6MK002 Applied Marketing Strategy

Individual Report

West Bromwich Albion Football Club

Student number:
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Word count: 4,368

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Contents
1. Introduction:....................................................................................3
2. Background research.......................................................................3
3. WBA’s Vision and Objective.........................................................4
4. Industry structure............................................................................4
5. External factors analysis.................................................................5
6. Internal Analysis.............................................................................7
7. Competitor analysis.........................................................................8
8. West Bromwich Segmentation, Tagerting and Positioning..........11
9. Product Portfolio Analysis............................................................13
10. SPACE analysis of WBA...........................................................15
11. Result of Brand perception.........................................................16
12. Recommendation for WBA........................................................18
References..........................................................................................23
 Appendices:...................................................................................26

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 1. Introduction:
This report aims to create effective marketing strategies for WBA through analysing rival
companies in various aspects such as marketing activities, strengths, brand communication at
the moment. Besides that, the report will also evaluate what WBA company's value have
been achieved by the current marketing campaign. Through those critical evaluations above,
WBA will have an overview of the company position in the market to support their brand
development, sales and marketing strategies effectively.

2. Background research
West Bromwich Albion (WBA) is a British football club was founded in 1878 in Sandwell,
west midlands. WBA has been bought from the previous manager Jeremy Peace by a Chinese
businessman since 2016 after the deal around 200£ million. Currently, the club is playing in
Premier league championship in 12 seasons. However, most of their supporter coming from
local rather than international with age between 50s to 60s. In addition to selling tickets,
WBA is also receiving various financial income through selling clothing for female, male,
junior, souvenir and accessory. Selling home decoration furniture for the bedroom is another
area that WBA has been attended., besides that, the club also works with the third party to get
income through their reputations by providing licensed products such as Bohemian Brands
craft vodka, Baggies brick road and football carpets. By attending to various industry, it
ensures a sustainable income for WBA to run the organization even in the pandemic

3. WBA’s Vision and Objective

Marketing strategy is a combination of various marketing activities that aim to achieve an
objective of the organization and what plan would help them to get there. Hisrich and
Kearney (2017, p.67) suggests that there is no fixed marketing strategy can apply effectively
in multiple businesses, therefore to be succeeded the organization need to “evaluate their
own circumstances and market in order to find the best way to be competitive and have a
sustainable competitive advantage.” The vision of WBA can be delivered to the customer by
mission statement “to create a Proud Albion Family, Engaged, Inspired & Achieving its
Potential” and they aim to “use the power of football to deliver excellence in Wellbeing,
Behaviour Change and Active Lifestyles” (WBA,2020). In other words, the club wants to
provide connections between fans any ages and encouraging a healthy lifestyle with
respecting each other. With this vision, customers of WBA are not only their fans but also
any lovers in sport at any ages. The long-run vision, WBA has aimed to “deliver 10 million
hours and make a difference to 100,000 lives, in the next 10 years” (WBA, 2020). This vision
is putting in implementation by providing support in a physical and mental way such as
football actives, fundraising. In this way, WBA is not just presenting themself as a football
club they are also an inspiration to help children and disability gaining a positive lifestyle
therefore, in general, their audiences could be indicated as fans, youngsters, disability, third
party business and whoever has loved football.

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 4. Industry structure
Premier League is the biggest championship in the UK football that making over 5 billion
pounds in the season 2018/19. According to Deloitte (2020, p.16) indicates that the total
revenue of club playing Premier league increased 7% with approximate 330£ million, it leads
to the rising of average revenues of each club extending by 17£ million compared to last
season, which was 241£ million. The income of Club is coming from three main areas that
could be indicated as royalties of broadcast, match selling ticket and commercial. A
commercial income is the second place in terms of making a profit, it increased by 9%
(120m£). While the matchday factor was contributing at the lowest with sharing 13% of the
total revenue, which makes 683£ million. The broadcast was the biggest lucrative area in
Primer League with was contributing 61% in total revenue. In English Football League (EFL)
also had positive growth in terms of total revenues in 2018/2019 seasons. 54 % of overall
revenues again came from Broadcast, which reached over 404£ million. Commercial element
contributed 25% and matchday factor came up as last which was 21%. WBA was the most
successful club at this time, the club made 71£ million and 62% of this profit came from
parachute payment (Deloitte, 2020, p.24).

Following Market Line (2020, p.8) shows that in terms of the commercial area in football,
sports equipment (mainly in the clothing and accessory) market total revenue reaches 5,6£
billion, grew 3.6% and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the market in 2014 to
2018 was 3.3%. The sports equipment product could be distributed in five channels such as
online pureplay, clothing footwear & accessories Specialists, multi-channel retail, department
stores and others. Online pureplay was guiding the market that was taking 27,4 market shares
and Clothing Footwear & accessory channel in a second place, which had 19.3% of the
market shares (Appendix 2). As a result of the significant growth of the UK sportswear
market, the retailers within the market are competing for extreme strength to get customers.
The market has been dominated by retailer sports brands such as JD sport and Sport Direct;
sportswear brands such as Nike and Adidas. One of the factors that strongly affect customer
decision making is social media influencers, for example, Nike has "Colin Kaepernick as the
face of a new advert and saw their market value rise to an all-time high of $6 billion as a
result" (Mullan, 2020).

