Rangers "off the park"

ZanderK81

Well-Known Member
Official Ticketer
The last few weeks have been both frustrating and disappointing on the park.
Sadly lacking in leadership and heart. Unfortunately as far I'm concerned this is where we are on the field a well.
Anyone who knows me will know the respect i have for Dave King, Douglas Park etc..but the question I have for them is if any one of their businesses was being devalued, destroyed or made toxic by partizan forces. What would your response be?
What I'm saying is why have not employed an elite group of executive and PR groups to defend our club?
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.

You want the gig mate?
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.
6Qb8eTo.gif
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.
Good luck at the interview, I sincerely hope you get the job!
 
Sadly I’m a bit too old and too tired these days to go into a Cauldron like Ibrox.
But protecting a brand is not rocket science, Especially one as strong as ours.
 
The last few weeks have been both frustrating and disappointing on the park.
Sadly lacking in leadership and heart. Unfortunately as far I'm concerned this is where we are on the field a well.
Anyone who knows me will know the respect i have for Dave King, Douglas Park etc..but the question I have for them is if any one of their businesses was being devalued, destroyed or made toxic by partizan forces. What would your response be?
What I'm saying is why have not employed an elite group of executive and PR groups to defend our club?
We are being belgraded then?
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.

I’m in the same game and can wholeheartedly agree with this. Don’t worry though mate, I’m too old and tired to throw another hat in there too :)

What I would say though is the entire comms function is still clearly focused on being reactive and the tone and tactics are clearly set at boardroom level - old businessmen with healthy egos and probably a lack of imagination as to how you fuse Ranger’s traditional low key dignity with a modern proactive confident comms and marketing strategy.

Traynor is an ex sports hack - ex hacks rarely make the best comms men (speaking as one I can attest to the readjustment needed) but sports hacks were never particularly good hacks in the first place! I’m sure Traynor has his uses; but a sophisticated plan is required driven by a heavy hitting comms guy, in house.

Having Gerard at the club is an absolute gift that, at the minute, we’ve failed to exploit.
 
Our profile has never been this high for years.We have an A list young manager trying to make his way in the game and a young international striker.This should be a goldmine if handled correctly.
 
Zander have you thought of writing to King & co. as your thread is one of the best I have read on here. Especially in tone, content, grammar Christ even spelling so you obviously
 
I’m in the same game and can wholeheartedly agree with this. Don’t worry though mate, I’m too old and tired to throw another hat in there too :)

What I would say though is the entire comms function is still clearly focused on being reactive and the tone and tactics are clearly set at boardroom level - old businessmen with healthy egos and probably a lack of imagination as to how you fuse Ranger’s traditional low key dignity with a modern proactive confident comms and marketing strategy.

Traynor is an ex sports hack - ex hacks rarely make the best comms men (speaking as one I can attest to the readjustment needed) but sports hacks were never particularly good hacks in the first place! I’m sure Traynor has his uses; but a sophisticated plan is required driven by a heavy hitting comms guy, in house.

Having Gerard at the club is an absolute gift that, at the minute, we’ve failed to exploit.

You certainly sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Similar backgrounds as I started as a hack and found the transition a challenging exercise. Sports hacks are particularly bad.
But you are right that the board
room sets the tone and we effectively have older white middle-class executives running the show who are not going to have the imagination or risk taking requirements that will help shape a different type of future.
 
Who knows what he is talking about.
Sorry this is split into 3 as keep accidentally hitting the POST button
Fat Fingers On A Phone Loyal.
 
For me, there's a split in our Club's PR.

When the big smears come out, or a series if little niggling pieces of sh*te to try and demeand and degrade our reputations, the Club looks completely feckless.
There is no doubt that they either are incompetent at that level, or for some reason don't want to protect the Club and players.
Hopefully, it's incompetence.


However .... there's the other side to our Club's PR.
The "micro" side, where the Club engages with individual fans.

One of my brothers-in-law passed away just over a month ago: a genuine true blue Rangers man (far more so than I could ever be).
His son wrote to the Club telling them that he had died, but expressing how much pleasure Rangers had given to him in his life, the love of the club having been passed on down the family to his kids and grandkids.
Out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, a letter from the Club arrived at the house of my sister (no pics), signed by the Club Captain (Tav), saying how much they regretted her man's passing, and otherwise supporting her in her grief.


What an amazing thing for the Club to do, and completely unexpected by all of us !

