Going Down?

[MissyQ]

Gordon Ramsey, for all of his swearing, hypocrisies, bad hair and hatred of French Chefs; does have a good approach to bringing news to the masses.

For example, the "Campaign For Real Gravy". This entailed the patrons and staff of a failing restaurant, canvassing and giving out tasters of real gravy and Yorkshire puds, in the local area. Thereby increasing the local demographics interest in their establishment and opening their eyes to "Real Gravy" as opposed to what they THINK, gravy is.

As much as it would seem a farcical suggestion and with a seemingly unrelated example, I think that a few well placed and suitably large, public relations events, could be undertaken. Not by invitation, but where they have no choice but to see...in "The Streets"...Leicester Square, major town centres and so on, nationwide. Hopefully attracting local media attention.

Have a team kitted out in their nice attire, but also people dressed, how their job might suggest they dress...Mortar Board and Gown for Cook$...white coats for the Medical Professionals and Scientists...no soldiers please...you get the drift?

How about an Artic', with the trailer kitted out with some suitable bunkers, netted sides and demo's running in it?

With the right people behind it, I feel sure that they could address the neccessary approach to questions form the public and or media and choose how best to convey the message.

You might also address the whole tea making/frequency issues at the same time.

Or, maybe I just felt like typing some crap for a bit....who knows.

I like the thoughts, but this is kinda what I think the problem is. Having a team dressed in all their gear (IMO) is counter-productive. Leave the shotgun marketing to the field business. Thats where this kind of marketing should work. The 'tournament stuff' requires more targeted marketing, and also I don't feel the 2 should be mixed. A mixed message is often worse than no message. If the fields and the 'recreational experience' are marketed, then you can work on maybe 0.2% of those people who do actually sign-up and play progressing through to play walk-on at some stage. Sounds crap, but that percentage might be high. EG. There were, lets say, 10,000 people playing paintball at fields accross the UK last weekend - will 20 buy guns? Not very likely, but my point is that the more people that are brought into the fields, the more people will progress and stick with the sport. having a bunch of guys in clown suits talking like retarded yanks in the middle of Leicester square would be counter-productive. Having a field market itself there would be great.
In short, I feel that people may do more harm that good if they market the game in the wrong way. A sensible approach would be to have the fields join together, pool resources, and hire a marketing firm to push a generic TV ad for Paintball. They can produce the ad and run it with different phone numbers in different area's. One expense, split between people who have the most to gain from the investment.
Perhaps to qualify to be a member of the group you have to be offering structured walk-on play. This way the people that are brought in through the marketing would definitely be exposed to the next step they could take. That would make sense.

 

[Buddha 3]

Missy has a good point.

Despite what we'd like to think, to the man in the streets, Sup'Air just doesn't seem as tempting as being Rambo for a day.
A site owner in Holland once had a stand at a large trade show for companies that offer teambuilding activities for companies. I helped the guy out.

One of the things on the stand was a rather large plasma screen and during the first day we played some Derder DVD's and the like. Nobody really paid them any heed.
The next day, I hooked up my laptop and played a little film that I had made on his field (it was made for his website), basically showing some rapid pace edited shots of two guys stalking eachother through the bush and some barack type structures.

Just some trees, some huts, two guys, one gets shot... People flocked around it.

Strange but true.

 

[Skeet]

Tell you what we do need. Urban sites.

I remember Top Gun, which was on an old RAF base and Darenth Park, which was an old Mental Hospital...urban paintball is on a par with SupAir...possibly better in fact.

Defo need some of those again, especially given the urban nature of the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, that our boys are dealing with.

 

[Devrij]

A cousin of mine who doesn't even play was looking at the possibility of setting up an indoor urban site in an unused building in London, marketing it as a sort of businessmans' stress reliever. I warned him about the pitfalls of trying to make money in paintball, but do you think he was onto something with a site right in town? I think if people could go into town-centres and play a few games rather than getting up early to drive out to some site in the arse-end of nowhere, it could take off. It'd combine accessibility with exposure. And anyone who's been to the "bunker" site in exeter (?) will tell you close quarters indoor is awesome fun. Thoughts?

 

[Skeet]

A cousin of mine who doesn't even play was looking at the possibility of setting up an indoor urban site in an unused building in London, marketing it as a sort of businessmans' stress reliever. I warned him about the pitfalls of trying to make money in paintball, but do you think he was onto something with a site right in town? I think if people could go into town-centres and play a few games rather than getting up early to drive out to some site in the arse-end of nowhere, it could take off. It'd combine accessibility with exposure. And anyone who's been to the "bunker" site in exeter (?) will tell you close quarters indoor is awesome fun. Thoughts?

