Rebranding Rebrands: The MLS Identity Crisis

[Music] we are chicago fire fc this is what we stand for this is what we've always stood for our story our city our people we stand for chicago this project got started when the chicago fire reached out to me with the plan to redesign the crest with fan engagement and community involvement throughout the process always forward [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what does it look like to be a champion it's columbus soccer club [Applause] it's the crew [Music] for the second time in eight days the columbus crew rolls out another rebrand after getting lots of fan pushback from this logo lots of people didn't like that so the team has made a few tweaks to a new design now it brings back the columbus crew name to the design it adds the number 96 which was so important teams botching rebrands it's really just become a part of the mls way over the past few years for a league that wants to create their own identity using the tagline our soccer they're not doing that and instead there are some teams who'd rather take away their own identity in exchange for the mainstream way now in this video i don't really want to harp on the fact that the current wave in mls is to get rid of traditional american names in exchange for more european styles but instead i want to really dive into the way that these clubs as front offices go about their process in doing so there's a really weird trend we're seeing recently regarding the branding in mls this trend as you saw in those first three clips are teams rebranding their club only to re re-brand shortly after and the whole reason for this is because these clubs don't take into account anything from their supporters the ones who buy their merchandise the ones who attend the games the ones who will talk about the club with their friends spread the name grow the game the ones who bring life into their stadiums and ultimately the ones who make every single one of these clubs is relevant these three cases over the past three years display that concept in the best way possible november 2019 the chicago fire ends their 2019 campaign missing out on the playoffs for the eighth time in the past 10 seasons along with that their stadium situation in bridgeview continues its dire course with some not so great attendance numbers which ranks them at the bottom of the league according to soccer stadium digest for the 2019 season good news comes in as a new sole owner takes a hold of the team in joe mansueto the first steps in bringing this team back where it arguably should be being the third largest market in the league is to bring the chicago fire back to downtown chicago and have them play at soldier field as this news leaks so do rumors of a potential rebrand that could change the name and badge of the chicago fire so let's take a look at that old batch okay first impressions very original the florian cross a great shape for a logo and something i don't think i've seen anywhere else in the footballing world not only that though it has a meaning the chicago fire of 1871 thought back on very fondly for how it brought this city together well it's represented in their name and again the fire department cross just asked that cherry on top another aspect the people of chicago love the letter c in the middle all around may be one of the best logos in mls history and definitely a favorite for the fire fans and you're gonna change it now i guess i should make this clear it's reported that the rebrand was actually put in motion before the new sole owner of the club mansueto could really do anything therefore i guess it could be blamed on the previous owner but putting that point aside how are you gonna take away this badge from your fans but not only that replace it with some absolute bs second grade design boring freaking oval and a stupid fire crown i mean at least they kept the chicago fire name but this new logo was just awful and i'm not too sure who looked at this design and gave it the green light you're gonna go from this original piece of art to whatever the hell jimmy brought home from his kindergarten art class well guess what jimmy that ain't even going on the fridge let alone on the face of my franchise no straight in the garbage supposedly according to the press release when this logo came out quote this was the product of an 18-month process that included consultation focus groups and surveys with fans yada yada yada yeah take that and shove it where the sun don't shine what fans did you consult for this because it sure as heck wasn't the majority of the fans who spoke their mind about it on social media and with the new logo they also stripped the team of their iconic look chicago fire bright red shirt white band across the same design they used when they joined in 1998 the same design worn when they won their only mls cup the same design when they won all their open cups the same design that players like ante raza wore bokeh negro war bastion schweinsteiger war peter novak war and i mean you get my point well let's just get rid of it all and now you're navy blue with red just like so many other sides in the league as you can guess there was outrage and now just a couple of years after changing all of that you announce your rebranding again because you messed up now credit to them for changing it and bringing in the experience matt wolfe to design the new look and actually taking into consideration the fans but i don't think this new logo is as good as the original but it's got the essence of the florian cross it's got the colors of the chicago flag and it's got the sea which is another part the supporters wanted but just think of what you could have avoided if you would have just listened to your fans in the first place around a year later well someone didn't learn from others mistakes the montreal impact decided it was time to shake up their supporters why not take an established club founded in the 1990s with an established name and identity and kill it montreal impact nah cf montreal the florida lease symbol that's been with the team since the beginning nah a snowflake to represent cold nice work guys you nailed it once again a tone-deaf front office not understanding what their supporters want and deciding to do something for the sake of doing something in the announcement of this new rebrand they kept saying in order to make an impact we had to drop the impact i'm sorry but what does that even mean you're telling me that in order to fix your underperforming club you need to remove what your supporters connect with you need to get rid of the iconic blue and black stripes because what they're known around the world because you've used them since your inception even didier drogba wore these shirts i don't get it why not just say in order to make an impact we want to totally change up the club to hopefully be more respected around the world which won't even happen this case is maybe the worst of all three i'm discussing in this video because at least with chicago they kept the fire with columbus i mean we'll get into that but for montreal they literally just decided to make up a whole new club and it totally backfired to keep it very brief after a lot of back and forth between the owner and the club supporters joey ceputo threatened to sell the club to an american owner who would look to relocate the team just because he couldn't come to terms with the fact that he messed up trying to change the club's identity you know it's bad when there is an organized effort by your own supporters group condemning the rebrand and just like with chicago's rebrand think of what could have been avoided if these front offices spoke with their