Rich Mkhondo is a senior member of the Local Organising Committee of the Confed Cup and World Cup. He has been the LOC spokesman in a lot of the more recent interviews concerning these two tournaments therefore his job must be quite important.
I caught a recent ETV News interview of his which left me quite shell-shocked. He first of all touched on the subject that I have a serious issue with – marketing of the two showpieces, or the lack of it.
First of all he contradicted Danny Jordaan, the big chief of LOC, by saying that as far as he was concerned the tournament had been adequately marketed. Danny Jordaan had, in a recent interview, said that there was not enough marketing being done.
When pressed on the fact that there were still approximately 200 000 tickets still unsold for the Confed Cup with 4 days to go, this gentleman responded that he was confident that all the tickets would be sold by the 28th of June, which he obviously assumed has bought his team time.
This means that LOC is relying on the stereotype that South Africans buy tickets on the day of the match. I hope for South Africa’s sake their gut-feel is right otherwise quite a few teams will be playing in empty stadiums during this tournament. A frightening prospect indeed. When quizzed about security for foreign fans to and from the stadium, his response was that fans have to be vigilant.
No talk of measures and systems being undertaken to ensure supporters’ safety. I will reserve my comments about this gentleman’s words and leave you to form yours. On a more positive note, Southern Sun, the South African hospitality and leisure group were shown on CNN training their staff to raise their service levels for the Confed Cup and World Cup.
The trainer was wearing a Bafana Bafana replica jersey and the trainees were being given insights into the eight countries participating in the Confed Cup so that they could better serve them, such as teaching them basic greetings in Spanish, Portuguese, and so on, in line with the participating countries.
This is the sort of example every business in South Africa should follow, I think. Lastly, Kulula Air demonstrated a very clever bit of branding that should see them leveraging on both the Confed Cup and World Cup. They are painting the visual of a ball on the noses of all their aircraft from now until the end of the World Cup next year with the words “Kulula Soccer” next to the ball.
They will benefit from associating with the two showpieces without spending the vast amounts of money official sponsors normally have to. The smart thing is they didn’t even have to re-invent the wheel. They just copied exactly what Lufthansa German Airlines did at the Germany 2006 World Cup. Smart business.
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