EBU SERVICES 9 : Promoting the game of bridge as a healthy and sociable pastime.
This thread is for any thoughts on what this service comprises, what qualitative aspects of it are important, of how important this is across the whole spectrum of services. See the last item on the MISSION thread for context.
Comments
I see this as being somewhat taking place outside of bridge. This would be organising and promoting big bridge events to raise awareness. Perhaps another go at getting Bridge recognised as a sport.
Maybe a TV program on bridge - follow a world class bridge player or a documentary about a cheating scandal, perhaps just getting programmers to mention Bridge. Perhaps someone from Eastenders, Coronation St or whatever could just say, 'see you later, I'm off to the bridge club' or whatever.
Some sort of work with charities looking at loneliness, if you are a bridge player you can play bridge twice a day if you like...
Though there is a place for a 'Call to Action' - we that play bridge know how wonderful a game it is and we will also know lots of people that don't play bridge. We should spread the word!
There have been many studies on the health aspects of competitive mind games; maybe a short project for someone to correlate all the published work into one location so that referencing these works became easier?
"Promotion" is a broad term and potentially, and no doubt actually, involves every element of the communications mix - direct marketing, advertising, personal selling, PR and even sales promotion. How to decide which? The starting point is to identify the target audiences and communication objectives for each audience. So, to take a couple of examples: -
Non-, but potential, bridge players. You first need to raise awareness (objective 1) that the game exists and is attractive. That's the role of PR - check out Cath Fox's recent article in S Magazine as a great example of that. Then you need a call to action (objective 2) for those people who become aware of the game and need to find out where to go to learn more. Enter the role of advertising - either online or offline. Who thinks personal selling or sales promotion may not be relevant at his point? Is welcoming a new visitor to your club not personal selling. Is BCL offering a trial period of 50 days to new members sales promotion or not?
Another audience, an internal one this time - EBU members. We've all had emails from the EBU in recent weeks, some asking for money (objective 1), some advertising online events (objective 2). That's direct marketing and advertising.
Other audiences? Always the media (objective - to gain publicity and generate awareness). Regulatory bodies (should we be lobbying to be "allowed" to have lots of bridge players in one room at some point during lockdown? OK, big and controversial subject!!). Local communities (objective - to raise awareness of the role that bridge can play in those communities). Universities/Health Organisations (to persuade them of the merits of carrying out research into the health benefits of bridge).
It's a large and challenging topic. We can't do it all and prioritising the most important and deciding whether they are best carried out centrally by the EBU or locally by counties and clubs is important.
This should be at the top of the list of mission components.
This involves reaching out to non-players – but is that purely a central activity? How much of the promotion task should be taken up by EBED, CBAs and clubs?
Should the EBU be working with other providers of pastimes, both to widen the interests of our players but also to introduce the others to the game? Bridge does get played as part of some Mind Sports activities, but that only happens at the international level; should we be doing that more locally?
Do we need a sub group team of bridge players that are experts in marketing and communications to lead this, perhaps retirees that were senior in their field?
Is that in fact being looked at?
There is a huge pool of talent in any area one could name within the bridge community, we should make good use of it.
Absolutely right - see https://www.ebu.co.uk/node/3856