Is the PCB trying to do too much too soon? The desperation is certainly there
TIMES of crisis separate the perceptive from the desperate and the visionaries from the ill-advised. Even the most judicious of marketers and warriors have eventually fallen on their gimmicks and swords when they have been short of ideas.
When in the mid 1960s, the US forces could not come up with an answer to the guerrilla attacks of the North Vietnamese, they bombed their oil depots and rice fields, in the hope of economic immobility and starving them into retreat. It only made the locals firmer in the belief that they were fighting an evil ideology that bombed civilians. The oil meanwhile had been filled into drums and moved to safer locations. The Americans sued for peace by the end of that decade and by 1975 moved out of Vietnam in the infamous retreat from Saigon Embassy.
Today the PCB is in a similar panic situation and resorting to actions that have nothing to do with the problem. Their latest move to ‘brand’ the national cricket side as ‘Team Pakistan’ in the hope of bringing unity to the side, is like this lost man in the middle of a desert deciding to call the circling vultures overhead as swallows in the hope they will get into formation and fly south and leave him alone.
If the right name was the solution to all corruption and social ethos there could not be a ‘purer’ country than Pakistan.
You see, executing branding is a lot like selecting sports sides; everyone believes they know the best eleven and can do the job a whole lot better. That holds true only if they comprehend the basics of the job and when it comes to marketing it is tremendously more difficult than selecting a national cricket side. Briefly allow me to warn of the consequences of this ‘relaunching with a new brand name’ with ten steps that PCB should take.
APPOINT FOREIGN CONSULTANCY: Indepen-dent consultancy owes no obligations and has no ambitions within the organization. Interview the incumbents to know if they are right for the job they hold. Is LUMS capable of telling the Chairman that the current thinking throughout international management is to have leaders in their 40s? There is no sense replacing the middle management if the job mismatch is at the top.
MASS PERCEPTION STUDY: The most dangerous act is for management to make assumptions of what the people want. PCB may find the majority are not bothered about Shoaib Akhtar as much as they are annoyed about the way the top management is running a cold war.
SWOT ANALYSIS: Every company and product is different and every cricket board must carry out its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis. There is nothing more catastrophic than to start a mass message only to forget about it in a few weeks. If the CEO is constantly looking over his shoulder and the marketing manager inherits the slogan, will there be commitment to see it through?
WALK THE TALK: Is the management willing to practice what it preaches? It is ludicrous that they keep emphasizing team unity when the Chairman and CEO give conflicting statements. Imagine the chaos in the more anonymous part of the organization structure. Recall that nobody at PCB knew who ordered the grass to be shaved off at Multan.
FIX THE PRODUCT FIRST: At the moment there is plenty wrong with the Pakistan team. It lacks unity because there are personality conflicts, an uninspiring leader, focus on commercial interests, lack of physical fitness and faulty techniques. Changing the slogan will not make these go away.
ENFORCE BRAND CONSISTENCY: Net practice and fielding drills don’t make a team; losing a tight game does. In this case the product is difficult to control because components are living organism with differing responses to the same stimuli.
DON’T PROMISE MORE THAN YOU CAN DELIVER: Creating hype raises expectations and people look to new beginnings with more passion than ever before. It also puts more pressure on the players. Because now they have to not just overcome their previously exposed shortcomings; they are expected to deliver more to live up to the new promise that has been made on their behalf.
OFFER SOLUTIONS, NOT PRODUCTS: When people buy into your brand (in this case Pakistani cricket) they are looking for positive play that will make them proud of being Pakistanis. They love the game because of the expected fight not because they like the colours green and yellow and the prefixes.
BE ORIGINAL AND DIFFERENTIATE: When you copy another country’s long standing slogan you are in fact accepting that you are short of original thinking. The first to be disappointed in this case will be the players who will wonder if the management has the capability to be original when it comes to solving their unique problems. Conversely, an original concept, especially closer to our cricket or culture, makes for more inspiration.
SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE: Challenges need to be defined and when you are in for the long haul, with a half-baked product like the present PCB management inherited, you overlook the minor detractions and start putting in systems. And you do it quietly. The strong leader doesn’t aim to win the public perception over his abilities. And if he does he will always lose because he will then scream his criticism in public and the trust will be gone forever.
To be fair, this name change idea must be appealing to the Board that is under severe pressure to do something. In fact it is surely more due to that reason than anything else. Can’t repair the house front so let’s paint it or else what will the neighbours think.
PCB should not get embroiled in the classic trap of trying to do too much, too soon in all the wrong order. Concentrate on fixing the product and silently. The ingredients are there. Only the recipe has to be tweaked a bit. If PCB has to ape the Indians and the Australians, or the American sporting teams that have brand prefixes, then they must realize that those guys got the team right before they got the name right.
Is the PCB trying to do too much too soon? The desperation is certainly there 
