Marjorie Harris told Grant & Danny Wednesday that the Commanders name is growing on her, even as a Washington Post story and poll showed that almost 60 percent of fans dislike the name.
George Perry, a former VP of Strategic Marketing for the Redskins who is now an instructor of management and marketing at Christopher Newport University, was interviewed for the WaPo piece, and when he joined G&D later Wednesday, he told the guys he was not surprised by that.
“My initial response was, you know, not surprising, and if I were a marketer currently in that organization, it would be concerning but not alarming,” Perry said. “Building a brand takes a lot of time; it took many, many years for that Redskins brand to be built, and people have been rooting for that team and that logo and that song and they've worn that merchandise for over 80 years. So, no matter what name they chose, it wasn't necessarily gonna be popular, and it's gonna take time for people to warm up to it, I think.”
It’s ‘a little more complicated’ to Perry than ‘stay the course and hope the tide turns,’ but that’s likely what will happen.
“First of all, you've got to kind of dig deeper into this poll and ask those follow up questions, like what is it about the name that you dislike?” Perry said. “We heard some talk about the fact that it was connected to the previous regime, which would be a concern, but you kinda have two choices, right? One is, you can right now say, okay, we've heard the fans, let's change the name, and that takes time and money and will take time away for people that should be focusing on other things – but you've heard the organization talk about the fact this isn't their focus, and that’s a genuine answer; they've got only a certain number of people in that organization that can work on things like building the brand, so you could, stop all that or add another project, to get a new name, but then the problem is ultimately it may or may not, you may or may not get it right.”
And then option two is, of course, stay the course.
“You can say let's stay the course and continue to take the pulse of the fans, and I would assume they're doing some of their own polling and research with the fans and their own focus groups,” Perry said. “So, let’s see if we can get it right on the field, put a winning product on the field, and if we can start winning the hearts and minds of these fans off the field through community engagement and better gameday experience, then hopefully in the next few years, the tide turns and people do start getting into it, and start accepting the name and start liking the name. If not, then you re-evaluate in three or four years.”
So how DO the Commanders figure out why fans hate the name, and where do they go from there once they do know?
“Hopefully they've got some smart brand marketers that have seen other changes in brand names or team names and kind of looked at how long it takes this kind of thing to change,” Perry said. “But again, ultimately, you do have to talk to the fans, engage with them and take polls like one, and do research to see where things land. But I think sports history will tell you that if a team wins on the field, the fans rarely care, at least initially, what the name is, and they'll get behind it. If they start winning or they win a Super Bowl in the next few years, or Jayden Daniels becomes the savior and the quarterback that everybody wants him to be, and somebody on the radio or on the broadcast says Daniels is the true commander of this team or something – it sounds cheesy, but something like that could take off. And now, all of a sudden, people are buying Daniels’ jerseys, which happens to have that Commander logo on it, and now all of a sudden you're getting that brand out there and people are liking it. So, I think time will tell, but I think kind of a knee-jerk reaction to a couple of polls over two years would probably be unwise and costly; you'd just be starting all over again, which is not necessarily a good thing when you're trying to build a brand in the first place.”
But that said, instead of doing what G&D call ‘kicking the can down the road’ and letting ‘not right now’ function as a ‘well, maybe later,’ should the Commanders com out one way or the other on the issue?
“I think in a way they have updated us by saying it's not a priority, and what I mean by that is they could come out and say we're sticking with the name, we're never gonna change it, but, look where that got the last owner,” Perry said. “So, I think they need to keep the options open, and basically say in a way that we're gonna hold on to this name and we will continue to re-evaluate it, because they're trying to do what they can for this fan base. I do think this ownership group generally cares about the fan base, and ultimately, if in three or four years after they've done everything else to try to win the hearts and minds of these fans, they decide people still hate this name, then they might consider a change. So I think they wanna keep their options open, because they don't wanna say it's forever, have people buy all this merchandise, and then turn around and say, you know what, we heard you, now we're gonna change it. But at the same time as we just talked about, it's just not the highest priority right now; it just can't be, because of time and money, and because there's a good possibility that they can turn this around with that name as well.”
And, Perry said, it’s going to be a few years before we get to a new stadium, too, so maybe that could happen all at once?
Take a listen to Perry’s entire conversation with G&D above!
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