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04.04.2005

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on CULTURAL BRANDING, click here...

03.17.2005 "Grow Your Business Like a Weed: Branding By Example"

07.09.2004 "5 Steps to Building a Cultural Brand"

07.25.2003 "The Magic of a Cultural Brand: An Interview with Harvey Hartman"

For more Hartman Group articles on SOUL LOGIC, click here...

02.17.2005 "Telling Stories: The Brand Connection"

December 17, 2004 "Soul Logic & the Art of Keeping It Real"

November 23, 2004 "The New Brand Mindset: Organizing for Cultural Legitimacy"

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If You Build It, Will They Come?:

thoughts on cultural branding, brand loyalty...and opening day

Several years ago Ken Behring, one of the great villains in Seattle sports history, tried to hijack the city's NFL franchise to Los Angeles. This was not perceived as so great an act of treason as Seattle's other great sports villain Alex Rodriguez's defection to the Texas Rangers, but almost. A lot of Seattleites were so disgusted with the perennial mediocrity of the Seahawks, that they thought good riddance.

So what got Seattleites riled wasn't so much the idea of losing the team as having it stolen from them by this carpetbagger from California. Under the cover of darkness he snuck moving trucks into the practice facility, loaded up all the equipment and absconded to LA, assuming that the league would give him its blessing. It was the incredible audacity and, in the final analysis, the move that united a town in righteous indignation and outrage. As it turned out, the NFL was as shocked and surprised as Seattleites were by Behring's presumption.

Behring was universally despised as the man who ran into the ground what had been a prospering franchise during the Nordstrom family's ownership days. And the proof of his lack of business acumen was his assumption that he could make a success of it in Los Angeles. He had all but destroyed the franchise's brand equity in Seattle, and would almost certainly have failed in L.A. There's a reason the Rams left for St. Louis and the Raiders gave up and returned to Oakland. It has to do with the logic and magic of cultural branding. If you build it, it's not a sure thing they will come. It's got to have some mojo, as they call it in these parts. Behring and magic go together the way the polyester leisure suit goes with fashion sense.

The same could have been said about Seattle baseball. In the late 80s when I first started tuning in, the Seattle Mariners hadn't had a winning season in its history. And it was poorly run by an owner whose approach was similar to Ken Behring's. He had no sense of the magic. And as a result, nobody went to the games, and Seattle was branded a bad baseball town. It was, as subsequent events proved, a bad rap. It was a town that wanted to believe, but it was owned by people who did everything they could to give fans a reason not to. They ran the franchise like it was a local Wal-Mart - but not so intelligently. They specialized in the fire sale, and the most interesting thing to read in the sports pages was how some former Mariner was lighting it up for another team after the Mariners got rid of him.

Things began to change despite poor management because the team was lucky enough to draft Ken Griffey, Jr. who came up as a 19-year-old in 1989. He had the magic, and anybody who watched him play could not help but be smitten. His smile, his love of the game, his grace and athleticism - and his unbelievable promise. And his magic infected the entire franchise. Even today I remember as much about what happened in the early Griffey days as I do the glory years of the late 90s through the record-breaking 116-win season in 2001. The team didn't have to win a World Series; it just had to deliver some mojo.

So what's the point? A city's sports franchise is the paradigm of a cultural brand. It thrives on the emotional connections its fans establish with it, and one of the most powerful emotions is the need to believe. It's not just about winning. The Oakland A's have proven that putting a winner on the field and yet failing to generate significant fan support. The reason is obvious - the A's are the Wal-Mart of baseball franchises. Billy Beane's Moneyball is all by the numbers, and numbers have no magic. It produces winners and his teams go to the playoffs every year, but the fans can't invest in the team emotionally because it's only about the winning, not about the people. As soon as you get attached to any personality, he's gone.

Yankee Stadium is the house that Babe Ruth built. Camden Yards is the house that Cal Ripken, Jr. built. And Safeco Field in Seattle is the house that Ken Griffey, Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez and Lou Pinella built. Who are they going to build a new stadium for in Oakland these days?

The players and managers in Oakland are gone before you learn to love them. The team has no identity. Some other less expensive guy who can produce the same numbers replaces him. The Oakland A's today have become faceless and as a team lacks a soul, but it wasn't always true. There used to be magic in Oakland in the days of the Bash Brothers and Tony LaRussa, Ricky Henderson and Dennis Eckersly. They had some serious magic, but they didn't value it enough to keep it. Beane says he has to do it that way because he doesn't have the money to spend to keep players because the team doesn't generate enough ticket revenue. But they don't have the ticket revenue because he's not giving the fans the magic they long for. Fans don't just want a predictable winner; they want the human drama. They want to make a human connection.

The same logic extends to any brand that seeks to establish itself as a cultural brand. It's all about believing in something. It's all about human connection. A cultural brand flourishes where people are looking for some magic in their lives. If you can sweep them off their feet, great. But you don't have to. It's the promise that matters. It's about that feeling of hope you get every year in April. You don't have to deliver the fulfillment; you only have to point to its possibility of it, and that's where the enchantment lies.

Enjoy opening day...we will.

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