COLLETT CONTROVERSIAL
to very cheaply try to reduce their advertising budgets. As a shop owner, I used to see a kid pop in every week. He would spend a fortune on a regular basis, buying all the latest must-have bits and bobs. And yes, I would have that warm fuzzy feeling in my heart as the till rang into three digits every time he graced us with his presence. After spreading himself about it and showing off his magnifi cent captures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever, a fairly small brand decided he was ‘the one’ to cheaply advertise their product. And here lies the fi rst rub; the fairly small company have just cancelled out any advertising – they now have their ‘sponsored angler’. The fi rst losses go to the magazines, the newsagents and the advertising salesman. At best they feel the pinch. At worst… well, you know.
That young man who used to regularly empty my shelves of stock and cross my palm with much silver, doesn’t come in to my shop anymore.
Next it affects me, the dealer. That young man who used to regularly empty my shelves of stock and cross my palm with much silver, doesn’t come in to my shop anymore. And why would he? He gets his stuff for free. So I have to make a redundancy; that second victim is the Saturday boy, or a part-timer.
The Vicious Circle You could be forgiven for thinking that this young guy is driving sales. After all, that’s what the brand manager believes. But here’s that rub again… he was actually driving them away. He was sorting deals out for his mates, creating jealousy amongst other anglers that hated the fact that this young upstart was getting his gear for free, and the brand suffered. True story. So as a dealer, this cheap advertising set about by the brand, has caused me to suffer. I’m sure my customer will be back. But those £100 Friday spending sprees won’t be recovered. And after he has left that brand, he will do his best to slag it off to anyone that will listen, leaving me with stuff on the shelves. It’s a vicious circle, and in some ways, a very sinister route to market. They’re bypassing me, the retailer – the one person they want to stock their gear!
www.tandgmagazine.com The Amnesty
I think this needs to stop now and the whole system needs re-setting. Let’s, as a trade, have an amnesty and rid ourselves of parasitic cheap social-media whores. After all, it’s not cheap advertising if it’s detrimental to business, is it? Here’s an alternative: instead of using hundreds of mediocre anglers, focus on using very good professionals; those that have gravitas behind them. Look at some of the major tackle brands, they do it well – they don’t have hoards of ‘sponsored’ anglers. They have a few very good and highly respected ones.
Do The Maths At a rough count, and it was rough, as I do have a life, there were over 500 ‘sponsored’, or say they are sponsored anglers, on Facebook. And they’re just the ones I saw. There will be many more, but these were the ones I noticed by their awful pushy “golf sale” style posts.
If each of those 500 had even a grands worth of stock, free of charge, to ‘promote a brand’, that’s nearly half a million pounds worth of business you and I have lost. And let’s not forget, that’s close on a £1,000,000 at full RRP. Is this just me being bitter? No it’s business. I couldn’t really care a toss
how many prima donna so called friends I may lose after outing them as cheap sandwich board wearing whores. I want people to come in my shop and spend money.
Let’s take a stand, before it’s too late.
Does sponsorship affect your business? We’d love to hear your views on this controversial subject, whether you agree or disagree. Drop us a line at:
nickmarlow72@gmail.com June 2017 | Tackle & Guns | 37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60