Plymouth Argyle FC Case Study

Situation

Plymouth Argyle had already played their opening game of the season when ESM first visited Home Park. Although the commercial team had been successfully selling advertising and sponsorship space throughout the off season, much of the teams focus was aimed towards the newly erected “Argyle Lounge”. The Argyle Lounge was of paramount importance to the clubs prospective annual finances given the potential to seat 280 covers each match day as well as creating the opportunity for external functions throughout the year.

There was initially a huge amount of advertising and sponsorship opportunities that were yet to be fulfilled as well as extensive vacancies on the clubs in house television channel, Argyle TV. Perhaps the biggest challenge that awaited ESM was to occupy the 12 remaining prime television site's before the fast approaching live televised game against Nottingham Forest that was only 3 weeks away.

Approach

ESM began by taking full advantage of the vast catchment area we were blessed with in and around central Plymouth. Our feasibility study revealed as well as Plymouth, surrounding areas that include Liscard and Tavistock housed over 2000 businesses that fell into our top ten categories. These are the genres of business that ESM know to largely benefit from using sporting arenas as marketing vehicles for their company. On this occasion ESM closely worked with companies that were to reap the rewards of the constant regional televised coverage on shows such as West County Goals and Sky Sports.

Execution

The first 3 weeks of this particular project proved pivotal for the overall result being seen as a commercial success. ESM worked quickly and efficiently to fulfil our prediction of occupying all remaining TV sites with businesses that were to benefit from the local, regional and national coverage that comes with a live game on Sky Sports. Over the following weeks ESM went on to excel beyond all original targets. Plymouth Argyle now has dozens of satisfied businesses proudly showing their brands around Home Park for this season and beyond.