It’s already gone football crazy over here, says Keith Wiser. 

This year is 2010. For most people around the world, that’s the year after 2009 and the one before 2011.

Not so here in South Africa; 2010 is a very special year. It’s the year we get to host the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup. 

(As you will gather as this article progresses, I may already have committed some heinous crime against the almighty FIFA by using its name without permission. Oh well, I didn’t use the logo without their blessing so I’ll possibly get off with a warning.)

Unless you have lived through a World Cup experience, which I certainly hadn’t, it’s hard to believe what has happened so far and what will be happening over the next few months . . .

Railways and roads to ruin

We have lived in South Africa with a fairly adequate highway system for years. Now, of course, we want to present our best face to the outside world so a major road works programme has been underway for the past 18 months. The cost for Gauteng alone is R11.5 billion. What has not been factored into that cost is the frustration and loss of productivity that has been caused by the jams resulting from the roadworks.

For some reason, it was also deemed a good idea to build what is called the Gautrain . . . named after the Gauteng province. As you may have guessed, it’s a new train . . . but not just any train. This is a high-speed link between Pretoria and Johannesburg which has arrived at the bargain basement price of just R60 billion. It was supposed to cost only R22 billion but someone got a couple of noughts mixed up . . .

So far, I haven’t actually mentioned soccer. 

We did, of course, have to build a truckload of new stadiums, even though the ones we had before were perfectly adequate. The silliest example is probably in Durban, where the new one is being erected literally next door to the existing stadium that was used to host many of the games for the Rugby world cup. There is also a new one being built in Cape Town at a cost of R2.4 billion.

Not all the lunacy is related to infrastructure development. 

Just before Christmas, I went to visit our local municipal offices. Attempting to enter the car park, I was met by an officious official who told me it was no longer available to the public. Sure enough, there was a sign: ‘Reserved for FIFA Officials’. Now, I’ll grant that these FIFA dudes are going to have to park their cars somewhere, but this car park, which holds 1,000 vehicles, is 15 kilometres from the nearest stadium and this was slightly less than seven months before the kick-off on June 11. Go figure!  

Rumours are flying

If all of this sounds bad, here are some of the things that are going to be happening around the time of the event itself.

• All schools in South Africa will be closed for six weeks, even though the event itself lasts for only four weeks. I suppose we shouldn’t worry too much about that . . . it’s only education.
• A friend of mine uses a print supplier who has the misfortune to be close to one of the stadiums. He has been told he has to close for two weeks before and two weeks after the World Cup. Yes, you read it right: He doesn’t have to close his business just on the days of the games but for eight weeks solid! That’s approximately 15 per cent of the year. Goodness knows what will happen to his business.
• Rumours are flying that a return flight between Johannesburg and Cape Town, which currently costs about R2,000 will be re-priced to R10,000! Imagine what that’s going to do the travel budget of the average South African businessman. Of course, it’s easy to solve. Just don’t travel for two months!
• Just about everybody and his dog is aiming to let out their spare rooms to the poor visitors. Well, not so poor . . . they are going to have to shell out around R2,000 a night for a room that would normally let at about that price for a month. 

By the way, I wasn’t joking about the dogs, but I do believe that kennels will be more reasonably priced. 

What we are seeing here is a level of lunacy and greed unlike anything I have experienced in my entire life.

And what, you might ask, has this to do with direct marketing? Well, we are back to the lunacy.

Clearly, when it comes to the Soccer World Cup, money is not an issue. Not if you can afford to give the winning team $30 million. (Yes, I just switched from rands to dollars.) 

So we have seen millions of rands being spent in South Africa to promote the event. To me, this is the equivalent of somebody flighting a TV campaign to ensure that I don’t forget my birthday. Or . . . to use that other lovely expression, fighting for piece. If you can’t get my attention via all the new roads, stadiums and high-speed trains then better to give up. 

And where in this was any direct marketing? The one word answer is NOWHERE.

One of the beauties of direct marketing is that you can address customers or prospects based on their known interests, behaviour or propensity to purchase. Now, here’s a big insight: I am guessing (and it’s just a hunch) that the people most likely to be interested in the World Cup will be those people who are interested in football (you can see why I get the big bucks).

I am not disputing that the event will attract a whole new audience, such as young girls who can’t wait to see Ronaldo take his shirt off. But my core thought remains, if you want to sell football tickets, target people who are interested in soccer. 

That’s direct marketing at its most pure and best. Far better than all those millions we spend on direct marketing hoping to entice people to buy insurance policies they don’t want or need.

I have many friends who love football and who religiously support their local teams. Many of the South African clubs have big supporters’ clubs. Kaiser Chiefs reputedly has a fan base of 20 million – that’s just a little less than Manchester United. But, as far as I know, not one of them has received a single piece of direct communication. 

From one perspective, I should be pleased that we are not part of the madness that seems to have affected the rest of the country. 

From another point of view, I am rather sad . . . sad that, once again, direct marketing has been left out in the cold.

(At the time of writing this article, the rand (ZAR) was 7.39 to the US dollar and 12.10 to the British pound.)