However, the football market, the especially commercial area has been suffering a huge
effect by COVID-19 in 2020. The social restriction providing by the government cost to the
decline of the income in selling tickets, besides that the economy of Britain is currently going
down because of pandemic leads to the reducing of spending of the customer may cost to the
sustainable revenue of Football industry.

5. External factors analysis

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PESTEL model will be developed to analyse the external factors that affect the business. It
will cover five areas as known as Political, Environmental, Social, Technology, Ethical and
Legal. Strongly developing in PESTEL will allow the organization to create a macro-
overview, which can help WBA to identify an effective market strategy.

Political

Brexit is the main political issue that can affect directly the way of running football clubs in
the UK. When the UK left the EU, it would create a barrier in the transfer market. According
to The Independent (2016) stated that British football clubs was getting the benefit from EU
regulation, which allows those clubs can sign the contract with young talent at 16 years old,
for instance," Cesc Fabregas, who Arsenal signed from Barcelona soon after his 16th
birthday, in 2003. He played over 300 games for the club before being sold back to
Barcelona for Pounds 30million in 2011".

Leaving Europe, the UK may be treated like other countries that only allow signing contract
with players over 18 with lead to less competitive in a football game. For the transaction
market of over 18, it may also some impacts as a result of diminishing British currency.
Therefore, having players from the EU would be more costly than before, moreover, "any
restrictions on the free movement of people arising from Brexit would inevitably create
problems." and in this case is Kamil Grosickim who is known as Polish player of WBA
(Kelly, 2020).

Economic

As a cost of pandemic, the government has been released two lockdowns to keep people safe
that causing to the close of many businesses. Since the end of August, CNBC (2020) suggests
that 163,735 business has been shut down and increase 23% compared to mid-July. As a
result of losing jobs, people tend to be cutting their budget in terms of spending for
unnecessary products. WBA is currently offering a range of sport equipment to customer, it is
also a critical area that can get extra bucks for the organization, however with high
unemployment at the present, WBA may suffer a loose in customer purchasing powers.

Social

The awareness of having a healthy lifestyle of the British population in recent years has
increased the demand for people would like to play sport. It leads to increasing the outcome
of selling sports equipment, especially fashion product to satisfy personal use. According to
GOV.UK (2020) indicates that "from November 2018 to November 2019, 63.3% of people in
England aged 16 and over were ‘physically active’ – they did 150 minutes or more of
moderate-intensity physical activity a week". WBA has created many events to give a chance
to people to play football such as football camp for adults, children and disability. WBA also

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create some local competitions between people to stimulate the relationship with the club,
which can increase a outcome of selling products of WBA. (Appendix 3)

Techonology

According to The Sun (2020) indicates that EE and BT sport currently developing a new
technology, which allows the customer to watch football with better experiences. The new
technology would allow the fan to watch the football match in 360 degrees camera and all the
data of the game would available on the screen. Moreover, "there is also the option to 'Watch
Together' in a live split-screen experience with friends and families" (The Sun,2020).

This app is a new solution to keep remain the social distances, while can increase the revenue
for the football club in the pandemic. In a short term, it ensures the sustainable income and
keeps the fan with the clubs. In the long run, it will create a chance for international fans to
approach the team easily through the 3D camera, therefore the barriers in terms of geography
could reduce. One of the challenges of WBA is lack of information of international fan, the
new technology may able to track those fans basing on demographics, characteristic and
geographic. Broadcast TV currently dominates live football, but the rising of the number of
fans watching streaming games online slightly diminishing the dominance of broadcast TV
(Brand Finance, 2020, p.29)

Ethical

According to Deloitte (2020, p.29) stated that many sports organizations have agreed to
follow the commitment to "the UN-led framework – Sports for Climate Action". The idea is
to replace the sports industry to a low carbon economy. Therefore, UK football tends to be
more serious in terms of providing friendly climate activities.

Addition to obeying to the framework has been signed, football clubs, which usually put the
environmental issues into their consideration could build a positive image to its fans.
Following the research of the Institute of Management of Sant’Anna School of Advanced
Studies indicates that 86% of 1,400 football fans would be more satisfied if the clubs
committed to protecting the environment ( Pistorius, 2020). WBA has also started to engage,
for example changing conventional lighting with LED fitting, using motion sensors instead of
switches and promising to use environmental-friendly material in its organization(WBA,
2020). Both of rival clubs, Wolverhampton and Aston Villa have also begun to create some
activity to prevent climate change. According to Premier League sustainable ranking (BBC
sport, 2019) showed that Wolve was at rank 3, while Aston Villa was at rank 2 in terms of
environmentally-friendly (Appendices 4).

