It's happening! Senior Manager, Communications - Columbus Crew SC (Columbus · OH) https://t.co/KIvTDDGb0d pic.twitter.com/HtybKyZBM1— TeamWork Online (@TeamWorkOnline) December 23, 2020
By itself, this position is an investment, certainly, but won't result in much changing in terms of how the FO manages communications. This "Senior Manager" position will report to Tim Miller, who's Director of Communications, so it won't be making any decisions on its own (the entire Communications team is just "Director" Miller and "Manager" Carlos Mojica). The Crew FO page is a bit hard to read, and has changed a bit since I last looked at it. Patrice Croci was hired to be VP of Marketing, which appears as a fairly small team of its own. But the overall "MARKETING" area includes her team, plus Communications, Digital & Social, Business Partnerships & Camps, Creative Services and Scoreboard Ops. Croci, presumably, oversees all these areas, even though it's a bit hard to tell from the way the website shows this information. I say "presumably," both because of the appearance of things on the site, but also the fact that our new VP of Marketing hasn't bothered to update her LinkedIn page to make so much as a mention of the Crew. Supposedly, she began this job three months ago. Anyway, good news. But its gotta be the tip of a fairly large iceberg related to as new brand strategy defined by Croci. And we know none of the details about that yet.
I'm not necessarily saying that this is in any way related, BUT: I think something is afoot with regard to the "brand" (a term I am growing increasingly annoyed by) I dont think they will drop "Crew" or change the color scheme; those are pretty inviolable. But as we all know, nobody likes the SC in our name and even the club refers to itself as Crew96 as often as not. And I dont believe you create this huge marketing, branding and image structure and then not change anything. And if you have any thoughts at all of changing anything, you have to do it right now since while ideally you'd do it concurrent with the opening of the stadium, you can hardly change the whole deal in mid season. And waiting a year makes no sense either. So if you're doing something, like changing the crest - which I believe they will do - then you do it in January so anything new is on the new yellow jerseys when they go on sale. This is all pure spitballing, but I think they'll make some changes and they'll make them very soon.
When Croci was hired, they said they wanted to roll this out in 2021. "This" meaning a national marketing strategy for the club. Of course, then, the idea that we'd win MLS Cup, and have a guy in Zelerayan who's MLS Cup MVP, Newcomer of the Year - i.e., a perfect poster child for such a campaign - weren't known. We're so used to small-town thinking. Tweaking the crest, messing with the colors or name. All in a feeble attempt to steal some media attention in a market dominated by OSU football. This ownership group is aiming higher than that. I was, and to tell the truth, remain somewhat doubtful that they can pull it off. Still, the stars are aligning: - the championship (which guarantees more national media coverage - a goal-scoring star around which the build the campaign - the new stadium (which also guarantees at least some national coverage Maybe even a high-profile USMNT WC qualifier. As Bill notes, get ready for a very different approach to marketing this club than we've ever seen before.
I hope you gents are right, but - maybe it's 2020 getting the best of me - I can't get past the sinking feeling that 2021 will be just another missed opportunity. And I don't mean "missed" as in swing and whiff, I mean they'll watch the ball go right over the plate and not even swing the bat. Here's to hoping I'm wrong.
This was discussed in much greater depth in the "Crew to be rebranded entirely" thread back in September, after Croci had been named VP of Marketing. I found this one article in Columbus Business First that provided a peek behind the curtain as regards what the Crew want to do in 2021: https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...=40&cx_testVariant=cx_10&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s It ends with a reference to how building a national brand is - at its core - about how the team plays, and having players around whom that brand can be built. This was said before we won MLS Cup, before Zelerayan developed into a league star. Maybe the Crew will whiff on this next year. But they clearly are gearing up to swing for the fences. If we fail, it won't be for the same "lack of ambition" reasons we did in the past.
I'll bet you that you ARE wrong. By a mile. In fact, I dont understand how anyone could look at all that Haslam Sports has done here, the staffing up, the quality of those hires, the money they're pouring into that stadium, the money they're putting on the pitch, the caliber of the leadership and the. wildly evident ambition and conclude that they are badly run, clueless and bound to fail. I am.mystified.
I agree, but I can see why he feels this way--they also own the Browns, and that's not exactly been successful--until this season.
No, absolutely not. But the Browns are not the bad example that people think they are. They had to learn some lessons, primary among them being that Jimmy needed to stop meding with personnel decisions. Then they learned that Paul DePodesta - the analytics, sabremetrics, "BillyBall" guru who they paid a fortune to hire away from baseball was ridiculously smart and they needed to listen to him. (And maybe someday someone will recognize that his massive analytics and performance department, which they spend literally millions on, is helping guide the Crew as well. Players don't come and go based on some old fashioned seat of the pants "scouting" bullshit. Its all numbers now. ) He said they should hire Sean McDermott as head coach, Jimmy hired Hue Jackson. (McDermott has the Bills in first place)The next year he said they should hire Kevin Stepanski but they liked Freddy Kitchens. This year they shut up and hired Stepanski. You see the result. Bottom line, Jimmy isn't drafting Johnny Manziel any more. He's at home watching the draft from his sofa. They made Dee the CEO of Haslam Sports and its not just a title. She is a sharp executive who hires sharp (expensive) top drawer people and then let's them run things. The results for both teams are self evident. Theyre building for the long term, investing in the best people money can hire and giving them the authority to succeed. You think Bez and Caleb - who were unarguably the guys everybody wanted - came here by accident or just for the money? I'd laugh but its rude. Everybody needs to appreciate what's happening here. In both cases. Its not luck. How in the hell can.people be sitting here not grasping what's going on?
