The Westports Malaysia Dragons (KL Dragons) are the first and only professional basketball team to represent Malaysia in the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) which began in 2009; competing against teams in the ASEAN region; Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Midway through it’s inaugural season, the team wasn’t doing very well in terms of results and weren’t attracting the too many fans to their home games in Kuala Lumpur. My team and I were tasked to help with the brand identity and online marketing of the team to try to attract a bigger Dragons fan base.
Solution
Basketball isn’t JUST a game; It’s an attitude and a way of life. We couldn’t control the way the team was performing on the court, but we could try to make them look good no matter the outcome. The first thing we did was to do a complete refresh of the brand identity, from the team logo to all its key art to the team jerseys and team website. How the players were photographed also made a difference to the “attitude” that the brand should be exuding – confident, aggressive and just downright cool. For 6 straight seasons, my team and I had been going all out to transform the Dragons into the pride of Malaysia on the hard court and the most ‘fearsomely’ stylish team in the league with new looks and upgrades to the brand key art and website in each of the seasons between 2009 and 2015 to keep the Dragons ahead from an online persepctive at least.
Facebook was where the magic happened online for the Westports Malaysia Dragons. From team news to play-by-play posts on game-days to the ever-popular video highlights; DragonFans were constantly kept up to date with content that is both highly informative and engaging. By providing instant and relevant content on the Dragons Facebook page, their Facebook fan base grew from 3,013 fans in 2009 to 45,822 fans at the end of the 2014 ABL season. All this being achieved organically with zero online media advertising spent. That translated in the real world too with the Dragons home games being constantly sold out and the stadium unofficially being regarded as having the most fiery atmosphere in the league. The attitude we were trying to create for the brand may have rubbed off on the players’ games as well, culminating in their first ever ABL Championship win in 2015.
The “Are You the Ultimate DragonFan?” Facebook Game was developed to test and reward DragonFans for their unfaltering loyalty to the Dragons – pitting them against sets of random questions about the Dragons and a clock. With loads of awesome prizes up for grabs, the game garnered a total of 17,411 user plays over a 6 week period and as an added bonus, amassed an additional 12,000 Facebook fans organically for the KL Dragons.
It has been quite a journey and evolution from when the Westports Malaysia Dragons were first formed to being one of the teams to beat in the ABL. My team and I could not be more proud to think that we may have played a small role in that through the branding and marketing of this great team.