Legal

Falling down from the biggest UK championship event could lead to the loose of revenue of
WBA as a result of losing fans, customer and broadcast benefit, therefore, it creates a

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 difficulty in finance in terms of running the business. Wilson et al. (2020, p.3) argued that
another reason that leads to difficulties in finance was overspending in player wages beyond
their capacity to gain promotion to the Premier League. A parachute payment is a new
support to help clubs to remain sustainable finance. A parachute payment is defined as the
amount of subsidy the club could be received after dropping down from Premier League to
EFL and the value of the payment is based on the revenue of broadcast revenue in Premier
League. With this regulation, WBA is able to have some incomes and eliminate its financial
crisis, which could be existed in the bad season. According to Deloitte (2020, p.24) indicate
that "West Bromwich Albion recorded the highest revenue in the Championship, reporting
revenue of £71m, with over 62% coming from parachute payments.".

6. Internal Analysis

External Oppornunity External Threat

O1: The rising of Tiktok social media
platform for young users
O2: Extention the influence of club to a
foreign country
T1: Unpredictable of football
industry after Brexit
T2: Football sector may take 10
years to recovery after pandemic
(The guardian, 2020)

Internal Strength According to TikTok UK Statistics (Socialfirm, 2020)
S1: Having a showed that 3.7 million recently active in the UK and
successful social the biggest users group (26%), which has an age
media channel between 18 - 24. This site also presented TikTok on
such as average has 1 million downloads every month and users
Facebook, normally spending 46 mins a day to use TikTok.
which is TikTok is a platform allowing users to create a short
presenting 51% video (normally 15 sec) with music. In the UK, 57% of
of income in youngsters said that watching video is one of the three
retail (19% biggest reasons that encouraging them to use
from email) technology and 67% of them usually watching short
videos (Mintel, 2020). WBA has great experience in
S2: Stable in creating content on social media with 51% income from
Finance Facebook and 19% from Email. They can easily engage
the new platform as TikTok by providing some online
S3: Prudent in activities for their fans such as dancing challenge or
spending football challenge effectively. The Cost to create a
budget TikTok video is low because the platform is providing a
lot of tools to make the video. However, the key thing
S4: Having to succeed in this platform is content. One strength of
strong WBA is prudent spending, in other words, they slightly
The pandemic may need to take
another year to turn back to normal. In
other words, the UK may suffer the
impacts of decreasing of economic
growth which affects directly to
income of football club. However, with
stable finance and smartly in spending
on money, it may not create a difficult
finances situation. One of a great thing
about WBA is the club always the top
of EAL championship, therefore they
can receive a parachute payment to
help them remain sustainable finance.
Instead of having a physical store as
Wolves and Aston, which is struggling
to make revenue because of social
distance. WBA is focusing on Retail
online channel, therefore they don't
have an issue to solve out the fees for
renting.

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 experience in to spend where they have to. So, in this case, they may
the digital retail have to need a hand from the professional TikTok
channel content creator. Stable finance is also ensured WBA can
reach to the top creator, who has a strong understanding
S5: The club of the trend of this social platform (S1, S2, S3, O1)
always is the
top club in EFL

Internal Weakness
Besides that, WBA can also deliver short content about As a result of unpredictable economic
W1: Most of its players in terms of their social life, the content could status after pandemic and Brexit. WBA
their fan be around one day of WBA footballers, how WBA needs to remain the best condition at
around 60 – 70S footballers training or even what they eat for a day. the present. The small club, in this
Fans normally know their favourite players on-field case, is a good thing, because WBA
W2: Boring and only, delivering this content is a good opportunity for may need fewer expenses to run the
lack of fans getting closer to their idols, it leads to strong business. In next year, the club has to
innovation in loyalty and attracts potential supporters. Boring football attract more youngster to be its fan
football style style may be overcome at this point, because if the with a strong young supporter, the club
Boring football style is a key weakness of WBA, may able to make some income
W3: Don’t have posting some highlight videos on TikTok may attract through TV broadcast and especially,
team players some people, because, Youngster may only be excited from streaming channel. However, the
information on to watch a goal rather than watching the whole game. most important is the club need to tone
social media Therefore, boring football style can be overcome at this innovated in football style. On-field
platform point. Reaching to international fans is possible in performance is the key thing to get a
W4: Small Club platform stronger fan base (Brand finance,2020,
(W1 W2, W3, O1, O2) p.25) (W4, W1, W2, T1, T2)

7. Competitor analysis

Rival Orginazations Strengths Weaknesses

Aston Villa (Direct)
Aston Villa is top clubs in in
West Midland with strong fan
base. In average the club has 35k
of fan coming up for a match
Aston villa has 946K followers
on Intargram and 3,330,506
liked on Facebook, while WBA
has only 349k on IG and
827,517 on FB
Aston Villa has a biggest
stadium capacity, which has
42,749 seats has compared to
Wolves and WBA. The quality
of stadium is ranked at 43 in top
60 stadium in the world (Brand
Finance, 2020, p.83)
The finance of the company is
depended by shareholders,
because of losing revenue of
Aston Villa. The lost of the club
rose 32,8£ million in May of
2019 comparing to 2018
(Madeley, 2020)
Cost of wage is really high, in
season 2018/2019 Aston Villa
spent 95£ million on wages,
while WBA paid around 27,35£
million (Deloitte, 2020, p.25)

Aston Villa has strong sponsor, The club has a bad image as
which providing a huge known as Aston Villa hardcore

