Savvy Girls Days at the Park
(a retrospective)
So, we had the focus group. We found people to attend by handing out flyers outside of Safeco Field before games and they responded on a hastily assembled website, equipped with a survey about women fans. (We sent a link to our website to all of our friends, who told two friends and, before we knew it, we had more than 100 survey responses from 15 different states, ages from 14 to 84.) We swung a sweet deal to have the focus group in an empty Safeco Field (it was November). The stadium felt a little eerie but still very cool. And we tried to play it cool, ourselves. In the picture to the right, Deidre tried to get all artsy...
Jackie, of course, made sure the focus group was totally professional and that the 14 attendees were all well fed and comfy. Jackie even hired a moderator and a note taker. There was a videographer. Deidre can't completely recall what she was doing during this period of activity but remembers distinctly that Jackie was happy. "In her element" comes to mind. It's something that's come to mind a number of times, since, as a matter of fact.
Not surprisingly, the focus group was great. We were absent so that the attendees could talk freely about us and the project w/o fear of hurting our feelings. We told them that, since we couldn't afford to pay for their time, we'd invite them to join us for an upcoming Mariners game. Our treat. Our husbands were enlisted to clean up after them and to let everyone know that they were welcome to meet us at a local restaurant directly after the focus group if they wanted to chat more about the book or baseball or just to have a glass of wine.
With the exception of one woman who had to bring her kid to a slumber party, every single focus group attendee showed up to meet the two of us. We were so happy! Of course, this was minutes after we sat alone at a table wondering if anyone was going to show up, then agreeing that absolutely no one was going to show up, and why would they, anyway? At least we had eachother. And a plate of hot wings.
But, in they walked. We all drank, ate and talked baseball, books and sports, in general. It was a great night! When it was time to bid farewell we were told by more than one woman, "I want to join this club!"
Yikes! We don't have a club, we thought. Heck, we didn't even have a book. What we had was the endorsement of 14 women. Well, as it turned out, that was all we needed at at moment. The feeling percolated for a few months...
So, we forgot about the "club" that never was and worked on getting an agent and writing our our book proposal. Deidre finally felt useful!
It wasn't until it was time for us to have the focus group attendees for a ballgame that we realized what the attendees meant when they said they were interested in a "club." When we contacted people about the game, they all said they wanted to bring a friend or two. Before we knew it, we had about 40 women there. There were focus group attendees who couldn't make that initial game and insisted that we organize another event. It was at about that time that we had our first meeting with the Mariners in a nearby coffee shop. The next meeting was closer to the stadium and included the director of marketing. The meeting after that was actually in the stadium offices. By that point, the Mariners had offered up the team's interview room as a place for a pre-game gathering (instead of the bar across the street). An idea was born.
Every event since that first one has become a little more elaborate. But they all are based on the idea of making women feel welcome at the ballpark and valued by the team.