Los Angeles NFL Brands Discussion

[rams80]

I'd like to remind everyone for five seconds (including the folks with business and marketing degrees that impart no wisdom, competence, or knowledge) that this is the Rams we are talking about.

 

They could just really be that stupid.  There's plenty of historical evidence to support THAT argument.

 

/Occam's Razor strikes again.

[hawk36]

1 hour ago, C-Squared said:

I get the impression that most people in this thread cannot see past what they want and can't/won't acknowledge why a delayed approach *might* make more sense - not for the fans, but for the businesses who are responsible for and benefit from these decisions.

If it's pure profit, I would say trying to force St. Louis navy/gold is not a smart a business decision. Granted I haven't researched it as I would for my own clients, but I would guess the biggest return would be to create and push the popular LA blue/yellow merchandise now and then unveil whatever the new and improved look is when they move into the new stadium. I get, and have seen, the "we have this so let's sell it first and then put out the popular stuff after" mentality. Unfortunately that rarely works. Trying to market and sell navy/gold, which is a reminder of St. Louis, is a tough one.

[The_Admiral]

The problem with this is that they've telegraphed their punch: the market wants bright colors, the team knows the market wants bright colors and intends to sell them bright colors down the road, but only after an interim of selling dark colors because anything will do for now and then they'll have to buy new stuff all over again. How do we know this? They said so. My marketing/p.r. perspective, which has usually served me well, is to treat customers like adult humans who can see through chintzy machinations like these and reach out to people with some sort of sincerity: you spoke, we listened, we can't blame you for not being able to wait. Given that a Stan Kroenke enterprise is seemingly bound by fate to ultimately disappoint everyone, they would be wise to bank all the goodwill they can get early on, and one way to do that is not to play the tired-out long con with merchandise.

[DanPoplawski]

2 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Transition? Neither shirt even says Los Angeles

Didn't think I would have to explain that I meant transition from gold to white but I was talking about uniform colors not cities, think we all know that the cities have changed, catch up. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

What if the Rams are (still) garbage in two years? Does a team that has disappointed since its return still sell jerseys if the team is no good?

 

I mean, probably yes, but I never see the Jaguars on the top 10 lists.

[Cosmic]

48 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 My marketing/p.r. perspective, which has usually served me well, is to treat customers like adult humans who can see through chintzy machinations like these and reach out to people with some sort of sincerity

I think this is why you have trouble with politics.

[worcat]

16 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

What if the Rams are (still) garbage in two years? Does a team that has disappointed since its return still sell jerseys if the team is no good?

 

I mean, probably yes, but I never see the Jaguars on the top 10 lists.

If the Rams are still a poor product on the field and the stadium is half filled with decreasing merchandise sales, then you will start to see people making comments about "buyers remorse" and "fair weather fans". Which I don't think will be the case at all. LA fans are passionate about their Rams. They loved their Rams even when they were in St. Louis. But until Kroenke opens up his wallet and puts a competitive team on the field, fans are going to push back. No one wants to shell out hundreds of dollars for merchandise and tickets to see a bad team lose week after week. It played a large role in the last few years of the Rams in STL. No money was spent to improve the team. Stan knew what he was doing and fans stopped supporting the team. The city hated to see them leave but they hated Kroenke even more. Sorry about the little rant but at the end of the day, fans want to see a team win. Owners have to spend money. If the Rams win, merchandise will fly off the shelves. I see the Rams merch being a non-issue for the next 3-5 years. Gurly and Goff jerseys should become pretty popular.

[WSU151]

3 hours ago, C-Squared said:

 

Obviously, the comparison is rooted in the common thread of two teams relocating, milking the natural marketability of a new setting, and then double-dipping with a revamp. , as it makes no difference in terms of why a delayed revamp makes sense.

 

The major point you are missing is that LA fans would not buy throwbacks at the same rate if the updated jerseys were The fact that the Rams used to be in LA is a split hair in the context of this discussionalready released. The current home and away jerseys might not be as strong on their own, but coupled with throwbacks? Different story. Oh, and they will still cash in with a revamp in a few years, potentially more lucratively by taking the time to rebuild the LA fan base before creating a unique new jersey.

 

Lest we forget the lessons cKy taught us all those years ago...

 

 

It's really not a split hair.  In Tennessee, everything was new, everything was for the first time "Tennessee", and everyone lapped it up.  LA's been there.  They know what they want, and it's not navy and gold.  They have no incentive to buy anything in St. Louis colors.  If they're going to spend money, they will spend it on the royal and yellow.  

[WSU151]

3 hours ago, C-Squared said:

 

I think it is easy to view this transition through our overly-picky, faux-critic CCSLC eyes, but difficult for said eyes to see the big picture of how a delayed refresh might be a more profitable option. I get the impression that most people in this thread cannot see past what they want and can't/won't acknowledge why a delayed approach *might* make more sense - not for the fans, but for the businesses who are responsible for and benefit from these decisions.