Oh, no sir. You misunderstand. I do not think that the franchise is poorly run, clueless - outside of the PR office, anyway - or bound to fail. I'm just like a jaded lover who isn't ready to gt my hopes up yet and needs to have my trust won back. And so far they're doing a great job of showing me that they've got grand intentions and are opening the wallets to prove it. This is very much a me problem and not a them problem. Edit to add: It has absolutely zero to do with the Browns.
Also, for the record, other than Baker Mayfield, the only human on the Browns payroll I can name without looking is Paul DePodesta. I absolutely love that the Moneyball mentality has finally come to Columbus and as long as he and Issa Tall - his counterpart in Columbus - are involved I will think twice before questioning roster decisions. Like I said: My apprehension is a me problem. I want to believe, but I need to be shown.
“The way they play” was said in one of the above posts. That’s an identity that you can build a brand around. I thought, and many of us probably thought, that when Croci was hired, the FO wanted The Crew to be a fashion leader or something. We’re not LA. We’re not Miami. How can Columbus be a national brand? Maybe the Heartland, family, fight for US, Hardest Working Team is something they can build on. Porter eats that shit up and seems to push it as often as possible. I’ll eat that shit up and buy more of it thank you.
For those of you who don't know, in the film Moneyball, the character of Peter Brand is Paul DePodesta.
Post on reddit saying maybe one of two changes. Columbus 96 short for Columbus Crew Soccer Club 1996 or more likely Columbus Crew 96. Neither would surprise me.
Well, we've been down this speculative path before. That Reddit post seems to be based on little more percentage markdowns for Crew stuff and remembered comments from last years supporters summit. Maybe they tweak the crest. I'd be shocked if there's a substantive change to the name. The pushback on rumors about this a year ago was so fierce, I just don't think the club will go there. I also assume we're thinking way too small here. The colors, badge, name thing has been the entirety of our world forever. But the club wants to roll out an entirely new national branding, marketing campaign, rooted in "Columbus" and success on the field (presumably hyping stars like Zardes and Zelarayan). What's always bothered me about this crap in MLS is that, for the most part, teams ditch an old color scheme, name, badge, slap some new lipstick on the same old, tired product and, for reasons unknown, expect something good to happen. Whatever we see emerge in 2021, that'll not be the model the Crew will follow. This will be a big money, professional effort. It'll be about developing a national presence and recognition that leads to jersey sales, ticket sales, tv ratings, enhanced sponsorship deals, money. Maybe it'll succeed. Maybe it won't. But it certainly will not be the kind of limited, mom and pop, in-house effort we've seen in the past.
Yeah, it's complete bullshit. "I've been thinking about this A LOT" (his actual words) does not equate to actual reality. If it did I'd be f*cking Gigi Hadid daily. 100% agree. Which is really pretty exciting not just because it's the Crew trying it but because it's something that has never been done before. For the last decade or so the Wizards/SKC makeover has been the benchmark, the thing they point to as the blueprint for revitalizing a tarnished, tired MLS outfit. MLS has been holding them up as the example for everyone, including explicitly the Crew for years. But to think of that as the bar for success is to think way too small. Those guys were trying to capture or recapture a local market, and a jazzy new name and building (plus getting rid of the stinking Hunt family) did the trick. It's all very nice, but Haslam/Edwards wants more. Much more. Garber has always wanted teams in LA/NY to succeed bigly, figuring that all by itself that will create national followings and fans. But it hasn't, and it won't. His NFL style thinking has been running this league for far too long. I can't wait to see what they're cooking up and when it hits the ground.
To Bill's point, back when the looming national marketing campaign was announced (late Sept.), I found it odd, then, that KC was even mentioned as a model. Here's the quote from Columbus Business First: There's a fair amount of stuff in there. But it's an odd collection of clubs to reference. Atlanta, LAFC and KC are very different kinds of organizations. Especially KC, which I guess I never thought of as "an extension" of Kansas City." I have great respect with what KC's new ownership managed to do there, but I certainly don't see that club as having a national brand. Portland - considering the size of the market, ability to compete, downtown stadium, the way the matchday experience looks on TV, and how the club seems so aligned with the city - would seem a closer match to what we might achieve here.
I remember my sales representative at the time a very good and helpful person. Don't remember her name but I think it was the one that left Columbus to follow our dear leader to Texas. She got a little offended when I asked her if the team was going to stop doing things like changing our team uniforms to the For Columbus colors! I could tell she didn't like the question!
Another example of dramatically upgraded marketing: Our journey is just beginning. pic.twitter.com/reOHGbJCyR— The Crew (@ColumbusCrew) December 30, 2020
Man, do these people know video. And I wonder how many more times I can watch Lucas put that ball in the upper 90 before the thrill starts to diminish. Based on the evidence so far, I'm going with 40 million.
I'd be really curious how they're producing these right now. In early 2020, the club advertised for a Coordinator, Video Production position. But it closed just before COVID - in February - and doesn't seem to have been filled. At least there's no one on the FO page with this title. I'd guess they're contracting this work out right now. Columbus has a lot of very talented small video production companies. I good friend does a lot of video work, including some full-length documentaries. This stuff is way harder and more labor intensive than it looks.