I definitely think Urban has potential. It's fast and furious, lends itself to "missions" and the sense of imminent danger in a CQB environment, is much higher than a regular woodsball environment.

When do you feel the biggest, head pounding rush? Sneaking along a wooded boundary or dorito flank, or when your pinned behind a back coke can waiting to be mugged?

 

[Buddha 3]

A cousin of mine who doesn't even play was looking at the possibility of setting up an indoor urban site in an unused building in London, marketing it as a sort of businessmans' stress reliever. I warned him about the pitfalls of trying to make money in paintball, but do you think he was onto something with a site right in town? I think if people could go into town-centres and play a few games rather than getting up early to drive out to some site in the arse-end of nowhere, it could take off. It'd combine accessibility with exposure. And anyone who's been to the "bunker" site in exeter (?) will tell you close quarters indoor is awesome fun. Thoughts?

A well run site is a cash cow.
I'd imagine that one in a the centre of a town, and therefore easily accessible, would be even more succesful.
Imagine the added benefits that a town site has: Running water, regular electricity, heating, even showers and proper dressing rooms sound plausible in that scenario.

 

[Skeet]

A well run site is a cash cow.
I'd imagine that one in a the centre of a town, and therefore easily accessible, would be even more succesful.
Imagine the added benefits that a town site has: Running water, regular electricity, heating, even showers and proper dressing rooms sound plausible in that scenario.

There was a SupAir indoor site near Canary Wharf. Which sounded very prestigious until you got there and it was in some rusty warehouse, behind some other businesses. Was setup nice inside and had nice warm facilities, but it was mainly Sup Air, not really big enough for it and would have been far better as an Urban jobbie. So, said Urban site, in London, could quite easily be awesome...you could hire it out the Met to train coppers in as well.

It doesn't have to be over complicated. If you have ever seen "The Killing House", down at Hereford where 22 SAS train, it isn't complicated, just realistic.

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

I think Missy has hit the nail on the head regarding players natural progression through the sport.
I followed the route described until playing pro. In that time I learnt different skills that allowed me to develop techniques that have served me well over the years.
I've long supported coaching and crowd participation but have seen the damage his has done to young inexperienced players who can't read a game because they rely too much on the voice from the grassy knoll.
As for paintball being too expensive I disagree. It is cheaper now than it has ever been. The problem is that players expect too much from manufacturers without giving anything in return.
If you want innovation it costs.

For me the thing missing that will take it to the next level has to be in the paintball, specifically a ball that spectators can see from the sidelines. Until then you will only get spectators that have a tie to the players as all you can see from the back is a group of people pointing a gun at each other and waggling their fingers. If you take yourself out of the player loop its a weird thing to sit and watch all day.

Bring on 'Glow Ball ' (TM Pat Pending)

JJ

 

[Raffles]

Change the bloody name! I know I keep saying it - but I still think it's the only way to spark any 'joe public' interest. I do like the 'glow ball' idea .

Oh - and as for the original question - the US of A is the major of income provider of the paintball industry (have a look at Ledz's reply to my question on this) and without it the UK companies like Eclipse would cease to exist. If they lose USA income - 'we' will suffer the backlash.

So, if America catches a cold - we get pneumonia!

 

[Robbo]

Oh - and as for the original question - the US of A is the major of income provider of the paintball industry (have a look at Ledz's reply to my question on this) and without it the UK companies like Eclipse would cease to exist. If they lose USA income - 'we' will suffer the backlash.

So, if America catches a cold - we get pneumonia!

I tell ya what always amazed me Raff, the idiots who used to bleat about PGi .....

'oh why can't you put more of us (Brits) in it, we can't see ourselves playing in the Glossop five man, you're not patriotic at PGi, all you care about are the Yanks', blah, blah, blah ....

We got sick to the death of those morons in the end but we also realised a lot of them were just using that as an excuse for something to moan at.

What made it even more absurd was when we actually explained the economics of running a magazine, a magazine in fact, that was part of a 25 publication stable, all of which had target revenues to remain alive, then when the figures didn't stack up and it was obvious even to a 5 year old, you couldn't continue without focusing on the US and A, then they shut the fcuk up, well most did anyway, it kinda left the real stoooopid ones to watch Big Brother alongsde their wife, Waynetta .......... and support Arsenal