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 investment to the club. The club
main investor is Cazoo, the
company specializing in car
technology and growing
significantly in recent years

The club is rank 13 in Premier

Wolverhampron Wolf (Direct)
league right behind Wolve and
WBA is at lowest at the rank 19
Instead of sticking with old
players as WBA,
Wolverhampton could be seen as
a strong club, which invests
significantly in the football team
Wolve also has a strong fanbase,
the stadium normally run out
96% of it's capacity in a match
(Wolve, 2020).
The club also has a strong
international fan base, following
the survey taken by 40k people
in 248 countries indicate that
wolve is a second favourite club
in the Football League
(BirmighamLive, 2015). The
club is owned by Chinese
company Fosun International
and the club is on the way
extending their brand to the
Chinese market.
Wolve currently at the rank 13 in
the Premier League, To achieve
a higher rate, they have to recruit
some more EU player. After the
Brexit, the UK currency will
decrease its value, therefore the
cost of recruiting would be
higher.
Besides that, the opportunity of
approaching young talent in EU
under 18 would be harder than
before, it may affect strongly the
future performance of the clubs
The UK is also in a political
fight with China, in the future,
the Chinese state may put some
barriers allowing Wolve
attending to its market, therefore
it will influence directly to the
role of expanding to Chinese
fans.

Comparing to WBA and Aston Although, the follower on social

Villa, Wolves FC has the media of Wolves is much higher
strongest finance even in a than WBA, however, the
pandemic that coming from the engagement it looks similar to
positive performance on-field West Brom.
and investors. The evidence for
that could be proved as "Wolves
have taken out a £50 million
loan secured against future
television revenue" from
Macquarie Group.

Following my survey
represented that 52.9% of
candidates think Wolve has
exciting football style and 12,9%
think the club is ambitious.
Therefore, it leads to a situation
where Wolve reached to top 25
highest making revenues club in
EU and was receiving 169£
million in 2018/19

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 It is similar to WBA, Wolves
also offering a range of product
such as clothing, souvenir, home
decor and some other product to
support sport activity. Aston
Villa does not have the option
for fans to decorate their house.
JD Sports (Indrect) JD is the retail sports company Because of having a lot of
that selling a range of products stores, they are in trouble during
to support sports activity such as the pandemic as a result of social
clothing and sports equipment. restriction
Before covid19, the business has
significant growth in the retail
industry with reaching to They don’t update their post
4,717.8£ million in 2019. daily on Facebook and IG daily.
(Marketline, 2020, p.26) The engagement of the customer
is really low comparing to three
clubs above.
The brand has a lot of stores
covering the whole UK with Instead of Football clubs who
2,420 stores has another way to make money
is the TV broadcast area or
The JD customers have a strong collaborating with the third party
loyalty and the company has using its reputation, the income
also run some promotion in of JD is depending on selling
terms of attracting young boyer products and gym facility. With
such as student discount the decreasing of customer
confidence in pandemic at the
moment, it may lead to the
difficult for JD to remain a
In comparison, three of the clubs sustainability.
above has a price from 20 to
100£ and limited style. While JD
has many of style for its
products and price is flexible,
which can satisfy a lot of
segmentation.

They also running many plans in

terms of customer retention such
as giving out promotion in black
Friday, Christmas and Boxing
day.

8. West Bromwich Segmentation, Tagerting and Positioning

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 Indetifying Segmentation
WBA is a small clubs with
having a strong local fan base.
The currently loyal fans have
been identified as 60 to 70s.
WBA would like to maximise
and influence the local
opportunity as a result of less
competitive advantage to
another club in West Midland
Segmentation variable Explaning
Demographic Age – WBA should think about
targeting the young generation
age between 12 to 24, who loved
football. This group is a fantastic
opportunity to support WBA in
the long run. As a result of the
loyal fan from 60 to 70, this
group usually encourage their
kid to be a fan as a tradition of
the family. If the young fan can
approach the group in early age
It would benefit to WBA

Female – The rising of female

WBA is just known as football
clubs in West Midland with a
long history. At the present, the
demand for being healthy in
lifestyle is rising, therefore the
requirement for maintaining this
lifestyle could be seen as doing
exercise. With stable in finance,
WBA may consider investing in
another area of sport such as
Basketball or Boxing
fans in football is on a positive
trend, besides that women
league tend to be more popular
in the sports industry. Creating a
female team at an early time
may lead to the rising of female
supporters for
WBA(Recommendation)
Behaviuour Lifestyle – Y generation is
interested in playing sports,
especially football. Besides that,
the demand of playing other
sports also booming. WBA is
offering some football camp for
people in site their organization

 Targeting a Segmentation
In three segmentations above, WBA should focus on the group of potential customers 18 to
24. This is a core customer for the sustainable of WBA. With the approaching through
activity, which creates by WBA at a young age, it will ensure this group of customers tend to
be a loyal customer in the future.

