Former Man Utd marketer on building a football brand from ground up

It has been less than a year after Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim bought ownership rights to Spanish football club Valencia Club de Futbol (CF). Now, the organisation has decided to open its first overseas office in Singapore.Peter Draper, who is the newly appointed commercial and marketing director of Valencia said the office presence is to target both Asian fans and brands. Draper, who has a wealth of experience in marketing sports clubs and sports brands, is most famously known for his stint as group marketing director at Manchester United.In a conversation with Marketing, Draper explained that the goal of the club at this point is relatively simple.“We want to be a sustainable football club. Just because we have a wealthy owner doesn’t mean he can spend on us continuously. We need to find our own way in the football world and find our own business model and our own voice,” Draper said. With a lean two man team, the initial objective of the office would be to build the relationship the club has with local sports clubs with federations around the region.Leading a challenger brandA passionate football fanatic at heart, Draper first started his sports administration career with the English Basketball Association as the National League Administrator in the 1970’s. In 1986, he joined Umbro Sportswear and over a 13-year period, where he was instrumental in leading the brand’s dynamic global growth. Draper is also famously known for his stint with Manchester United’s as its first group marketing director appointed in 1999. This is a position he held until he left in 2006.It comes uncontested that Manchester United was a legacy brand. However Valencia is still yet to find its footing in the football world.  I ask Draper what are some of the challenges he faces in his current role.“We’re now fighting in a big pond with big fish and that is definitely a challenge. We are looking to figuring out our own voice and presenting that in an articulate way,” said Draper. He added that behind football stars, sits a team that looks to marketing the athletes and turning content around them relate-able to Asian audiences much like the big boys of Barcelona and Real Madrid have.“There are already a lot of football clubs all banging their own drums for a long time out here. Are we a little bit late to market? Yes. But you don’t always have to be first either. There is still space for us and we are getting out act together. We don’t necessarily have to resonate with every single market but we have to play our own game and find our own voice.”Draper also added that being a challenger brand also has its perks.“There has never been a line of people waiting to give Man U money,” he says. This is because when you are pitching at the high stake level as Manchester United is, a lot of brands and commercial partners don’t have the capability to fork out millions to partner up with the team. This, in the long run takes a toll because of the constant hard work required to develop those commercial relationships with entities.“At Valencia, we are pitching at a lower level. We are looking at the mid market and the opportunities for brands to be associated with us to reach global audiences are far more,” he added.Setting up in AsiaA key purpose for establishing an office in Singapore would be to form channel partnership with media houses in the region to cater to Asian audiences. While the La Liga has recently upped its push in distributing exclusive content to media channel partners, Draper added that the responsibility is on the individual clubs to leverage on this by supplementing it with its own content, such as behind the scenes footage of players' lives or trainings.“Football around the region is an important source of entertainment. The fans here are increasingly knowledgeable about the game and are beginning to look at Spanish football beyond the top two teams. They see the potential of Valencia and the energy of our fans, so growing and developing our long-term presence in Asia is a key area in our strategic growth plan.”The office will also be looking to tie up with commercial partners from a sponsorship and licensing perspective.For Singapore, Draper was of the view that financial brands might have a big opportunity in partnering up with the football teams, revealing the kind of brands it was targeting. However, he was quick to acknowledge that many companies might feel that this was a “well trodden path” with big players such as Standard Chartered and Barclay’s already dominating the scene.He added that brands simply need to have the mentality to think out of the box and “make it their own”. Meanwhile, he also said that Asian brands have not yet fully capitalised on the compelling platform of football.“The ability to use football for communication and projection for a brand is still great and has not yet been exhausted at all by Asian brands. There are a lot of untapped opportunities,” Draper said.This is perfect timing for Asian brands to get onto such global platforms, he adds. Unlike in the early 70’s where brands were closely tied to their nation's heritage - such as Toyota with Japanese heritage - today brands coming out of the region such as Huawei, Sony or Samsung are trying to take on a more cosmopolitan stance. Global audiences have also evolved so that they no longer think of Korean, Japanese or Chinese products as inferior. This will be the same for brands that will soon emerge from the rising Asian markets such as India, Indonesia or Myanmar, Draper opined.“These brands will be international in nature and football provides a platform for them to be promoted globally. For Asian brands looking to go West, football can provide a platform because it cuts across many demographics of fans.”Over the last three weeks, Draper has been touring various countries across the region and was of the view that many Asian brands were on the brink of going global and all that was stopping them was getting the right infrastructure in place.“Spend and promote when you are ready to take advantage of it. Without the right infrastructure and distribution networks to properly market the products, you are just spending money,“ he added.