The AGL Loy Yang NGFNL launches the BENORTHGIPPY campaign
It shouldn’t be a secret that people are at the heart of community sport and that’s the basis of the AGL Loy Yang North Gippsland Football Netball League’s new marketing campaign for season 2021.
The ‘Be North Gippy’ campaign aims to re-engage community members as players, volunteers, supporters and everything in between by highlighting and celebrating club and league pride and participation.
It also serves as a timely reminder of how much there is to love about grassroots sport in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.
“After 12 months of no football and netball, like most leagues around Victoria… the challenge is getting people back,” NGFNL board member Grant Johnstone said.
“Your good players will come back, your hardcore volunteers are coming back, they’re all coming back naturally anyway. It’s I guess about what I call the bottom half of the twos. It’s the people that have enjoyed or been distracted by other things over 2020. [People] that are pretty valuable to a club, whether they be players or volunteers.”
Johnstone joined the NGFNL board ahead of what would have been the 2020 season and quickly identified the league’s major strength – solidarity.
With an extensive and successful background in marketing and the media industry, Johnstone said Be North Gippy was about creating a brand position for the league and that tapping into and highlighting the league’s most valuable asset was a no-brainer.
“People in the North Gippsland Football Netball League from what I’ve seen are incredibly proud of their club. They’re staunchly loyal to their club but they see the league as being a pretty cool entity and a pretty unified entity and people like being a part of it,” he said.
“We’re not trying to recreate the wheel, all of this already exists. The clubs are already really unified, they are already really keen and inviting when it comes to new people, we just need to tell people about it.”
A series of advertisements have been produced based on interviews with an assortment of members of NGFNL clubs talking openly about why they love their club.
Subjects range from players and coaches to volunteers and supporters, of all ages and backgrounds.
The first ad went to air on Good Friday and features members of the Yarram, Traralgon-Tyers United and Glengarry football netball clubs, including Magpies stalwart Dave Dawson, who jubilantly declared his involvement as “the best thing on earth”.
In addition to the traditional media spots enthusiastically provided and supported by the league’s media partners Prime7 and ACE Radio (TRFM and Gippsland’s Gold), Johnstone has established a brand committee to look at ways to further promote the message through social media and the existing audiences of clubs.
Johnstone estimated that 7000 people were either actively or passively involved with the league and its member clubs, confirming there was no shortage of ambassadors for the league to mobilise.
“It is a pretty simple concept and quite often the best ones are,” he said.
“Be North Gippy is an affirmation. It’s an invitation to Be North Gippy with us. We are, we’re proud of it, we like being a part of it and we reckon you’ll like it too.”