This strategy would meet all the requirements of DAMP Model. "DISTINCT" - Wolve and
Aston Villa is a big clubs with strong finances, both of them has the same objectives to be a
high rank in Premier League, however, they don't actually focus on creating a community fo
young age fan, who love footballs. The idea for this strategy is creating a community that
allowing every customer, especially youngsters can involve WBA because of the value of the
club and in long run, WBA would be seen as the organizations for the community rather than
just a football clubs focusing the cup. Therefore, it will create a new image, which attracts

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much more fans to be loyal customers and It is the main "PROFITABLE" factor that can
come to WBA

In terms of resources available, WBA has a strong influence on their local, the fan club could
be seen as a group for community, the staff has strong experiences on social media adverts,
stable finances and its is "ACCESSIBLE". The effectiveness of the campaign can be
measured through many channels such as the number of customer attending to events, the
number of people approaching the events posts on social media and the number of the
product has been sold at 18 to 24.

 Poistioning of WBA

High Prices

Superior service

The final achievement for targeting segment is creating strong brand loyalty in the future,
Low Prices
therefore it would increase the number of purchasing the products. It is important for WBA to
identify how good its service is. If WBA spending a lot of money to create loyalty and
interesting in its products, but the company service is poor it could lead to the situation,

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where customer don't want to spend their money. So, It is important to position the product
by using the perceptual map, which shows the levels of products through price and services
factors

Potioning the company is a important step to indentify the competive advantge of company in
terms of what they are offering in the business on the market. “The essential principle of
competitive positioning is that it is concerned with how customers in different parts of the
market perceive the competing companies, products/services or brands.” ( Hooley, 2020,
p.173).

Basing on my research, WBA offering a high quality of products with good services and
cheaper price comparing to the other two clubs. Comparing to JD, WBA has a price is higher
with similar product types such as shirts, bottom. However, WBA is a football club who has
little more reputation and unique point in its design, so customers think that the price of West
Brom clothing is worthy.

The reason for Wolve presenting at the point lower service level and high price is bad
services. Following my research, on google reviews Wolve has 4.4 stars, however, the review
usually comes from people who not actually purchasing its products. At the moment, Wolve
is facing the issue has been indicated by customers is poor services in solving customer issues
such as no reply on email and phone call, no confirming email after buying products, rude
staff and usually delivering wrong product or size.

Aston Villa has been seen as good services and high-quality products with 4.5 stars in over
700 reviews. However, in some situations, Villa has also some issue in their services such as
the capacity of stock on the website usually don’t match the realistic unit in its warehouse,
taking longer to solve the problem of the customer (normally 3 weeks), hotline usually in
busy.

9. Product Portfolio Analysis

Product portfolio analysis could be defined as evaluating and reviewing the company’s
offering products in terms of competitive advantage in the market. It will indicate what
opportunity could be taken by the company in getting profit in the short and long run. In
terms of identifying the benefit of products of WBA, BCG matrix could apply to evaluate.

Four main elements contributing to the shape of BCG are “stars,” “cash cows,” “question
marks,” and “dog". Successful in creating BCG would allow to "compare the product lines
and business units already in their company’s portfolio based on the market growth rate and
market share. It also provides a framework to allocate resources between the different
product lines and business units." (Holzer, 2013,p.64)

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“Star” – defining the market has high market growth and high market share, the product in
this area usually bring a major income for WBA is football activity ( including selling ticket
and TV broadcast). In English Football Championship, WBA has strong market share and
attracting many fans. Therefore, it contributes a main income for the club, moreover, WBA
always makes sure the club could be promoted in three years period to Premier League,
which can help them to earn some cash from parachute payments to maintain the stable
finance. The club needs to consider investing more in the football team, although parachute
payment at some point can help the club making extra bucks, however, playing on Premier
League would gain much more revenue as a result of earning from broadcast and a better
reputation, which can attract customers purchasing WBA products.

“The question mark” – presenting the case, where the market has high growth market but low
market share. Clothing, accessory and home décor department currently on the trend of
growth, however, it would depend on the big of brand value. Comparing to those clubs in
West Midland, WBA is just dominating in its local only, therefore the market shares of its
product is really low. Otherwise, The potential benefit of this market is high, so to increase
the market share the club needs to improve its reputation through football, running the
effective marketing campaign and being innovative in the design of the product.

“Dog” – referring the situation, where the market has low in market growth and market
shares. Brick for construction and Volka would be at this area. The customer would be more
pleasant for Getting some product that can be changed in the future is way better than
something stay permanently is the issue of brick. Besides that, Bohemian Brands craft
vodka, which has been using WBA reputation to sell its product has also selling product for

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rival companies. Although those two product is staying the worse market, however, WBA
should carry on with these products, because in general, it can bring some income for the
company without any cost.

