Orsini comments on marketing

skyscraper · Post by **skyscraper** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:36 pm

From another thread, but it deserves it's own thread, IMO:

redandtheblue wrote:I asked Orsini about this tonight. He said they let the whole marketing staff go due to cut backs related to the economy and budget cuts. He said with the new Big East money coming in, they plan on investing a lot of it on marketing.

Pretty much what had been mentioned earlier, but more relevant in light of today's events. BE $$ cannot get here quick enough.

DanFreibergerForHeisman · Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:49 pm

I will believe it when I see it.

redandtheblue · Post by **redandtheblue** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:54 pm

I framed the question this way just for background:

"There are roughly 6500 undergrads and 12000 total students at SMU. Even if 75% of students showed up for every game, you would still be 23000 people short of filling the stadium. How do plan on engaging the community and do you plan on spending more dollars on marketing once the Big East money starts coming in?"

Aside from what I mentioned earlier, Steve talked about all the things SMU has going for it when marketing the school and athletic department and then recognized we need to spend a lot more time and money doing so once the budget is there for it.

2ndandlong · Post by **2ndandlong** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:58 pm

skyscraper wrote:From another thread, but it deserves it's own thread, IMO:

redandtheblue wrote:I asked Orsini about this tonight. He said they let the whole marketing staff go due to cut backs related to the economy and budget cuts. He said with the new Big East money coming in, they plan on investing a lot of it on marketing.

Pretty much what had been mentioned earlier, but more relevant in light of today's events. BE $$ cannot get here quick enough.

I've independently had these discussions with SO. He means it.

PonyKris89 · Post by **PonyKris89** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:31 pm

skyscraper wrote:From another thread, but it deserves it's own thread, IMO:

redandtheblue wrote:I asked Orsini about this tonight. He said they let the whole marketing staff go due to cut backs related to the economy and budget cuts. He said with the new Big East money coming in, they plan on investing a lot of it on marketing.

Pretty much what had been mentioned earlier, but more relevant in light of today's events. BE $$ cannot get here quick enough.

And the BE $$ will not come quick enough to keep Jones here... Wish we had our next coach hired already.

westexSMU · Post by **westexSMU** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:01 am

I'm glad to here SO say this, as I still think SMU is such a great bargain in the Dallas Sports Market. It is cheap for a family to buy Football tickets and bring the kids. With all the people moving to the Dallas area, now is the time to approach these new residents, as you have a lot of football fans that can't afford Cowboy tickets etc.

Comet · Post by **Comet** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:06 am

I have a ton of faith in SO. I know that he's aware of this issue, and I feel confident that Big East money will go to branding SMU.

MustangSTATS · Post by **MustangSTATS** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:12 am

SMU is moving in the right direction with or without June

Get_Some_Ponies · Post by **Get_Some_Ponies** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:30 am

What keeps our coaches from doing some public affairs work outside of the tv show?

Really can't ask June to swing by clapter meetings on Mondays and ask for some support?

RE Tycoon · Post by **RE Tycoon** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:48 am

2ndandlong wrote:
skyscraper wrote:From another thread, but it deserves it's own thread, IMO:

redandtheblue wrote:I asked Orsini about this tonight. He said they let the whole marketing staff go due to cut backs related to the economy and budget cuts. He said with the new Big East money coming in, they plan on investing a lot of it on marketing.

Pretty much what had been mentioned earlier, but more relevant in light of today's events. BE $$ cannot get here quick enough.

I've independently had these discussions with SO. He means it.

Can you expand on these discussions? Does he have a plan? Is he aware how pathetic our athletic department is? How bad our Gameday presentation is?

2ndandlong · Post by **2ndandlong** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:10 am

RE Tycoon wrote:
2ndandlong wrote:
skyscraper wrote:From another thread, but it deserves it's own thread, IMO:

[quote="redandtheblue"]I asked Orsini about this tonight. He said they let the whole marketing staff go due to cut backs related to the economy and budget cuts. He said with the new Big East money coming in, they plan on investing a lot of it on marketing.

Pretty much what had been mentioned earlier, but more relevant in light of today's events. BE $$ cannot get here quick enough.

I've independently had these discussions with SO. He means it.

Can you expand on these discussions? Does he have a plan? Is he aware how pathetic our athletic department is? How bad our Gameday presentation is?[/quote]
I have several times on here. He knows. The first plan is get out of an operating deficit. RGT and the rest of academia are out of patience with throwing millions at our athletics department.
Most of the marketing right now is Pseudo- grass roots. SMU2BCS is an example. That was low cost, and I would call that EXTREMELY effective today.
What next? I don't think he's mapped that out since he has been focused on SMU2BCS. I'm fine with that. I don't think we will see a big spend until our second year in Big East. From my budget experience, you don't get to spend all of your surplus in the first year it's earned. We will ease into the big spend.
He may have plans on this but I haven't heard them. I just hope he engages a third party to run it.

RSFan · Post by **RSFan** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:14 am

You have enough empty seats to give every Dallas/Ft. Wort High School boy and girl a season ticket. Or allocate their High School athletic department's, boys and girls, a few hundred tickets on a type of condition that makes arrangements to bus em to the games.

Imagine the return on investment.........

Mestengo · Post by **Mestengo** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:18 am

RSFan · Post by **RSFan** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:54 am

Mestengo wrote:Joke

Must I expand.... Imagine if you have 5,000 to 10,000 high school boys and girls at the home games buying jerseys or winning a few... Can you imagine how much noise they can make and it is your job Mestengo to see it is channeled in the right direction.... Students learning to feel comfortable, accepted and liked by SMU Students and Alumni ... Changing the SMU image from exclusive to inclusive....

SMU can't have it both ways... Empty or Full.... It's your choice...

2ndandlong · Post by **2ndandlong** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:07 am

You can't give tickets to High School students easily. I learned this when working on Sellout Stampede. The big problem is you are effectively "giving" something to recruit eligible students. Each of these "gifts" would require extensive paperwork be filed with the NCAA. You're talking about 10's of 1,000's of pieces of paperwork just to give away tickets. It's not effective.

You may recall the UTEP game where we actually met our sellout stampede goals, there were an abundance of middle school and younger kids running around in the section behind the UTEP fans. It is a lot easier to place tickets with this group.

Another problem, unless we're giving away donated tickets like we do with sellout stampede, none of those tickets count towards official attendance. You must charge $10 for a ticket in order for it to count towards official attendance. With that said, I agree the main attendance problem is butts in seats; however, NCAA attendance statistics are similarly important for several reasons.

Please give to operation sellout in 2012. We need to continue grass roots efforts like this campaign for several more years. Even once the marketing spend returns, I anticipate an effective marketing campaign for a product like this takes several months if not a couple years to be fully implemented.