THIS is the sort of attention to detail, and care and consideration, and all-round professionalism that we all want to see in our wider dealings with the world.

btw, I'd just like to state my own thanks to the Club (and James Tavernier) for the letter of support my sis received. Really appreciated by all of us.
 
The last few weeks have been both frustrating and disappointing on the park.
Sadly lacking in leadership and heart. Unfortunately as far I'm concerned this is where we are on the field a well.
Anyone who knows me will know the respect i have for Dave King, Douglas Park etc..but the question I have for them is if any one of their businesses was being devalued, destroyed or made toxic by partizan forces. What would your response be?
What I'm saying is why have not employed an elite group of executive and PR groups to defend our club?

Very good question!
 
Sometimes the off the park crap and lack of progress answering and countering it can be more soul destroying than the on the park performances.
 
You certainly sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Similar backgrounds as I started as a hack and found the transition a challenging exercise. Sports hacks are particularly bad.
But you are right that the board
room sets the tone and we effectively have older white middle-class executives running the show who are not going to have the imagination or risk taking requirements that will help shape a different type of future.
Can you two not both go for it and split working days? ;)
 
I think the problem revolves around the disconnect between responsibility and authority.

The board of the company which operates the club consists of Stewart Robertson, Andrew Dickson and James Blair. However how many people think they are making big decisions without being told what to do by the board of the PLC. I realise James Blair sits on both but he does that as Company Secretary.

With the best will in the World how much of their time do people think the board of the PLC spend on working for Rangers, rather than their other business interests. They have a board in place for the day to day running of the club.

The issues we are talking about are not "day to day" so in my opinion are not being dealt with properly.
 
Definitely seems as though the club’s heirarchy are placing too much reliance on BT/Sky etc to keep the interest going regarding one of the greatest players of a whole generation being our manager. Fair enough we’ve not had the level of immediate success we’d all have liked, but the project remains a verg unique one and it’ll be criminal if the footballing world takes no notice of it.
 
As a professional in the media/corporate relations profession for 30 years I have to say that generally Rangers are very poor at brand protection.
My understanding is they do not even employ what is termed a cuttings agency which reports on a daily basis of any mention of your brand or associated names as a normal business practice.
Certainly I am not aware domestically of any international campaigns that have been coordinated on a regular basis in order to promote the brands and different nations and continents.
The opportunity with Steven Gerrard at the helm has probably never been better in recent times.
But I don’t feel there is any overall strategy in place that gives me confidence that all the club’s brand management/promotion/protection/public relations professionals really have a clue what their objectives are when it comes to the key elements of protecting the brand as well as promoting it.
It’s an easy brand to market...

Meet the worlds most successful football club. Rangers FC.
If you thought it was Barcelona. Real Madrid Manchester United or AC Milan you were wrong.

That message should be known all over the world. Not a difficult gig to professional marketers.
But hey we still have Jim Traynob pulling no punches with the irrelevant Scottish mainstream paparazzi who wouldn’t print the truth if it was a life or death matter.

Agree with everything you say, but as a layman and thinking back to when SG signed are we maybe a bit tied in exploiting his image?!? Sure I remember various issues about image rights holding up the process.
On other matters, we really do need to be more pro active, the working in the background to build bridges and gather files isn't producing fruit yet and it's way past harvesting
 
I’m in the same game and can wholeheartedly agree with this. Don’t worry though mate, I’m too old and tired to throw another hat in there too :)

What I would say though is the entire comms function is still clearly focused on being reactive and the tone and tactics are clearly set at boardroom level - old businessmen with healthy egos and probably a lack of imagination as to how you fuse Ranger’s traditional low key dignity with a modern proactive confident comms and marketing strategy.

Traynor is an ex sports hack - ex hacks rarely make the best comms men (speaking as one I can attest to the readjustment needed) but sports hacks were never particularly good hacks in the first place! I’m sure Traynor has his uses; but a sophisticated plan is required driven by a heavy hitting comms guy, in house.

Having Gerard at the club is an absolute gift that, at the minute, we’ve failed to exploit.

Traynor gets a load of stick on here - some of it deserved, some of it for simply doing the Board's bidding. There's no doubt he is still acting in some sort of capacity for us. However, I'm sure I recall reading that his former partner at Level 5 had split away from him and formed his own PR company - and that we were now using both. No idea how we split the duties between the two (if, even, my memory is correct) but is it/could we/should we make it a case of 'good cop/bad cop' and be looking to one of these agencies to promote the 'good' stuff and the other to act as the 'Rottweiler' and do the dirty work?