10. SPACE analysis of WBA

The SPACE matrix is a tool to evaluate the capacity of the company on the market by identifying the
internal capability (company dimensions) of the organization and environmental stability (industry
dimensions). Financial strength and competitive advantage are two key areas of the company dimension
will be looked at to indicate the power of the company within the industry, while the industry dimension
will include the external factors such as environmental stability and industry strength that could affect the
position of the company (Hooley et al, 2019, p.86). The elment in the table would be taken through SWOT
analysis, background reasearch

Company Dimension Industry dimension

Financial Strength – WBA has stable finance in
the market, however, the club is unable to change
a large of cash to invest directly to one area at a
short run. In 2018/19 the club made 71£ million
and 62% coming from parachute payments
(Deloitte, 2020, p.24). However. comparing to
Wolve and Aston Villa, WBA is a small club with
weaker financial capacity
The finance at the present is depending on the
amount of subsidy from parachute payment and
TV broadcast in EFL.
Environmental stability- COVID-19 is the first
external factor need to consider. As a result of this
issue, WBA may suffer the decreasing demand in
purchasing a ticket and the demand for purchasing
new training equipment kit.
Unpredictable of the influence of Brexit, which
may impact the strategy in the long run
High berrier to entry the market

Prudent in spending budget on investment

Competitive Advantage - WBA is has a strong
local fan base, high-quality products. They also
have high experience through online selling and
advertising on the social media platform with a
5.9%followers reaching a post, 8.65% engagement
rate on Facebook.
They have been collecting lots of data from
customers through CRM and running successful
the customer retention strategy
High levels of customer loyalty
Industry Strength –
Seasson 2018/19, average revenues of each club
extending by 17£ million compared to last year.
Sports equipment (mainly in the clothing and
accessory) market total revenue reaches 5,6£
billion, grew 3.6% and the compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of the market in 2014 to 2018
was 3.3%.
Stable finance and has no problem in term of
finance in COVID 19

Product is worth with price
Offering a range of products for fans
Running some events to increase the level of
engament of fans to the clubs
In general, the football market has taken a little bit
impact of social restriction, however, the demand
for TV broadcast and Streaming live is an
alternative opportunity to boost the growth of this
market. New regulation of parachute payment also
helps the club maintain its finances. The
government stated that the new vaccine will be
circulated early next year is also a good signal to
the recovering of the football market.

15
The diagram has presented the company is in a competitive position, where “a company with a
competitive advantage in an attractive industry. However, the company’s financial strength is insufficient
to balance the environmental instability it faces” (Hooley et al, 2019, p.87). Relating to WBA, WBA has
weak financial ability compared to two main competitors as a result of lack of investment from shareholder
and the income of the club mostly is depending on parachute payment (contributed 62% of the income in
2018/19) rather than crucial area as a TV broadcast. In competitive advantages area, the club has a little bit
of advantage in West Midland, because of the strong local fanbase and its products could be seen a high
quality with a worthy price. However, in general, the club has boring football and lower-ranking
comparing to Villa and Wolves in Premier League that leading to a weaker reputation in terms of attracting
fan. Although, the organization is prudent in spending its money which leads to stable finance and they are
also working in the industry has good potential growth, but the growth of the club would be depending on
the football performance, which is club's weakness. Moreover, The football industry is facing the high
impact of covid19 and unpredictable in the effect of Brexit, it's lead to the unstable of environmental
factors. Therefore, weak in finance and the high level of environmental instability would be an issue for
WBA to maintain its competitive advantage in the long run.

11. Result of Brand perception

To understand more in terms of how people feel about WBA and its rival clubs such as Aston Villa,
Wolverhampton Wanderers, Walsall and Birmingham City. I have given out the survey to chosen
candidates basing on demographic (Age, Gender), Geographic (9 regions in the UK). The survey will be
conducted through 3 steps following the suggestion of Educational Hub (Youtube, 2020)

16
STEP 1: Identifying the objectives, audiences and tool of the survey

The survey is showing the feeling of football fans in West Midlands in three clubs, the survey will be taken
by young people (18-25), who is currently target group WBA would like to reach to. Besides that, the
survey also identifies what value to the club could consider developing based on the competitors.

STEP 2: Reviewing the result has completed by audiences

My survey has filled by 19 candidates, most of them are my friend's age 18 to 25, who have a passion for
football. Most of the candidate (62%) is living in West Midland (67.7%) and 84.2% was males and 10,5%
was females.

Figues 1:

Figues 2:

To understand more in the wider area and this case football industry in general. I have asked people, what
team is the number one club they actually supporting for and I found that 11 of candidates usually support
big clubs, who has a really rank in football such as Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester United. The reason
for that could be seen as those clubs are well-known the club with famous players and strong investment in
the football team. Therefore, it really important for WBA to increase its rank in the Premier League and
investing to take some talented players to attract the fans.

After research, I found that Wolves has the most positive feedback in terms of its football, with 52.6%
people thought exciting and 21,6% thought they are ambitious. In 4 clubs, Birmingham City (52,6%),

17
WBA (73,7%) and Walsall (84,2%) have been described as very dull football. Aston Villa was the only
club to have a balance in brand value, which contains a lot of different thought from the candidate (Figues
3)

Figues 3:

STEP 3: Evaluating the key factors that affecting the customers thought

In the conclusion, Wolve has the strongest competitive advantage in West Midland. The club has an
exciting football style, in other words, they are actually putting the care of the way they are performing on
the field. Besides that, some people thought they are ambitious, it indicates that the club is brave in terms
of investing to develop the football team as getting new and good players and leads to the situation they
have the highest rank in Premier League compared to other teams in the survey.

