If the New England Revolution were to rename/change logo, what will it be?

I say keep the name but change the logo.

 

can't argue with that. rebranding covers overhauling the entire brand, on the field and off.

 

I believe the expression is, "You can't polish a turd."

 

You disagree that the Revs brand association is negative?

 

It's fine that the name pays homage to history. I think that is overrated for corporate entities, but it could play well in certain situations. Clearly it doesn't play well here, as they have one of the most anonymous sports brands in the country.

 

Sort of, actually. I agree that to those that pay attention and care it's extremely negative. But to those do don't pay enough attention that very fact has somewhat shielded them from the realities. I think that people are vaguely aware that the revs have not been successful but I doubt they know the extent of the incompetence.
A rebrand won't fix that and also the people who care won't need a rebrand if they would just fix things.

So, no, overall I disagree with you as to the degree that the brand is damaged. Lets keep in mind your knack for pessimism and broading over situations.

 

I actually like the Revolution as the team name, logo change might be as far as I would go...

The idea that the brand is tainted due to the losing.. in some ways its correct, but as everyone knows winning cures everything...

I recall a time long ago when "New England Patriots" wasnt exactly a big brand within the NFL, that is until they started putting wins and titles together....When those good years finally do come it sure would be nice to have people say they stayed for the entire journey without resorting to a quick aesthetics fix...

But yeah, fix ownership first.

 

The brand is tainted by far more than just poor results on the field.

 

Not this again.

 

Their negative brand connotation goes far beyond those who pay attention. They are the butt of jokes of people, and have been since day one, in all different levels of attention. It really doesn't have anything to do with how intelligent or incompetent they've been run. Most people in New England think the Revs are minor league and a bit of a joke, and that doesn't matter if they are season ticket holders, or casual observers, or fat radio talk show hosts. It spans the spectrum of the New England sports audience. It has almost nothing to do with how successful, or not, they have or haven't been on the field. It has everything to do with how they have projected themselves in to the public. Which hasn't really ever been good, and the damage of 17 years worth of shoddy marketing, has resulted in a brand that is looked at as a joke. The brand is looked at as minor league, and I'm not sure anyone could dispute that.

 

The Patriots rise in popularity had more to do with how they reached out the the public after the ownership change, and riding the wave of NFL popularity in the early 90's. So, unless the MLS is going to see a meteoric rise in popularity and the Revs see similar changes to their operations, they will likely not be able to save the brand the same way the Patriots did.

Also, keep in mind that the Patriots brand had cultivated itself pretty strongly through the AFL and especially into the late 80's. Obviously they had some laughably bad seasons in their early days in the NFL, and attendance and fan interested fluctuated with results. They also had issues with stadium security and being banned from MNF etc...But they were never as anonymous in their own market as the Revs are now.

 

Funny, you never mentioned starting to win lots of games as a factor.

 

Their popularity began to rise before they won games.

There is also a fundamental difference in how an MLS franchise can be successful, compared to NFL. The grassroots institution of the NFL already had a major influence over the average sports fan. Even before, and during the early days of the Patriots, football was extremely popular around here. Maybe not as much as it was in other pockets of the country, but it was certainly followed intensely. The NYG had a huge contingent of fans around here simply because they were on National TV and radio, and were exposed more to the audience than even the Patriots were. So, the Patriots, in the early days, (somewhat similar to the Revs) had an exposure issue. It had less to do about winning as it did about market presence. But come the late 70's and into the 80's, football was well established nationally, and here. Some of that brought on by the sporadic success of the late 70's Patriots, but mostly due to the exponential growth in NFL popularity nationally. It was literally only a matter of time before the Patriots would become more popular and be an established brand in the market.

