News

The introduction of billboards, bus shelter adverts, press adverts, and radio commercials have been a first for the local game in Northern Ireland. A substantial amount of time and effort has already been invested in this activity.

At the start of the year, the Marketing and Communications team at the IFA started to conduct research and began to pull together the bones of a marketing plan. Early spring saw the team 'fine tune' the plan, based on previous experience, and introduced fresh ideas obtained from other leagues and clubs around the world and sporting associations outside the football fraternity.

Once the marketing objectives and strategy were 'nailed down', the Marketing team then turned its attention to bringing on board a professional advertising agency to help with the design of the billboards, bus shelters etc.

During the month of May, four agencies tendered for the work with Holywood based Ad agency, Ardmore winning the overall contract.

At this point onwards, the Marketing campaign started to take shape. The logo design and creatives were beginning to develop and the photo shoot with players from each of the Premiership clubs took place - the creatives of which would be the basis for all advertisements, billboards etc. On the 11th August the billboard campaign was launched in the local areas of the 12 clubs, and a few days ago the 'urinal marketing' activity went live (in well known pubs and bars throughout NI!

On 18th August the IFA's 'press partnership' with the Newsletter/Morton group of newspapers began and news of a 'radio partnership' will also be launched shortly. The IFA worked with the Premiership clubs to hold mini launches at the club grounds in conjunction with their local Council and two brand new websites were launched to showcase fixtures, news, features, results for both the Premiership and Championship clubs - visit www.ifapremiership.com and www.ifachampionship.com for further information.

The overall idea behind all the marketing activity is essentially to promote the new Premiership and encourage new supporters to watch a game and hopefully increase spectator numbers. Emphasis was put on the beginning of the season and therefore activity will be heaviest then with the continued press and radio partnership to keep the campaign alive throughout the season on a regular basis. A number of tactical and PR campaigns are planned together with further billboards and press advertisements for later in the season.

Hopefully you can see a substantial amount of time and financial investment has already been carried out by the IFA in order to rejuvenate our domestic game.

Look out for your local club's billboard - why not even go to a game of JUST REAL FOOTBALL near you. The latest fixtures and news can be found on the brand new websites www.ifapremiership.com and www.ifachampionship.com.