’t ‘get’ the club or code they are partnering with. My advice would be to spend time working with clubs / codes and let them teach you about their fans, their brand and what makes them culturally unique. It comes back to the same general marketing principals about understanding the audience, what’s culturally relevant to that group, and sentiment. Clubs and Codes know their fans inside and out, so if you want a campaign to do well, I’d be starting there first.
How do you measure success in a sports marketing campaign?
At any given time, we’ve got multiple campaigns and content in market at once, we might be driving ticket sales for the next game, launching a new jersey, selling Membership or reinforcing our brand story through social content. There are obviously specific KPI’s for each campaign, but what’s just as important is that each work together to elevate the brand and drive positive fan sentiment. In club-land, you can have literally hundreds of thousands of fans telling you what they think (good or bad) within minutes of a campaign going live, so we know pretty quickly what success looks like based on fan commentary and direct feedback.
What role do social issues and inclusivity play in modern sports marketing, and how can brands do it well?
This is huge for us, and a key point of different at the Eels. We have worked hard to identify the social causes that are important to our fans, our area, our staff and our playing group. Our Social Impact strategy is a key component of our brand proposition, and how we actualise our purpose and values. How we uplift lives off the field plays a pivotal role in fan development. We see this is as a critical enabler for fan development through being able to engage with communities that may not connect with Rugby League for one reason or another. Inclusivity is also a top priority, particularly within our Active Kids pillar. It’s one thing to say everyone is welcome to play, but more importantly, is our role in creating environments and variations of the game that enables everyone to Play. At the forefront of our mind is how we can remove participation barriers be it economic, geographic, lack of time, cultural, ability, general perception, or something else.
Don’t give the game away, but what do you hope attendees of Mumbrella Sports Marketing Summit 2024 take from your presentation?
I hope attendees leave with a deeper understanding of how a purpose-led brand approach can transform fan engagement and development. By aligning our brand with important social values and creating meaningful connections, we can build a loyal and diverse fan base. I aim to inspire attendees to consider how their own brands can authentically connect with their audiences, not just through the excitement of the game, but through shared values and community impact.
Mumbrella’s Sports Marketing Summit takes place September 19 at Australian Turf Club, Sydney
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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