Sure, the winning took them from being a successful franchise, to the model, but you are talking about an entirely different paradigm as compared to MLS and the Revs. The MLS is still by and large a very small league. I'm not even sure how it would compare to the early days of the NFL, as soccer as an institution is still nowhere near what football was in a lot of portions of the country. The Revs don't really have the luxury of riding the coattails of success of a sport, as the slow progressive growth of soccer and MLS can potentially leave a fledgling brand behind as it withers. Soccer is still seen as socially and culturally invasive in a lot of ways, across the country. Football never had that problem, at least not for the last 60-70 years. The Revs [should be] responsible for the growth of soccer in this market, not necessarily to benefit from the established soccer loving market, as the Patriots did with the football market. Without sufficient investment into the brand and sport, there will be no tide to carry them ashore when they begin to drift from relevancy. And the Revs have been adrift for well over a decade.

There was a time when the Patriots were certainly looked at as a bit of a joke, and possibly the laughing stock of the league at times. However, they were still the laughing stock of a league that was growing at an insane rate, and taking over baseball as the countries past time. They could always afford to be pathetic and wait for their time to shine, as it happens with every franchise in the NFL. You have to put a franchise in the middle of nowhere Florida, and have 2 decades of putrid results, to have a team that is really "struggling". Comparatively, in MLS, you can have a team in a huge market, that doesn't necessarily have the market presence to overcome the limitations of the league's small market.

As I said above, it was literally only a matter of time before the Patriots would be a success. They needed some ownership stability, and a competent front office for sure, but more than anything they needed to ride the wave of the NFL into the new millennia. Since they did, and they figured out how to win on and off the field, we've seen them grow into the standard to which all other, not only NFL franchises are measured, but sports across the globe. I doubt, very surely, that anyone has the delusions of grandeur that this franchise can become the standard of success in the short term. They have too many fundamentals that they need to change to be able to get to that level. So winning is not going to solve their problems. They could win the next 5 MLS cups and their brand would likely only improve slightly within the Boston/New England market. Their brand is so damaged and/or anonymous that getting people to even see or understand that they've won would be an entirely difficult task on it's own. It is even entirely possible that the Revs winning an MLS cup could possibly damage the leagues credibility around here, as the brand and franchise are looked at as such a joke, that people could think that a team this laughable winning a championship only shows the minor league level of MLS.

The point is: this brand isn't dying on the vine, it is dead. There are a small few who love the brand, and even they are critical. Then there is another small market of people who think the brand is decent and will consume it from time to time. The rest of the soccer and potential sports market in this region think the brand is a complete joke and minor league. Many of these people are former supporters of the Revs. I know you think the brand itself is identifiable with New England, and the Revolution motif plays well, but the reality is that the potential market for this franchise think the team is a joke, on the field and off, and their association to the franchise is the brand itself. As others have said, they need to overhaul a lot of things, getting a stadium being one, before they can rebrand. I totally agree with this, but the Revolution brand would likely take decades to recover from the damage that has been done since the franchise began. Anytime a company looks at that longterm of a recovery period, rebranding is not only a good business decision, but a necessary one.

 

Wow, what a great response! And no nastiness either! Thank you!

 

**** you!!!!!

 

Also, I know where you are coming from with the Revs current brand. I think it could really play well with a new franchise, or even one being rebranded. The issue isn't over whether the brand could play well here in a vacuum. It is over the reality of the current association to the brand. Which is, at best, damaged beyond repair.

 

I think that perception comes mostly from being caught between two camps - those who cling to the traditional big 4 sports and still disparage/ridicule soccer any time they can and those who come from long soccer traditions from elsewhere and don't want to accept that the Revs/MLS could ever be seen in the same light as the team/league in the old country.

Even though we keep expecting it here, what success MLS has had, hasn't come from euro immigrants with a soccer tradition. It's more because of young americans who don't feel threatened by the entree of a new sport on the scene.

There's nothing wrong with the name or logo, and re-branding would be seen as what it is - a facade that does nothing to deal with real issues. Presenting a more entertaining and exciting product is what's needed.

 

Rebranding is overrated. Does anyone think differently about Comcast now that they call themselves Xfinity? Everyone knows it's still Comcast. You can't hide your history by changing your name.

The Patriots hit rock bottom under Victor Kiam with the sexual harassment scandal involving a female reporter. They couldn't get any lower. What turned it around? A new owner, James Orthwein, took over, and signaled that things would be run differently with one move: hiring Bill Parcells. That was all it took to fix the "brand damage" done to the Patriots. Pats games have been sold out ever since.

 

While I am in complete agreement with you as to what the potential market is for this team, I disagree that they don't hold negative connotations to this brand. I've really not considered those who are the average big-4 sports fans to even be apart of the potential market. It's of actual soccer fans and the demographic of potential fans where this franchise has damaged it's image so severely that they are either looked upon as a joke or are completely anonymous.

 

The comparison to Comcast/Xfinity is completely erroneous, as Comcast was already the largest brand cable provider in the country. Rebranding is not overrated for damaged beyond repair brands. When a company tries to do it for PR reasons, like Comcast, then sure.

That is completely ignoring the perfect storm timing of when the team was sold. It was literally on the crest of the NFL wave.

 

Quick question for all:

Do you feel that outside of this grumbling Big Soccer community that the brand is actually Damaged, or simply Irrelevant?

As a counterpoint set of fans I've witnessed, we've got the enthusiastic NETID crew. Dunno how expansive these fans and their ilk are, but I have to wonder if there is some positive momentum that the FO and Marcus can actually latch on to in order to repair this brand rather than rebuild.

Overcoming irrelevance is much shallower slope.

Kevin D.

 

It's both. I'm pretty heavily involved in the Massachusetts soccer community, and they are largely looked at by a majority of the people I know and have talked to over the years, as minor league. These are people who are huge soccer fans, not necessarily immigrants, and have expressed their wishes to go to live local soccer games. The reason they don't, is because they think the team is a joke.

There is also an element of irrelevancy. In a lot of the immigrant communities, they are fairly anonymous. People may know they exist, but they don't know how to consume the product, or when the product can be consumed. The Revs have tried to fix this recently, but it's a hard task when they finally bring some of those people in...and then they see what a joke it is. Then, a lot of them become a part of that first group I discussed above.

There is certainly a fervent group of fans that will consume this product no matter what. That market is very very small.

It's going to be near impossible for them to build a successful brand in Foxboro, no matter what that brand is, or how they market it. Enough people will never regularly go to Foxboro to watch games, no matter how good or bad this franchise is.

 

YES! The rebranding in terms of colors and logos, the switch to Blue and Flying Elvis coincided with the arrival of Parcells, because a major fundamental change accompanied the move. Bill Parcells was a serious coach, and immediately the Patriots when from the Pitty Pats to a legit franchise, even going 5-11, it was clear the direction was new, Drew Bledsoe, franchise QB etc. This is where the Revs are. They are the 2-14 1992 Pats QB'd by a succession of Hugh Millen, Tommy Hodson, Scott Zolak (architect of their 2 wins) and Jeff Carlson. They are at rock bottom.

1 major game changing coach and DP could still save this franchise, but it would have to be REAL big. Like Bob Bradley and Demba Ba, for example. At this point it would have to be THAT BIG. Parcells and Bledsoe was that big, and ownership only needs to look at the fate and history of their own franchises to see the solution. They just dont want to make the investment and do it.

 

YES! The rebranding in terms of colors and logos, the switch to Blue and Flying Elvis coincided with the arrival of Parcells, because a major fundamental change accompanied the move. Bill Parcells was a serious coach, and immediately the Patriots when from the Pitty Pats to a legit franchise, even going 5-11, it was clear the direction was new, Drew Bledsoe, franchise QB etc. This is where the Revs are. They are the 2-14 1992 Pats QB'd by a succession of Hugh Millen, Tommy Hodson, Scott Zolak (architect of their 2 wins) and Jeff Carlson. They are at rock bottom.

1 major game changing coach and DP could still save this franchise, but it would have to be REAL big. Like Bob Bradley and Demba Ba, for example. At this point it would have to be THAT BIG. Parcells and Bledsoe was that big, and ownership only needs to look at the fate and history of their own franchises to see the solution. They just don't want to make the investment and do it.