This chap lobbed into the post box yesterday, sent to my son who started playing AFL this year. It’s purportedly from Kieren Jack who plays for the Sydney Swans AFL team, with a little message of encouragement from him to ‘keep up the good work this year’, adding that ‘We hear you’re having a ball playing AFL and meeting new friends which is terrific’.
I like the blend of calculation and incongruity, the fact that on the one hand it is an obvious marketing ploy but, on the other, spookily perceptive. Having a ball playing AFL and meeting new friends? Well, yes, as it happens, that much is true and no doubt whoever wrote it – not Kieren obviously – had some research to back it up. Even so, it could have all gone horribly wrong as a message. In this case though, it hits the spot.
So I like that disjunction between the friendliness of the message and the fact the Kieren doesn’t know us from Adam. Getting the pitch right on these things is critical. They can easily come across as creepily cloying, over-friendly, but this one has just the right touch, doesn’t over-sell but keeps the focus on fun and being positive.
There’s a lot of work that’s gone into this production – the image and layout, the message, the printing, the database – all for one little postcard that is instantly disposable. It shows the extent to which the AFL will go to build bonds between its clubs and juniors, something which has been evident at the games this season too.
It takes effort and money to do this but, then again, it is big business; in 2010, the AFL made an operating profit of $10.6 million on revenues of $367 million.
Nicely printed too.
