Cowboys to focus their marketing for '03 season on HC Parcells, not on any players

[TC4]

Found this story from the Dallas Morning News via a link on Pro Football Talk. Sounds interesting, and I LOVE the comment made by the folks at PFT with the link:

The Cowboys are focusing their marketing efforts on coach Bill Parcells -- which makes sense, since they don't have the players to sell out a movie theater.

Anyways, here is the DMN story:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/cowboys/stories/071303dnbusParcells.7920.html

Cowboys draft Parcells for sales offensive

New head coach is the star of this year's marketing campaign

07/13/2003

By RICHARD ALM / The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Cowboys are counting on Bill Parcells to do more than win football games.

He's also got to sell.

Coming off three straight losing seasons, the Cowboys have made their new head coach the focal point of this year's marketing campaign to sell tickets, luxury suites, sponsorships and merchandise.

"Bringing in Coach Parcells has given us all excitement," said Jerry Jones Jr., the team's chief marketing officer. "He's a proven winner. His record speaks for itself. It makes all the sense in the world to transfer that to our marketing."

A direct-mail advertisement features Parcells' stern visage on the outside of the envelope as well as on the front of the brochure inside. He's on billboards along North Texas highways. A new television commercial carries the Parcells imprint. A radio spot touts the upcoming season as the dawn of the Parcells era.

With the preseason home opener a month away, the Parcells buzz is already moving tickets.

"Hiring Bill Parcells was a big-time move," said Joel Finglass, the Cowboys' director of sales and promotions. "We may have our best year in selling season tickets since I started with the Cowboys in 1990."

In picking Parcells as their 2003 poster boy, the Cowboys are making the obvious choice, said David Carter, principal at the Los Angeles-based Sports Business Group, a consultant.

"It's hard to find a Cowboys star that shines brighter than Parcells," Carter said. "He represents renewal. He connotes seriousness and commitment."

After slogging through three straight 5-11 seasons, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones hired 61-year-old Parcells in January as the team's fifth head coach in a decade.

Parcells arrived at Valley Ranch with a reputation as a no-nonsense coach who knows how to build winners. He led the New York Giants to Super Bowl titles in 1987 and 1991. He later took the New England Patriots to Super Bowl XXXI.

It's not all that unusual for a team to use its coach as a marketing tool. Going into the 2002 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers put the spotlight on Jon Gruden, last year's hot new coach. A few years ago, the Dallas Mavericks, then a National Basketball Association doormat, made coach Don Nelson the star of their television advertising.

For the Cowboys, Parcells is a safe choice as pitchman, said Dave Arnott, who teaches sports management at Dallas Baptist University. He won't get injured. He won't get traded. The Cowboys don't need something off-the-wall to reach their fans.

"With 43 years of brand loyalty, the Cowboys are right in playing it safe," Arnott said.

The Cowboys' marketing strategy isn't all Parcells, all the time, Jones said.

The team is also using veteran players in some of its advertising. Safety Roy Williams and wide receiver Joey Galloway are on billboards. Defensive lineman La'Roi Glover peers out from the team's schedule cards.

Even so, Parcells will be the main man.

A team's marketing strategy depends on what it has to sell. The Philadelphia Eagles are boasting about their new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field. This year, the Buccaneers are taking every opportunity to tout themselves as the defending Super Bowl champs.

A year ago, Cowboys marketing was riding on Emmitt Smith, who stood on the verge of breaking the all-time National Football League rushing record. Smith now plays for the Arizona Cardinals.

The Cowboys believe Parcells will deliver the right message to fans.

"It's definitely working," Jones said. "It's evident in our [season-ticket] renewals."

As Parcells gears up for the July 24 opening of training camp in San Antonio, the Cowboys are concentrating on season-ticket and suite sales. They'll put partial-season packages and single-game tickets on sale in a month or so.

Finglass, the team's sales and promotions director, said season-ticket sales had slipped in recent years from 54,000 to last year's 40,000. This year's renewal rate is above 90 percent. And new orders are coming in every day.

Travis Clark, director of suite sales and marketing, is also seeing strong demand for the team's NFL-high 280 skyboxes.

"Parcells has definitely been a plus," said Clark, who is also using players in ads. "I'm ahead of where I was last year. It's not a matter of whether we'll sell out the suites. It's when and how early."

The Cowboys kick off the preseason with an Aug. 9 game at Arizona, followed by the home opener Aug. 15 against the Houston Texans. They launch the regular-season campaign Sept. 7 against Atlanta at Texas Stadium.

The challenge once again is to keep interest high at a time when the Cowboys can't sell Super Bowl dreams.

Despite recent losing records, the Cowboys finished last season with a streak of 104 sellout games at 65,000-seat Texas Stadium. The Cowboys feel they will draw enough fans to extend the streak.

"We'll be at 112 at the end of the season," Finglass said.

In the Jones family's 14 years of owning the Cowboys, they've never used the head coach this prominently in a marketing campaign, Jones said. And the team's had high-profile coaches such as Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer.

Parcells was on vacation and unavailable for comment about his marketing role, but his image suggests he's all about football. Being a marketing icon probably doesn't interest him as much as developing discipline among the players or deciding who will play quarterback this season.

Maybe not, but Jones says the new coach has been easy to work with on the marketing front.

"He understands the big picture and everything that goes on from the football field to the business side of things."

E-mail ralm@dallasnews.com

:dallasuck :dallasuck :dallasuck

[bulldog]

Parcells has to know that going into the season with the current crop of qbs and no name runner is bound to land his team below .500 for the fourth straight season.

At the same time you can't fix everything in one year. Parcells NEEDS another draft like the one he just had where he gets another top 5 or 7 pick and is able to acquire a passer in the draft or by trade.

The Cowboys do have some very talented younger players. Unfortunately, guys at cornerback like Newman and Williams at safety have a limited impact when the front seven is so bland.

Still they will make their share of plays both positive and negative and be building blocks for the future on the D.