THERE are two things to be gleaned from last week when more than 1000 St Kilda supporters lined the beaches of southern Melbourne at the crack of dawn to take part in the filming of a TV commercial for the club's 2012 membership campaign.

The first is that footy rules. Even in November. Even when it's grey and cold. Even on a work/school day.

The second is that membership is massively important to football clubs. Large membership totals means a stronger financial base. It exudes confidence, creates expectations and builds a sense of community.

Clubs now place massive resources into retaining and servicing their members, and seeking out new members. At the core of the latter is their marketing and the big campaigns that are built around them, hence the St Kilda supporters who crawled out of bed last week to be in the commercial.

Collingwood had similar success last year when thousands of fans converged on Gosch's Paddock to march, chant and wave their flags. Perhaps it is no co-incidence that the Pies finished 2011 with more than 71,000 paid-up members.

Credit goes to the clubs for the respective calls to arms each year and to their marketing teams for the different taglines they create each season.

It is a thankless task -18 clubs and 18 USP's (that's unique selling propositions in advertising lingo) each season. On the one hand, selling club memberships is easy because you have your own target audience to mine each year. If you barrack for, say, Geelong, you're highly unlikely the next year to switch your allegiance - and your spend - to Richmond.

But it is a tough market all the same. The football dollar competes with all sorts of other sporting and leisure pursuits. One bad season and lots of Sunday games in the next year's fixture is a membership executive's nightmare.

As for this year's messages, Front and Square turned to David Jagoda, a Sydney-based creative director and AFL tragic to run through some of the taglines and slogans created for 2012.

Jagoda was not all that impressed. "They'd all fail the AWARD School," he said, referring to the renowned 16-week course run by the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association for people looking to get into the creative department of an advertising agency.

"The clubs understand the theory and some of them do some exceptional work with their marketing and advertising," he said.

"You need a line or a catch-phrase to draw them in, but they look to me as though they were done internally, without too much outside consultation and advice. There's nothing particularly inspiring or creative about this year's selection."

Here are his views on some of the clubs and their 2012 membership slogans.

ADELAIDE: We play better with a 19th man
Jagoda: They give away a 50-metre penalty for tagline infringement. It's a copy of a few American teams and a proposition they could never own. It's one of the oldest clichés in footy.

BRISBANE LIONS: Go Wild, Go Lions
Jagoda: This was created by someone in their 40s or 50s because it's obviously inspired by the iconic Go Well, Go Shell campaign from back in the day.

CARLTON: I am Carlton
Jagoda: Hilariously bad. Carlton hasn't had much to hang its hat on of late.

COLLINGWOOD: It's Us Against Them.
Jagoda: That's the brief, but where's the execution? Side by Side (the 2011 tagline) was much better.

ESSENDON: Stand As One. One Team. One Dream.
Jagoda: Who can remember that? I bounced it off one Essendon supporter, and then called him back later to see whether he could remember it. He couldn't. Too mealy-mouthed.

GOLD COAST: Together, we go on.
Jagoda: Go on to where? It's very broad and doesn't really mean anything.

HAWTHORN: Always Hawthorn.
Jagoda: Sounds like a real estate agent created it. What is the real Hawthorn? Who is the real target?

MELBOURNE: Generation D. We bleed red and blue. Do you?
Jagoda: I'd like it better if it was the D Generation. Those of us of a certain age would remember them well. 

RICHMOND: Roar Pride. Roar Passion. Roar Power
Jagoda: Marketing 101 - don't mention your opposition in a tagline. Roar Power needs to go.

WESTERN BULLDOGS: The Western Front. Be part of it in 2012
Jagoda: The Western Front was where millions were killed in World War I. Grim and dark imagery for a football membership campaign.

North Melbourne released its membership slogan for 2012, Spirit - One and All, shortly after this column first went live.

Not the shabbiest offering of them all, with the Kangaroos stealing a line from their own theme song to help create the slogan. Several clubs have gone down that path over the years.

YOU HAD to love the candor out of new Melbourne coach Mark Neeld in the weekend newspapers.

It didn't take long to establish that Neeld is a hard man, cut from the same cloth as Mick Malthouse - who he worked under at Collingwood - and at Melbourne, will spared nobody from his wrath if required.

On Jack Watts: "He's got to develop a massive work ethic and appetite to play footy. All that other stuff . . . people don't want you in TV ads if you can't play."

On Cale Morton: "It was a similar message to Jack. Get to know the conditioning staff and the strength staff really well. You've got four months to put yourself in the picture to play senior footy."

Aaron Davey was already on notice that his place in the Melbourne team was no longer assured. The same goes for Liam Jurrah if he elects not to embrace team-first concepts such as chasing out of the forward line.

Neeld also revealed he was less than comfortable with some of the recruiting jargon introduced by the Demons and with an environment that permeates Melbourne that good at talking, not so good at delivering.

Good coaches can change the entire dynamic of the organisation in which they work. Malthouse, Alastair Clarkson, Paul Roos and Ross Lyon (at St Kilda) are recent cases in point. The early money is that the impact Neeld is going to have on the Melbourne Football Club over the next few years will be similarly profound.

WE ARE also intrigued to learn that over the brief off-season that Hawk coach Clarkson has discovered the joys of Shakespeare.

His message to members in the latest edition of Hawk Talk likes football to a "Shakespearean novel" (we think he means play) and that "scenes of tragedy and triumph are common".

He invokes the 2009 and 2010 Grand Final heartbreaks for St Kilda among the tragedies, Hawthorn's 2008 flag and the storylines that accompanied it as among the triumphs. Back to tragedy, and Hawthorn's three-point loss to Collingwood in the preliminary final, fitted that description perfectly.

"It was a dark, cold and lonely time sitting in the cave reflecting on our premature finals exit at the hands of the black and white army," he wrote.

Then comes the challenge to the players. "Stay away from the top and you will avoid exasperation, anguish, disappointment, despair and bewilderment. Stay away from the top and you will also miss expectation, exhilaration, excitement, fulfillment and challenge."

Clarkson also promised "audacity and stability" from the Hawks as the club regroups and prepares to go again.

It's thinly-veiled marketing speak and given the timing, geared towards Hawthorn's 55,000 or so members forking out the money to support the Hawks once more. But there is also a sense of expectation in his words and to read the article is to believe that the Hawks think of 2012 as a season where their premiership window is truly more than ajar.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs