I just spent a bit over a week in western Melbourne and saw absolutely zero promotion or mention of the club in the entire time I was down there. No posters, no radio or TV ads, nothing. Did see a few billboards advertising Tarneit itself though!

It was only when I went for a drive into Geelong itself that I saw a Western United banner on the side of the road just before getting into the city. Nothing around the stadium either.

Very hard to connect when it's seemingly invisible, even to someone who was actively looking for it.

Wow a bit over a week. I guess that's long enough to make a proper assessment. 

Not pretending to be a marketing expert, only reporting what I saw (or rather didn't see).

If you ever have the misfortune to visit Gosford there's shit promoting the Mariners everywhere down there, just for comparison.

You went to western Melbourne?  Which suburb??

Altona mostly

Of course you wouldnt see wu stuff in altona. 

I saw ads for WU at Altona Gate shopping mall just the other day, although in fairness it's probably a bit more inner than their core target area.

Fair enough. So honest question then... why not?

Melbourne’s geographical allegiances are not my forte but I was of the understanding that WU wanted to claim everything to the west of the Westgate Bridge. Is Altona/Williamstown/Laverton etc. not “west” enough? 

Wu  are supposed to be based in tarneit.  They have no advertising in the wyndham area.  Why would they advertise In hobsons  bay?

The club is literally a waste of space. 

You'll find inner western suburbs such as Altona and Willi have older demographics. I'm not saying they shouldn't target the Hobsons Bay region, but they will probably get more traction in suburbs with younger families such as Hoppers Crossing and Point Cook. 

Cheers for the response, that makes things a bit clearer. 

The issue with WU all comes down to the stadium situation and not so much the geographical region. It's easy to make the mistake in thinking that the Western suburbs didn't have a HAL team to support. It's simply not true. They had two. For over a decade now, people in the western suburbs have had MV and MC to support and plenty of people from the west support one of those clubs. Neither MV or MC are strictly associated with a specific region and their fans are spread all over. For many people in the western suburbs, it is actually quicker and easier to travel (via train) to a game at Marvel or AAMI than it is to travel to Geelong.  Victorians in general are very accustomed to travelling into the city for both sporting and non-sporting events. If you want to see top level AFL, NRL, Cricket, Tennis, F1, concerts, theatre, etc, you travel into the city. Although WU have been fairly good on the pitch, they haven't really offered a genuine point of difference yet. That's where the Tarneit stadium comes in. The stadium changes everything. Until then though, there is simply not enough reason to follow WU over MV or MC. IMO Rudan isn't helping matters either. With Muscat gone, football fans need a new coach to hate on. Rudan has been slipping into the role nicely. Always difficult to attract fans when the coach is so unlikable.

I agree that the stadium is the deal breaker, and that's why it is so disheartening at the moment.

The process to START asking for planning permission has not even yet begun.

It really is becoming critical at the moment.

They MUST START the process to ask for planning permission asap, or at the very least, advise the public when they will be ready to START the planning process.

I remember some using the expression "shovel ready".  That was over a year ago, actually getting on to 15 months ago.

I don't know about the stadium, but the club itself is starting to look a bit 'shovel ready'.   

Ah the stadium.  That vaunted rumoured stadium 

Must see the stadium FIRST, then get invited into the ALeague. FFA operate on promises and this is what happens! Someone should apologise to
Dandenong,  South Melbourne or Canberra Utd.

Minutes show the detail of a Shovel ready project - https://councilpapers.wyndham.vic.gov.au/Open/2019/SPE_17122019_MIN_2621_AT.PDF 
(Example of current wyndham project)
We will see this type of detail before any digger enters the land in question for the stadium 

who in their right mind would build a stadium first in the hope of being admitted? ridiculous. 

true, unlikely it would ever proceed like that, so that means a bit of a Catch-22
when the day comes that we have full P&R, it's possible you might see some investment at the level below, but hard to believe it would be a full on $200 mill capital investment even then

They most definitely could have worked on some of the paperwork in advanced though, working towards having the construction begin within months of receiving their bid accepted. Or alternatively the FFA could have held them off for a season, like MacArthur with the expectation that they get their stadium started and partially progressed before they enter the league.

Technically they could, but that still runs the risk of losing money if the bid is unsuccessful. The planning process is not cheap. The architects, designers and engineers alone costs a small fortune. So, it still comes back to that catch-22 of spending money on a venture that may or may not exist. Waiting for the licence before any work on the stadium was conducted was always going to be the way to go. Everyone was sceptical when they said the project was 'shovel-ready', and rightly so. However they weren't bidding for a licence to build a stadium, they were bidding for a licence to run a HAL club. The FFA have no stake in the stadium, all they cared about was the fat licence fee WU were offering.

The western bulldogs are advertising the Footscray match on their Facebook page 

:)

WUN v CCM 84.2 minutes " The 6000 crowd would look better in a rectangular football stadium, but that is coming in 2-3 years" or was Yea's sounds the same when spoken.

Of  course . It is their stadium that wu are going to use

10/10 comment

a lot of people are saying melbourne city should play in a smaller stadium so it will be interesting to see how WU go in footscray 

Gulum returning to Turkey: https://www.wufc.com.au/news/western-united-player-update-ersan-gulum