12. Recommendation for WBA

The football style and the performance of the club in games are two important features that can increase
the attention of the fan. WBA need to consider investing more in football and thinking to change its style
on the way playing. The investing does not need to be done by buying famous players with high cost, they
need to invest in local talent at young ages. They should contact the local school and try to find young
players that would match to WBA's objective as known as "we don't buy success, we work for success".
Besides that, the TikTok platform has been seen as the most popular for the youngsters, the club needs to
attend to this channel. For example, WBA can create a short video about the highlight goal clip, which
does not cost a lot of money to have one, but it can get a lot of attention from "TikTok". Because in
general, somebody watching a goal would be more excited to watch the whole game. Moreover, they can
also create some challenges for fans such as the kick-ups football challenge and encourage them to post on
social media especially TikTok (further explanation in TOWS). Instead of giving promotion for each item
in Chrismas, the club should consider making "dad and son" events, where the buyers can get an extra
discount when they are purchasing products for junior and adults at the same time. Therefore, it helps the
club get better productivity in selling.

18
In terms of gaining competitive advantage in selling products such as clothing and accessory. WBA need
to focus on the “differentiation” of the product based on the suggestion of Porter Generic Strategies models
(Figues 4)

Figues 4:

According to (Tutor2u, no date) suggested that “in the differentiation focus strategy, a business aims to
differentiate within just one or a small number of target market segments.” . In this case, the club should
focus on jacket design. Currently, the club is selling six types of sports jackets, which are similar in design
compared to Aston Villa and Wolves (Appendix 5). The club needs to think to design something different,
which is relating more fashionable factors rather than sport styles such as baseball jacket and denim jacket
with a lot of logos covering the arms. If the club were successful in designing it could also attract more
youngsters buying product also and also creating the awareness of the brand on the market. With the rising
of the fashion industry, the new product could be lucrative. Next, the club need to think about
“differentiation leadership” stragtery, which is about “selecting one or more criteria used by buyers in a
market - and then positioning the business uniquely to meet those criteria.” (Tutor2u, no date). The
product needs to be fashionable with worthy price in terms f quality and the product need to contain the
iconic signature of the club in the design such as logo, the colour of WBA, name of the footballer, for
example. In the short run, the price just needs to cover the cost of producing. If the product had positive
attention from the customer, the could increase the price to get more profits in long run.

The new product line will be analysed through 7P Marketing Mix model.

Product The product needs to be fashionable and follow the trend of fashion
nowadays, quality doesn’t have to be high but it has to be worthy in price.
The product should have signature colours of club, logo or player names.
In terms of designing, it has to catch up with the newest fashion trend of
the fashion industry
Price The price should from 50 to 80£. The price needs to be equal to the
market. The club should do research through rival competitors and some

19
 fashion brand names such as Zara to give out the most suitable prices.
Place The products should sell on the online channel (B2C), the product could
sell through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Website. In terms of B2B, the
club could collaborate with third-party such as ASOS to distribute the
products
Promotion The club can use the social media platform, which has a low cost to
advertise the product. On the social media platform, WBA needs to think
about working social media influencers in fashion or football that could
increase the attention of new customers. The club can create some events
such as give away 5 jackets events for those luckiest people, who attend to
the football match. .
Process The product will be sold through the website and distributors. All the data
of the customer will need to be collected and used for customer retention
strategy. The product could be produced by WBA itself or a third party,
who is specializing in producing clothing. The idea of design to come up
by a person, who has a strong knowledge of the fashion industry
People The staff need to be trained to deal with the issue quickly, customer
services have to be good. The staff need to understand how the process of
selling a product is, for example, how long does it take for delivery in one
local area. With good customer services, it also leads to better brand value
and boost the sale of other departments.
Physical Most of the sale of WBA is coming from an online channel such as
Facebook, which is presenting 51% of income in retail (19% from email).
Evidence IT staff has strong experience in digital marketing, they have collected lots
of data from customers, therefore they have good knowledge of past
customers.

20
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 Kelly, R. (2029) What are Premier League parachute payments & how much do teams get.
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how-much-teams-get/ndpbojgz6szj1ojgn3p7jlbuo#:~:text=What%20are%20parachute
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 Kelly, R. (2029) How Brexit will affect Premier League football. Available at:
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advantage (Accessed: 20 December 2020)

Appendices:
Appendix 1:
23
Appendix 2:

24
Appendix 3:

25
Appendix 4:

26
Appendix 5:

27
28
Appendix 6: PESTLE table
Categories External Factors Implications and Importance on the Potential
organisation impact
Levels

Politica Brexit Brexit is the main political issue that can High
l affect directly the way of running football
clubs in the UK. When the UK left the EU, it
would create a barrier in the transfer market.
According to The Independent (2016) stated
that British football clubs was getting the
benefit from EU regulation, which allows
those clubs can sign the contract with young
talent at 16 years old, for instance," Cesc
Fabregas, who Arsenal signed from
Barcelona soon after his 16th birthday, in
2003. He played over 300 games for the club
before being sold back to Barcelona for
Pounds 30million in 2011".

