Durby Sports Marketing general manager is Bobby Durbac, former marketing director of FC Steaua Bucharest for a period of 3 seasons. Previously Bobby Durbac worked for 14 years for Panasonic as marketing manager and 3 years at BenQ as country manager. Out of 14 years, he spent 3 years in Vienna as marketing supervisor for Panasonic Headquarter for Central Eastern Europe.
During his work in football, Romanian press stated “now Steaua has marketing, but does not have a team” previously statement, before Bobby’s arrival, was “Steaua has a team, but does not have marketing”. Despite the fact that team performance was very poor (place 6th, 4th and 5th), Bobby succeeded to increase marketing revenue each season. During his management, Steaua has many improvements and new services for fans and customers such as:
- best signage (2 rows led, new design for interviews areas, training field and 2nd team)
- best merchandising for Liga 1 ( 22 shops in Romania, wide range of products)
- 1st football club museum in Romania, was opened in Steaua Stadium, dec 2008
- 1st football club history book in Romania (written by C. Oprisan), dec 2008
- 1st football club starting licensing in Romania (beer, stationery, chocolate, cola, card)
- 1st football club with on-line ticketing solution, jul 2009
- Set up new standard for club magazine (100 pages), oct 2008
- Set up new standard for matchday programme, jul 2009
- 1st club in Romania with official facebook page (more the 10K like in 2 days)
- Launch of mascot Stelio on 1st June 2009
- Launch of FCSB subbrand, sep 2008
- 1st stadium and museum tour in Romania, mar 2009
- Launch of club slogan, jul 2010
- Launch of player escort programme, jul 2009
- Innovative catering system in Steaua stadium, feb 2010
- Increasing club revenues from sponsorship each season (from 15% up to 100%)
Due to various changes in club organisation and dissolution of marketing dept in Jul 11, Bobby has started his own company. Based on his overall experience, any club or client can have state of the art marketing consultancy, advice and new business opportunities.