supporters i guess in this case honestly ceputo knew what he was doing was probably not going to be taken well but he was just stubborn and that's what happens a lot these front offices feel like they have total control over the club which i mean technically they do but a club is nothing without their supporters and if you do something that is universally frowned upon by the ones who make your team successful well then you're putting yourself in a very tough situation eventually ceputo must have come to some agreement because a month or so ago cf montreal revealed a new logo which although it keeps the cf montreal name it looks like it will be bringing back the stripes to the city and also going back to their original colors the florida lease is also back on the badge and honestly i think this logo looks great and i actually thought the snowflake design was good too it just wasn't what the supporters wanted i think the hopes for the impact name to return are dead and that's a shame because i know what a club's his name means and that brings us to the final case i want to look at columbus crew now if you want an analysis from the very time this was going on check out my video where i go a little bit more in depth on my personal thoughts regarding this rebrand but if you don't remember everything in the columbus crew world was going in the right direction at this time the team was saved from going to austin with the purchase of the team by the haslems the crew won their second championship shortly after in 2020 and the following year they were opening up their brand new downtown stadium again during this time it was great to be a crew supporter it just felt like everything was coming together perfectly then a bombshell images were leaked on twitter of a new logo's arrival not the worst part what was the worst part was that the new logo contained a brand new name for the team columbus sc already going into 2021 the crew front office stripped away the team's iconic banana kits for a white shirt and now you're telling me they're taking away the team's incredible name crew once again i just don't understand how these front offices decide on these things it's very apparent that the supporters of columbus love the crew they made a whole protest about it called hashtag save the crew when the team was in the process of relocating what makes this situation even worse is that the club's front office ran this rebrand by a few supporters and those few supporters wrote up a whole document explaining what the issues were with the rebrand how to fix it and what they can expect if they go through with their plans well the front office didn't care and that sounds pretty similar to stories like in chicago and montreal and now you're starting to see this trend so the front office was told what would happen and they were still too ignorant to do anything different because they felt like they were right so they released the logo they changed the name and the message they received from the fans who are the same as the ones predicted in that document the team supporters group the nordeca led a movement to boycott the rebrand they condemned the team's actions refused to attend games and publicly pushed for the members to not buy anything with the new logo on it columbus sc lasted eight days the front office then met with the nordeca leaders and you won't guess this they ended up bringing the name back to columbus and tweaked the new logo again now even with the tweaking of the logo it still sucks it's horrible shape that doesn't fit in anywhere graphically and the imagery means nothing to crew fans and guess what the same message i've been saying applies here just think of what could have been avoided if the team spoke with the fans and in this case they did but they didn't consider what they had to say this is what this video is about the constant rebrand rebrands i can't imagine that mls or adidas for that matter enjoy having to go through these whole marketing stunts creating new merchandise promoting it just for these teams to make a complete u-turn on it a few months later to avoid this just talk to the fans talk it through with them hold meetings with them if you want to do a rebrand why not add them in the process figure out what they want and don't just make decisions based on your business now to wrap this up in a nice little bow i want to talk about cases where clubs around the world have done the right thing just to prove that number one these things do happen and number two when they do happen you can correct it much faster and with much less bad publicity than we have witnessed in chicago montreal and columbus we'll start in the good old usa louisville city a great club in the usl championship well they wanted to do a rebrand so they did they did a whole reveal released all this new merchandise and their supporters didn't like it three days later the club got rid of that new logo a decision that definitely costed them a lot of money they ceased production on the new merchandise and the ownership came out with a strong statement that brought the fans back together their team president simply said that they failed the supporters and that they're committed to making it right by exploring a new look with the involvement of their fans that's all it took three days they reversed their decision and worked with the fans and now louisville city has a new look that's been welcomed by its community next up over to england leeds united in 2018 they released their new look featuring a torso with the fists placed against his heart known as the lead salute the same day this logo was revealed there was a petition made by their supporters with over 50 000 signatures and then the logo was never used they changed it back and said that they would continue their research with the fans to decide their next steps for their brand identity and finally the last case i want to look at isn't logo rebrandings but it involves jerseys and fan involvement over in germany they have this thing called the 50 plus one rule this rule basically states that a club and its fans must hold a majority of their voting rights which means a business or a wealthy owner can't have a full say in a club's decision and that's what makes the connection between the german club and its supporters so personal for example in much of their history and in 2014 bayern munich wore home kids that used red and blue but after the 2014 season where the blue returned in their home kit the club spoke with their supporters who did not want to see blue in any home kits ever again because that blue color is the same as their rivals 1860 munich the club came to a decision and stated that their home kit will now only feature red and white and they've stuck to that ever since just another example of a club actually listening to their own supporters it's something i think mls struggles with the most some front offices in the league seem to get swept away by the idea of manufacturing a culture but the only culture is one that is natural there are some clubs in the league who do a great job incorporating their supporters but there's always room for more clubs to join that party to make mls the best it can be i want to see a team working with their supporters to better themselves not front offices making decisions that alienate their fan base the clubs that are most fondly looked upon are not the ones that make rash decisions to fit in they're the ones that do right by their fans and that's how it should be [Music] you

Channel: Anthony LaRosa

Views: 103,390

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Id: a-c_zIL4bEU

Length: 17min 25sec (1045 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2022