Economic High As a cost of pandemic, the government has Low

unemployment been released two lockdowns to keep people
safe that causing to the close of many
businesses. Since the end of August, CNBC
(2020) suggests that 163,735 business has
been shut down and increase 23% compared
to mid-July. It led to the rising in
unemployment rate, in other words people
tend to be cutting their budget in terms of
spending for unnecessary products.
Social Changing to The awareness of having a healthy lifestyle of
healthy lifestyle the British population in recent years has
increased the demand for people would like to
play sport. It leads to increasing the outcome
of selling sports equipment, especially fashion
product to satisfy personal use. According to
GOV.UK (2020) indicates that "from
November 2018 to November 2019, 63.3% of
people in England aged 16 and over were
‘physically active’ – they did 150 minutes or
more of moderate-intensity physical activity a
week". WBA has created many events to give High
a chance to people to play football such as
football camp for adults, children and
disability. WBA also create some local
competitions between people to stimulate the
relationship with the club, which can increase
a outcome of selling products of WBA.

29
 (Appendix 3) (look at GOV.UK)

Technology New According to The Sun (2020) indicates that Medium

technology of EE and BT sport currently developing a new
streaming on technology, which allows the customer to
the application watch football with better experiences. The
new technology would allow the fan to watch
the football match in 360 degrees camera and
all the data of the game would available on
the screen. Moreover, "there is also the option
to 'Watch Together' in a live split-screen
experience with friends and families" (The
Sun,2020).
This app is a new solution to keep remain the
social distances, while can increase the
revenue for the football club in the pandemic.
In a short term, it ensures the sustainable
income and keeps the fan with the clubs. In
the long run, it will create a chance for
international fans to approach the team easily
through the 3D camera, therefore the barriers
in terms of geography could reduce. One of
the challenges of WBA is lack of information
of international fan, the new technology may
able to track those fans basing on
demographics, characteristic and geographic.
Broadcast TV currently dominates live
football, but the rising of the number of fans
watching streaming games online slightly
diminishing the dominance of broadcast TV
(Brand Finance, 2020, p.29)
E-ticket

Ethical New commitment of According to Deloitte (2020, p.29) stated that

creating low carbon many sports organizations have agreed to
economy in sport follow the commitment to "the UN-led
framework – Sports for Climate Action". The
idea is to replace the sports industry to a low
carbon economy. Therefore, UK football
tends to be more serious in terms of providing
friendly climate activities.
Addition to obeying to the framework has
been signed, football clubs, which usually put
the environmental issues into their
consideration could build a positive image to
its fans. Following the research of the Institute
of Management of Sant’Anna School of
Advanced Studies indicates that 86% of 1,400
football fans would be more satisfied if the

30
 clubs committed to protecting the
environment ( Pistorius, 2020
Legal Parachute payment Falling down from the biggest UK High
championship event could lead to the loose of
revenue of WBA as a result of losing fans,
customer and broadcast benefit, therefore, it
creates a difficulty in finance in terms of
running the business. Wilson et al. (2020, p.3)
argued that another reason that leads to
difficulties in finance was overspending in
player wages beyond their capacity to gain
promotion to the Premier League. A parachute
payment is a new support to help clubs to
remain sustainable finance. A parachute
payment is defined as the amount of subsidy
the club could be received after dropping
down from Premier League to EFL and the
value of the payment is based on the revenue
of broadcast revenue in Premier League.
According to Deloitte (2020, p.24) indicate
that "West Bromwich Albion recorded the
highest revenue in the Championship,
reporting revenue of £71m, with over 62%
coming from parachute payments.".

Appendix 7: SWOT table

Strength  Stable in Finance
 Strong local fan base
 Spending 12 seasons In 28 season in
Premier League Have a long history
over 140 years
 Prudent in spending budget
 Having strong experience in the digital
retail channel
 Having a successful social media
channel such as Facebook, which is
presenting 51% of income in retail
(19% from email)
 Collecting a lot of data from customers
and fans through CRM system
 Experience in customer retention
 Attractive Website
 Offering a range of products for fans

31
  Active social media post (posting
content daily)
 The club always is top club in EFL
Weakness  Limited Stadium capacity around 26k
seats
 Limited Resources
 The image of the club has been
misunderstanding as YO YO club
 Boring and lack of innovation in
football style
 Small Football Club, however, sponsors
may be more interested in a small club
because of “easy to be stand out from
the crowds” (Brand Finance, 2020, p.25)
 Don’t have team players information
on social media platform
 Don’t have Tiktok Account
 The income of company is the most
coming from parachute payment and
TV broadcast from EFL
Opportunity  Extention the influence of club to a
foreign country
 Maximizing the opportunity to grow in
local
 The rising of Tiktok social media
platform for young users
 The new innovation of watching sports
through streaming by a 360-degree
camera
 The rising of female fans could create
an opportunity for the growth of female
football leagues (Brand Finace, 2020,
p.26)
 Most of their fans is 60 to 70
Threat  Unpredictable of football industry after
Brexit
 Football sector may take 10 years to
recovery after pandemic (The
guardian, 2020)
 The achievements on-field is significant
aspect, which fans interested in
 The UK government may have to
increas taxation after pandemic

32