David Bedford is trading in Olympic flames for Canadian footballs.
The former executive director, marketing and communications for the Canadian Olympic Committee has joined the Toronto Argonauts as vice-president, marketing and communications.
Bedford will not only oversee the football club’s marketing, corporate partnerships and communication, but also work with the 100th Grey Cup festival committee to plan for the 2012 centennial of the big game, which will be held in Toronto.
“There’s a lot of things that made the move attractive,” said Bedford, a Burlington, Ont. native. “The first thing is having the opportunity to work with people like [Argos President/CEO] Bob Nicholson and [Grey Cup 2012 chairman/CEO] Chris Rudge, whom I have a great deal of respect for and that’s a big draw. Also, I’ve been a fan since I was a little kid.”
Despite being one of North America’s oldest sports franchises, the Argos have lost some ground to other, and much younger professional sports organizations in Toronto, said Bedford.
“As the community has grown, the Jays have come in, the Raptors have come in, TFC has come in, and I think the Argos audience has been fragmented and the team hasn’t had the same brand awareness and fan following a lot of us hope and think they should have,” he said. “The team is part of the civic fabric of this city and we hope to be able to rebuild that trust and relationship among consumers and fans.”
One key to that rebuilding is enticing and retaining sponsors who are willing to build the Argos brand along with their own. Another is to engage fans year-round and provide them with a platform to express their passion for the team, something Bedford said he will bring from his Olympic experience.
“This might sound a little trite, but don’t underestimate the passion of the fans. At COC, we purposely moved away from branding the Canadian Olympic Committee and more towards the Canadian Olympic Team,” he said.
“We built quite a significant and engaged following on Facebook, we rebuilt the website with more opportunities for fans to interact with athletes–everything we did was to get Canadians to care and support the athletes. It was about connecting emotionally with the team and, with our great partners at VANOC, it really paid off. So I’m hoping we’ll be more accessible to the fanbase as it grows. Sports is about shared emotion and we hope to better tap into that.”
