Message Strategy & Branding

A message of hope, positivity, and togetherness in these trying times

While the brand came together quickly due to necessity, it was a constant struggle to maintain what we aspired as events transpired. Like a political campaign where the candidate’s personality must be established as quickly as possible for relatability, the stances we espoused needed to be flexible enough to achieve our tactical messaging of the moment (aka a populist message) while reinforcing and being consistent with our brand personality.  

This is a long way of describing two key brand and messaging laws that were established almost immediately:

1. We used a simple, relatable human brand voice that was always speaking in a way that elicited empathy, created inclusion, and empowered action.

2. No matter how dire our plight looked publicly, no matter how warranted mudslinging may have been, we always exuded positivity. 

The strategy behind building the brand like this was obvious. The world is currently full of outrage, causes, and protests. While many of them are vitally important in their mission, there is a psychological pattern as to how these are interpreted depending on if you agree with X cause or are against it. We saw these tactics and voices serving as a lightning rod for those agreeing with the causes and easily derided by those who did not agree. One thing they always lead to is division. Instead of appearing outraged or coming across in a “woe is me” way, we wanted to unite. We united fans from rival teams, we united the entire league, we united the soccer world, and we even united general sports fans.

We did this by going big. Everybody in the world can understand the message of “don’t take our community away.” Anyone even remotely interested in sports, let alone th world’s game, can understand how sports, especially soccer, is an inclusive human experience that brings people together. So instead of sending frantic, anxiety-inducing “help, we might lose this!” messages into the world, it was clear the correct approach and tone of voice was to include the audience. “Nobody should lose something so beautiful – something every human being enjoys. If you agree, stand with us.” Or you may know it better as one of our slogans: “If it can happen in Columbus, it can happen anywhere.”

Not only did we elicit empathy with a voice that united, but we wanted to make standing with Save The Crew feel like the right thing to do as well. We wanted to make it rewarding. Just like opposing stances on issues create division, the world is also growing increasingly negative. Our always-positive voice and how we were handling our battle with optimism and belief was met with open arms to those who had decided they agreed with our mission. It was cited as one of the key traits of our brand that made it so powerful. Yes, there were times things looked bleak. Yes, there were certain maneuvers made by prior ownership (we never publicly used the name of the owner we were at war with–by design.) that warranted us to go dirty. But being positive, once it was a rule of the brand, guided everything into a much more powerful and rewarding message to behold. The rewards for believing and standing with Save The Crew were that of emotional belonging to something that was good.

Mission Statement

Early on, we needed to define what we stood for. I drafted the mission statement that would be quoted around the world, and remain unchanged all the way through the finish line.

You can download and read the Save The Crew Mission statement here.

Fan Letter

One of our first action items was to draft an official letter to the league and its ownership groups. Not only did this letter get almost 20k signatures, but for each signature we populated the site with a fan’s initials and MLS or global soccer club they support.

Noteworthy is that this letter is the first documented use of the concept of our soccer team owner being “a steward of the history and hearts of a proud local community”—a sentiment that has been relayed in countless speeches by our new local owner, Dr. Peter Edwards Jr.

Clearly, the powers that be were paying attention.

Visit the Fan Letter page on the Save The Crew Website here.

Click each topic below for a snapshot of my role with Save The Crew

LEADERSHIP
• Organizational consulting
• Creative vendor procurement & partnership

MESSAGE STRATEGY & BRANDING
• Messaging & media response
• Brand ethos
• Consensus building across sectors and audiences

CREATIVE DIRECTION, CONTENT DEVELOPMENT, & ADVERTISING
• Creative media
• Traditional media campaigns
• Social media campaigns

MARKETING & EXPERIENCE ACTIVATIONS
• Events & Appearances
• Community & Organizational Partnerships