Sports Marketing Summit: ‘We’re in the culture and community era’: Parramatta Eels GM delivers masterclass in brand development

September 20, 2024 9:54

Taking to the Mumbrella Sports Marketing Summit stage on Thursday afternoon, Kate Chapman – the Parramatta Eels’ general manager for brand, social impact and fan development – unveiled the branding strategy and ethos that helped the Eels secure an iron-clad bond with its fans.

According to Chapman, the Eels sought to create a brand that deeply resonated with Western Sydney (the club’s home turf), while setting itself apart from competitors and attracting “like-minded partners, athletes, fans [and] collaborators”.

The club looked to the evolution of its home territory – Parramatta – to see how it could modernise itself while staying true to its roots.

“We thought about, what was Western Sydney like in 1980 and how did that reflect us as a brand versus what does Western Sydney look like today?” Chapman explained.

“And over 40 years there’s been enormous change. In what Western Sydney is today, we have a Western Sydney, but at the heart of it’s Parramatta, it’s thriving.

“It’s a creative and arts and culture hub. It’s full of innovation and technology. It’s not just where you live anymore, it’s where you live and you work and you play… it’s a place that you’re proud to be from.

Chapman continued: “People are really proud of where they’ve come from. And Western Sydney is really critical to that. It’s a city, it’s urban, it’s thriving, it’s exciting. It’s all of these things.”

“So, we really needed to pull ourselves out of the 1980s and plant ourselves into the Western Sydney of today. And that was really critical to us changing how people perceive the Parramatta Eels brand and connecting with that community going forward.”

Kate Chapman

The self-analysis resulted in the club’s positioning statement – the Rising West.

“The Rising West being about the ambition for growth, the ambition to succeed, the ambition and ability to do whatever it is you want to do,” she explained.

Chapman delved deeper into the Eels’ purpose as an institution. While the club’s competitive edge and desire to win certainly plays a role in its nature, Chapman said there is far more to the blue and gold-bedecked team than simply winning.

“… Our vision for our club and what we can do outside of just winning games is much more important than that,” she clarified, before naming three actions that collectively serve as the Eels’ purpose: “uplift[ing] lives, creat[ing] unforgettable moments and bring[ing] communities together.”

By prioritising the fans in all aspects of its branding, the club saw its fan base and business grow.

“… By focusing on the causes we care about, the cultures of our community and our players, and how we connect with each other, our participants, our fan base, this was very easy for us to start seeing that when we started ticking all these boxes, we were driving fan growth,” revealed Chapman.

“We were starting to drive participation growth [and] our brand has started to go up.

“We’re also giving back to the community through our social impact. And all these things, while they feel warm and fuzzy, are actually driving commercial outcomes for us. Because the more fans we have, the more money that we’re able to make through ticket sales, merchandise, sponsorship, all of these areas.”

Ultimately, thanks to its work in developing a deeply personable brand, the Eels effectively entered what Chapman called “the culture and community era” – a period where the brand wants to be more than just a rugby league club, but a source of societal change. The Eels conducted more research into its fans (staff, players and the community of Western Sydney) and settled on three primary pillars to focus its efforts – mental health, respect and active children.

The Eels tackles each pillar in different ways. To get kids moving, the club works to remove barriers (such as through its active kids program), making the game more accessible to all types of people.

Chapman on stage

“… Barriers can look like a whole lot of things. It could be economic, it can be cultural, it can be geographic, it could be time pressures, it could be just perception barriers, So starting to break all of those downs. Okay, if our role is to take away those barriers so more kids can play, we need to work on doing that,” Chapman said.

“And our non negotiable, what we’re saying, is everyone is welcome to our game. But we know it’s not actually good enough just to say everyone can come and play our game. We have to make it possible for people to play our game. So removing the barriers is actually the biggest priority we can do to get kids to play in our area.”

Supporting peoples’ mental health has resulted in the club developing a network of credible health professionals, documentary appearances from players (chiefly Sean Lane), soon-to-be-released t-shirts to raise money for “mental health first aid training”, and an R U OK? touch football cup.

Regarding the club’s approach to promoting respect, Chapman said the Eels advocates “respect [for] all”, whether it be related to culture, gender, behaviour, etc.

“We’re doing a lot in the respect space as well. In schools, [we’re] working on the respect.. programming…we did a trip up to East Arnhem Land.. where we really learned a lot about Aboriginal culture and, and talked to them about respect and how we can respect each other’s cultures and learn stories.

“We held a Rising Women of West Sydney Forum recently and had the amazing Dr. Hannah Tonkin talk to us about… domestic and family violence. So we’re opening up conversations that are very tricky, but, you know, it’s really important for us to be involved in this.

“And as a big… contributor to the community, we have an amazing opportunity to kind of tell these stories and make change.”