by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Jennifer Perkins wants you.
She wants you in the stadium rooting for the Jaguars, buying beers and hot dogs and jerseys. She wants you at pep rallies and draft day parties.
Perkins is the team’s director of marketing and creative services. As such, she’s in charge of everything from helping sell tickets to sponsorships to game-day operations.
“In this market, the second-smallest in the league, there is a lot of marketing,” said Perkins, who joined the team in 2002 after seven years with Cook Marketing Communications. “The way I approach it, everyone is my internal client.”
The team’s communications, public relations and the Jaguars Foundation also filter a great deal through Perkins and her staff. Her office does all the creative work to help sell tickets, including the creation of TV and radio ads and billboards. The big marketing push, she said, will begin in July, shortly before the team enters training camp.
Aside from winning, Perkins said the best marketing tool for the team is the schedule.
“We had a phenomenal schedule last year, the best in the Jaguars history,” said Perkins, who is married to Mike Perkins, the team’s video director. “The schedule helped with ticket sales. Obviously, winning is number one.”
Perkins said one marketing campaign didn’t work very well. Several years ago the team made a strong push to lure fans from outlying areas such as Daytona, Hilton Head, S.C. and Gainesville. Perkins said the campaign required a lot of time and money that could have been better spent locally.
“Our core fans are from Duval, Clay and St. Johns counties,” she said.
Perkins is a graduate of Episcopal High and Hollins College — an all-girls school in Roanoke, Va. — where she got her degree in communications in 1993. While at Cook, she handled the Jaguars account before joining the team. Perkins said she never saw herself working in a sports-dominated environment.
“When I was in college, Jacksonville didn’t have a team,” she said. “The NFL was somewhat foreign to me. I grew up in a very sports-enthusiastic family and we certainly followed the NFL. But, not in a million years did I think I’d be doing this.”
Does she enjoy a job that revolves around football, football players and a football league in what’s always been a big football town?
“I love it.”