I'm near certain its not all down to Traynor/Level 5 these days.

EDIT: Stephen Kerr was his former partner and has now set up ChacePR, a rival company. Lots of Rangers stuff on their website, though it looks RYDC related rather than top tier stuff.
https://chacepr.co.uk/
It also looks like the Level5PR website has been taken down. http://level5pr.co.uk/?reqp=1&reqr=nzcdYaEvLaE5pv5jLv5brN==
 
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Traynor gets a load of stick on here - some of it deserved, some of it for simply doing the Board's bidding. There's no doubt he is still acting in some sort of capacity for us. However, I'm sure I recall reading that his former partner at Level 5 had split away from him and formed his own PR company - and that we were now using both. No idea how we split the duties between the two (if, even, my memory is correct) but is it/could we/should we make it a case of 'good cop/bad cop' and be looking to one of these agencies to promote the 'good' stuff and the other to act as the 'Rottweiler' and do the dirty work?

I'm near certain its not all down to Traynor/Level 5 these days.

EDIT: Stephen Kerr was his former partner and has now set up ChacePR, a rival company. Lots of Rangers stuff on their website, though it looks RYDC related rather than top tier stuff.
https://chacepr.co.uk/
It also looks like the Level5PR website has been taken down. http://level5pr.co.uk/?reqp=1&reqr=nzcdYaEvLaE5pv5jLv5brN==

Don’t know mate . I suspect Traynor is advising the board and Kerr probably does the day to day media stuff.

I don’t get too excited about Traynor, he seems a smart guy and I know how tough it can be to get senior directors to follow a coherent strategy sometimes, and at Rangers the pressure of fan opinion isn’t always conducive to the correct course of action.

But - to put it succinctly - Traynor represents a media-obsessed outlook which is really old fashioned in PR terms and ultimately counter productive. There’s still a place for it but Rangers should be working at a relationship-focused strategy in the round and seeking to influence st all levels. I suspect the old low key dignity and a certain amount of shame for the last decade (stoked by our enemies) keeps the board from taking confident strides.

Look at Brexit and what happens when you hand the responsibility of delivering it to someone who doesn’t beleive in it. In a similar way, the board strike me as always starting on the back foot.

Has to change and someone more dynamic than Traynor will be needed
 
The last few weeks have been both frustrating and disappointing on the park.
Sadly lacking in leadership and heart. Unfortunately as far I'm concerned this is where we are on the field a well.
Anyone who knows me will know the respect i have for Dave King, Douglas Park etc..but the question I have for them is if any one of their businesses was being devalued, destroyed or made toxic by partizan forces. What would your response be?
What I'm saying is why have not employed an elite group of executive and PR groups to defend our club?

I think a lot of people simply dont realise how fcked we actually were when we got sent down to the 3rd division, we were stripped to the bare bones and the structure of the business destroyed. It's going to take a while to rebuild things like slick PR departments and other support departments associated with a successful business. I think at the moment King is prioritising and maximising our overall budget on the playing team. For me I'd like to see King address the truly scandalous amount of poor signings we seem to get landed with.
 
For me, there's a split in our Club's PR.

When the big smears come out, or a series if little niggling pieces of sh*te to try and demeand and degrade our reputations, the Club looks completely feckless.
There is no doubt that they either are incompetent at that level, or for some reason don't want to protect the Club and players.
Hopefully, it's incompetence.


However .... there's the other side to our Club's PR.
The "micro" side, where the Club engages with individual fans.

One of my brothers-in-law passed away just over a month ago: a genuine true blue Rangers man (far more so than I could ever be).
His son wrote to the Club telling them that he had died, but expressing how much pleasure Rangers had given to him in his life, the love of the club having been passed on down the family to his kids and grandkids.
Out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, a letter from the Club arrived at the house of my sister (no pics), signed by the Club Captain (Tav), saying how much they regretted her man's passing, and otherwise supporting her in her grief.


What an amazing thing for the Club to do, and completely unexpected by all of us !

THIS is the sort of attention to detail, and care and consideration, and all-round professionalism that we all want to see in our wider dealings with the world.

btw, I'd just like to state my own thanks to the Club (and James Tavernier) for the letter of support my sis received. Really appreciated by all of us.
I have had a condolance letter from the club. It was standard but nevertheless much appreciated
I still have it
 
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