Monday I was asked what the difference is between the Washington NFL name change and a brand like Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben’s, and why does it seem like the spurring of the DC change had to be forced by the dollars of corporate sponsors vs realizing that the time was right to finally make a switch (although Sportico reported this afternoon that the change was coming before Fed Ex sent their email to the team a few weeks ago).
There is a fundamental difference in the way consumers value a brand of a team or a sport…which is based on undying passion, vs. a traditional product where there are so many choices and they can be driven by any number of factors, from price to taste to color to packaging.
The difference in sport passion for many is not as results based, it is culturally based. To be blunt, if the product on the field isn’t to your liking, your core fan still follows and hopes for the better. If you are a consumer product and the taste or the smell is awful, you go and buy another brand that you enjoy. Now that’s not to say that brand loyalty is undying today, at least in North America. Tribal followings of a club in say, the UK or Germany or Italy, always seems to run much deeper, and are more akin to the fierce blind loyalty that you see in big time college sports in the US. Here most pro fans are not as undyingly loyal as in past generations (with the exception in many cases being the NFL) because there are so many more choices literally at ones fingertips now. The movement of players, the high prices of attendance and the plethora of teams and games to watch has broken down some element of fandom, but not all, and that fandom keeps the life blood of sport going.
You love football and live in Wisconsin; you probably die for the green and gold of the Packers. You are a baseball fan in New England, Red Sox Nation calls. You really enjoy syrup on your pancakes…maybe you take Aunt Jemima, but you certainly don’t withdraw if Mrs. Butterworth suddenly is offered up at a better price. The shelves offer many more choices than the field, and the reason for a brand change may be that much stronger when a push comes for reasons deemed offensive. If you are a team, you may not see the loss of dollars that quickly over a name deemed insensitive. Fans keep coming because they love the communal experience regardless of the result. Consumer brands don’t have that luxury of time in many cases.
So back to the naming controversy. While many brands have said they are taking their name under consumer review…only two…Aunt Jemima and Eskimo Pie…have actually said they are making changes thus far. That will still involve weeks, if not months, if not years, of redesign. For an NFL team it’s not that much different a process, but since that change involves group licensing, consumer products, and a whole series of lines that do not apply to say rice, or syrup or corn flakes, the change may be even more complicated. Neither happens in a vacuum, and consumer sentiment, social share of voice and a lot of listening will go into the process.
So why the push for Washington NFL to change so quickly this time…or at least retire the name…that makes it different from your favorite old school ice cream sandwich? Dollars from partners going out the door? Yes. Politics of a stadium move? Yes. The social climate we are in? yes. More dollars to come in through a new look? Yes. Removing distractions from players and coaches as they try to focus on a difficult and unusual season? Yes. All lead to constant pressure every day by media, fans and social, that is not as present for a consumer brand where the person in the store can just go right or left and pick another product, and maybe even over time forget about the controversial name if it doesn’t change. That doesn’t happen in sports. The name is front and center and it helps define your culture if you are a fan.
It’s before the eyes every day…its not like you can just pull advertising that you can with a brand; the coverage is inbound, and the pressure can be relentless. So much so that a team owner, forced or not, went from once saying NEVER on a change of a name…to retiring a name on a Monday in July after just weeks of heightened awareness.
What’s in a name? Some may say its silliness and not important. Many will say it’s what everyone remembers, more so than what rice or syrup you buy…and if your “taste” in your team is bad, many times you still keep drinking form the fountain of fandom. If the bread is bad, you go somewhere else.
The game goes on, and a new name is coming in DC.
