How do you get fans to renew their excitement about a sports team whose previous year’s performance was nothing short of lackluster? If you’re the Toronto Raptors, you fess up to your mistakes, communicate you’re on the mend and committed to getting back to playoff status.

These insights were conveyed to previous season ticket holders in a magazine-style brochure direct-mail campaign – a first for the Raptors – that was sent out at the end of July. In all, 6,000 received the booklet before the Civic holiday, and within a week, Toronto-based parent firm Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment had surpassed its objectives, according to Paul Beirne, director of service and ticketing.

The buzzword of the campaign is ‘Renew,’ which is a bit of a double entendre, says Beirne. ‘Renew’ refers to the actual goal of the campaign: to get consumers to repurchase their seats. It also refers to the fact that the team itself is undergoing renewal, from gaining a new head coach, to making the commitment to undergo training to avoid injury. As a result, the creative booklet shows various black-and-white scenes of Vince Carter and his teammates preparing and training – both in the gym and on the court – for the upcoming season, accompanied by taglines such as ‘Renew Determination,’ ‘Renew Effort’ and the finisher, ‘Renew Your Passion.’

‘The core of the team is the same guys that got us deep in the playoffs [in 2001] and we wanted to show our fans that [the Raptors] are committed to renewing their passion for the game and renewing their level of teamwork that they had in the past,’ says Beirne.

The creative booklet was developed in-house by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment’s Vision Communications and was sent out just before the ticket renewal deadline. The brochure is a follow up to the 2002/03 campaign which featured ticketbooks inside tin containers with Raptors’ ‘One Team’ branding. Beirne says it was meant to thank fans for propelling the team to the playoffs. But last year, the Raptors didn’t measure up to expectations.

‘Last year, we did not meet expectations with the fans and we shared their disappointment. As a result, this is our rallying cry,’ says Marc Leblanc, manager of marketing services for the Raptors. ‘We wanted to make the campaign as real, as honest, as genuine and as sincere as we could in terms of the creative to show the fans that the players were taking this seriously.’