L-R: Nicola Docking and Janine Ross
The world’s largest football museum is to undergo a significant rebrand with the help of Poke Marketing.
Welcoming more than 2.5 million visitors from around the world since its opening, the National Football Museum in Manchester hopes to solidify their position and increase its footfall as it enters its 11th year.
Following a competitive pitch with several of the country’s leading agencies, Liverpool outfit Poke was selected to work with the museum, using their proven track record of delivering successful digital marketing campaigns for an impressive list of clients in a number of sectors, including sports and leisure.
The news comes after the creative agency recently unveiled its new Managing Director in the form of Nicola Docking, who has been Head of Strategy with the 15 strong team since its inception three years ago.
Nicola said: “We feel we can offer so much value to the National Football Museum – not just because of our robust, behaviour led, consumer empathetic approach, but because of our experience in destination marketing.
“This is the country’s only national football museum, and we are really looking forward to working with them. We will be focusing on its positioning and while it needs to be the number one destination for football fans, it needs to be much broader than that as it touches so many people at different levels. We want the rebrand to show the impact of football on all of our lives and how it has shaped the culture of this country.”
Working in partnership with Manchester City Council and with investment from the European Regional Development Fund and National Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Football Museum opened in Manchester’s iconic Urbis Building in 2012.
Its exhibitions programme enables the team there to showcase its collection through impactful storytelling, and by exploring cultural and creative themes that truly represent the role of football in society and people’s lives.
Marketing and Communications Director at NFM Janine Ross said: “We were impressed by Poke Marketing’s creativity, expertise, and enthusiasm for the project, and we are confident that their strategy will futureproof our reputation and to further engage with football fans around the locally, nationally and around the world.”
The National Football Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of football objects and archives. More than 40,000 items our housed within its official Resource Centre in Preston and around 2,500 are on display at the museum at any one time.
Nicola added: “Football is important. It sits across so much of people’s lives and creates impact, for the better. It represents positivity, when there’s so much negativity and it disrupts, when change is needed.
“The National Football Museum exists to harness that power, to communicate that influence and to be the place to experience football in all its glory. We really can’t wait to get started.”