 

What will define the success of this decision ten years from now? How fans remember the uniforms or how much money Nike and the Rams made by carefully pacing a series of merch waves?

 

10 years from now, television revenue will make marginal merchandise revenue pretty insignificant.  It's on that path now.  Anyway, merchandise waves are only good if they are successful.  This first "wave" is already losing to the original colors.

[The_Admiral]

5 hours ago, Cosmic said:

I think this is why you have trouble with politics.

 

I'm not having any trouble at all.

[C-Squared]

13 hours ago, hawk36 said:

I get, and have seen, the "we have this so let's sell it first and then put out the popular stuff after" mentality. Unfortunately that rarely works.

 

11 hours ago, WSU151 said:

Anyway, merchandise waves are only good if they are successful.  This first "wave" is already losing to the original colors.

 

Do either of you have any evidence to back these claims?

 

11 hours ago, WSU151 said:

It's really not a split hair.  In Tennessee, everything was new, everything was for the first time "Tennessee", and everyone lapped it up.  LA's been there.  They know what they want, and it's not navy and gold.  They have no incentive to buy anything in St. Louis colors.  If they're going to spend money, they will spend it on the royal and yellow.  

 

At the risk of breaking the 4th wall of this site, there is a large cross-section of NFL fans who do not care about kerning, font choice, or even team colors - they simply want a shirt that represents their team... and, again, the Rams are providing a plethora of blue/white and royal/yellow merch options for fans who, bless their hearts, are willing to paying full retail for merch to "send the team a message" about how to refresh the team look.

 

Of course, there is the very real issue that the NFL may not allow the Rams to change their colors yet and no marketing "trickery" has taken place, only broad merch options that make the most of a tough situation. I do find it interesting most of you will not even acknowledge that a team might delay a rebrand for the sake of profits, though, which might ease the perpetual frustration of the cross-section that seems to care so much. I agree that a refresh is sorely needed for aesthetic purposes - just trying to split up 70 pages of "millennium gold sucks"


 

[OldRamsFan]

13 hours ago, worcat said:

If the Rams are still a poor product on the field and the stadium is half filled with decreasing merchandise sales, then you will start to see people making comments about "buyers remorse" and "fair weather fans". Which I don't think will be the case at all. LA fans are passionate about their Rams. They loved their Rams even when they were in St. Louis.

Didn't treat them so well in the 80s and 90s in LA, that's for sure. LA Rams fans were a very fickle bunch.

[Gothamite]

If St. Louis fans can complain about Stan Kroenke, then Los Angeles fans can complain about Georgia Frontiere.

[WSU151]

2 hours ago, C-Squared said:

Do either of you have any evidence to back these claims?

 

 

At the risk of breaking the 4th wall of this site, there is a large cross-section of NFL fans who do not care about kerning, font choice, or even team colors - they simply want a shirt that represents their team... and, again, the Rams are providing a plethora of blue/white and royal/yellow merch options for fans who, bless their hearts, are willing to paying full retail for merch to "send the team a message" about how to refresh the team look.

 

Of course, there is the very real issue that the NFL may not allow the Rams to change their colors yet and no marketing "trickery" has taken place, only broad merch options that make the most of a tough situation. I do find it interesting most of you will not even acknowledge that a team might delay a rebrand for the sake of profits, though, which might ease the perpetual frustration of the cross-section that seems to care so much. I agree that a refresh is sorely needed for aesthetic purposes - just trying to split up 70 pages of "millennium gold sucks"


 

 

1) Do you have any evidence that navy/gold merchandise is selling better?  In the shops where the Rams see the most profit (local team stores, not online shops), I'm willing to wager money that the old colors are winning big.

 

2) This isn't a normal relocation.  Think about it for more than two seconds. This isn't the Oilers going to a brand new location all over again.  The Rams team in LA wears royal and white or royal and yellow.  Rams fans do care.  They're getting their team back, and they don't want the team to look like it still plays in St. Louis.  I'm guessing that even young people in LA who were born after 1990 (and have no real recollection of any NFL team in the area) aren't real excited about the navy and gold look.

 

3) If they had done the rebrand immediately, ALL 2016 merchandise would have been targeted to LA fans.  Any good salesman will tell you that the "Um, I'll wait and buy it later" buyer proves to be true a small percentage of the time.  LA fans want to spend money now.  They should have given them what they want.  

 

4) There's really no good reason to delay additional profit when the additional profit could be made now.  

 

Luckily the Raiders never had this problem.

 

[C-Squared]

9 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

1) Do you have any evidence that navy/gold merchandise is selling better?

 

 

You stated definitely that the current colors are hurting the first wave of merch. It seems that you have zero evidence to back that claim.

 

My entire case is admittedly speculative, but not based on made-up evidence. My opinion is based largely on the definitive fact that old merch is being sold to a new city, to whom said merch was not being previously marketed, refreshing the market instead of the product.

