Every club slogan sounds lame, so why would you pot this one?
Simple, but effective workable slogan that has many potential variations to promote memberships, re-signings, etc.
I'm not knocking the campaign as I believe it has potential. However, campaigns like this have been done to death overseas. It's lacking originality like almost every AFL marketing drive I've ever seen (including the Collingwood one that they hyped up last year was an imitation of an English Premier League one). Australia truly has incredibly bad marketing agencies that fail time and again to come up with originality (personal opinion, perhaps not factual all of the time). Rather than coming up with something original they'll look towards imitating what has worked overseas.
Where the Essendon fans bring themselves to shame is claiming that they originated the idea and that we stole it. The Portland Trail Blazers initiated the marketing idea in a worldwide first - which then got used in several overseas soccer clubs a year or so later. I lived in Portland from the end of 2005 through to 2009. When I first arrived there was a massive disconnect between the team and the people living in the city and even more for those not living in Portland. The players constantly getting into off court misdemeanors had earned the team the label the "Portland Jail Blazers" -- think St. Kilda only on a much bigger and worse scale.
When the Blazers drafted Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge in the 2006 NBA Draft the team realized that the team had not just two superb young talents who could rise to become NBA elite but that both guys were tremendous citizens. It ushered in a new era for the team. Therefore, the "This is Rip City" marketing campaign is born. All the Essendon ferals did was change 'Rip City' to 'Essendon' (shame on your uneducated asses claiming originality). This was further spurred on when at the following years draft the team traded notorious trouble maker Zach Randolph and with the first pick drafted the "once in a generation center" Greg Oden. Sadly, the world wasn't to know that Greg Oden was going to be a bust due to never-ending knee injuries. The city and Blazers everywhere connected. The team has now had 3 or 4 seasons worth of consecutive home game sell outs. The "This is Rip City" slogan continues to form the basis of all of the team's marketing campaigns.
Somewhere in there, I believe before they drafted Greg Oden (or shortly thereafter) the team began a world wide first with the launch of
http://www.iamatrailblazersfan.com/ which is essentially a social networking site dedicated to the Blazers. I see this as the clear direction that the Blues will be headed in the immediate future with
http://www.iamcartlon.com.au/
To the Essendon fans, knock it off. Simply because your marketing office stole another team's idea right down to changing Rip City to Essendon and failed to capitalize on its potential does not mean that the Carlton Football Club stole your idea. If anything, we used the Blazers.
I'm very impressed with the beginning of it. I fully expect much more to happen over the next several months.