A little trip down memory lane...to White Hart Lane!
I worked for many years with Tottenham Hotspur F.C. through an enjoyable collaboration working across the board within marketing, branding and retail activities. When I began the process working closely with the Head of Retail we sought to increase fan engagement and affection for the brand and club that is 'Spurs'. Utilising the players to engage at fan level was a new concept not previously explored in this way at the club. I spent time at the training ground encouraging players to wear and use a selection of the many items that could be found in the retail stores at the clubs ground and further afield in the new stores being opened at shopping malls etc. I took these training ground photos and combined them with photos from locations around the club's ground which I took separately. I also developed the 'We're Fans Too' concept to highlight the fact that players and members of staff at the club are fans of the club too. To further emphasise this I created a shadow of a cockerel for each player in the photos (the mascot/symbol of the club). This was well received by the fans and the first catalogue was so popular (they were all gone within days) that we had to order a reprint for the first time in the history of the club! As you'll note from one photo shown here, I recreated scenes like that of the Beetles crossing Abbey Road with players crossing 'High Road' outside of the stadium and changed small elements like the traffic lights from green to blue and subtle graffiti messages here and there. It was later relayed to me that fans had been seen recreating some of these scenes themselves outside the stadium and searching for the cash machine which didn't really exist! Fun times...
Oh, and it may seem a little dated now but I also developed the first, what I called, an e-cat (catalogue) which was a downloadable offline interactive browsing catalogue which was shoppable (is that a word) too! So when fans had an internet connection again (yes the days of dial up existed then) they could simply check out and choose to collect either at a store or have the goods delivered to their home. Obviously not something that is needed any longer as we are always online and connected now, but back then it was hugely popular and accounted for a good proportion of sales, not only implemented for Spurs but also a number of other clubs at the time or soon after and derivatives of it.