 

13 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

2) This isn't a normal relocation.  Think about it for more than two seconds. This isn't the Oilers going to a brand new location all over again.  The Rams team in LA wears royal and white or royal and yellow.  Rams fans do care.  They're getting their team back, and they don't want the team to look like it still plays in St. Louis.  I'm guessing that even young people in LA who were born after 1990 (and have no real recollection of any NFL team in the area) aren't real excited about the navy and gold look.

 

Again, you have not proven that fans wanting the old colors has negatively effected sales of current merch offerings, which, for the third time, includes scores of throwback merch specifically designed for the fans you claim are being ignored. I would not be surprised to see LA lead the league in throwback sales for 2016, a feat I doubt would be achieved if the Rams had already changed their uniforms.

 

19 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

3) If they had done the rebrand immediately, ALL 2016 merchandise would have been targeted to LA fans.

 

Which merch specifically isn't targeted to LA fans? Whether you believe the current colors represent LA or not, they appear on shelves in LA, meaning that, yes, they are targeting LA fans with that merch. The Rams/Nike are also casting a wide net by marketing a second blue/white set and a third throwback blue/yellow set. The team is currently marketing the existing look, the vintage look, and a speculative future look. Which specific set of merch is not targeted to LA fans?

 

21 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

4) There's really no good reason to delay additional profit when the additional profit could be made now.

 

1) Existing merch (without the St. Louis moniker) can still be sold at full MSRP.

2) Through sales, Nike & The Rams can crowdsource opinions on various color pallets (gold/blue, white/blue, yellow/blue) to gain real-world evidence backing the direction of the uni change.

3) Nike & The Rams can sell allegedly dated product now based on the novelty of a new market and sell newly-designed product later based on the novelty of a new product.

4) Speculatively, any increased demand in throwback apparel is sparked in part by the gold/blue scheme. It could be argued that fans would not buy throwback apparel at comparable rates if the new jerseys were already available.

[Luigi74]

From watching Hard Knocks it seemed to be 80% of the fans at training camp were wearing royal blue and yellow gold, 10% wearing the Fearsome Foursome blue & white combo and the other 10% in the St. Louis colors.

 

If the Rams decide to go all white at home is there any chance they'd swap out the gold horns on the helmets for white ones? Would the NFL allow it?

[WSU151]

24 minutes ago, C-Squared said:

 

You stated definitely that the current colors are hurting the first wave of merch. It seems that you have zero evidence to back that claim.

 

My entire case is admittedly speculative, but not based on made-up evidence. My opinion is based largely on the definitive fact that old merch is being sold to a new city, to whom said merch was not being previously marketed, refreshing the market instead of the product.

 

 

Again, you have not proven that fans wanting the old colors has negatively effected sales of current merch offerings, which, for the third time, includes scores of throwback merch specifically designed for the fans you claim are being ignored. I would not be surprised to see LA lead the league in throwback sales for 2016, a feat I doubt would be achieved if the Rams had already changed their uniforms.

 

 

Which merch specifically isn't targeted to LA fans? Whether you believe the current colors represent LA or not, they appear on shelves in LA, meaning that, yes, they are targeting LA fans with that merch. The Rams/Nike are also casting a wide net by marketing a second blue/white set and a third throwback blue/yellow set. The team is currently marketing the existing look, the vintage look, and a speculative future look. Which specific set of merch is not targeted to LA fans?

 

 

1) Existing merch (without the St. Louis moniker) can still be sold at full MSRP.

2) Through sales, Nike & The Rams can crowdsource opinions on various color pallets (gold/blue, white/blue, yellow/blue) to gain real-world evidence backing the direction of the uni change.

3) Nike & The Rams can sell allegedly dated product now based on the novelty of a new market and sell newly-designed product later based on the novelty of a new product.

4) Speculatively, any increased demand in throwback apparel is sparked in part by the gold/blue scheme. It could be argued that fans would not buy throwback apparel at comparable rates if the new jerseys were already available.

 

The new city and reborn market don't want old city merchandise.  The evidence is in every 2016 picture of LA Rams fans.  I'm not sure how you aren't understanding that.  Will some current color stuff be sold?  Sure. But not much locally.  More money is probably being spend on old colors.   If the family goes into the local store and buys all old color stuff, then that is affecting the sales of current color merchandise.  The old colors are a cash cow.   

 

The current colors aren't targeting the LA fans that want blue and yellow.  A black and pink Rams shirt could be "targeting" LA fans because it has the name on it and is on the shelves...but it's not really targeting the actual fan who wants blue and yellow, is it?

 

The current colors will probably be a net negative; the throwback looks will be a net positive.  Total profits would be larger if they got rid of the net negative.  

 

And you can argue that fans would not buy throwback apparel if new jerseys were available, but that money would still be going to the new merchandise that might not be spent on navy and gold.    In the end, the Rams are worried about total sales.  In the financial reports there aren't any line items for "Throwback revenue" and "Current look revenue".  

 

 

[WSU151]

4 minutes ago, ltp74 said:

From watching Hard Knocks it seemed to be 80% of the fans at training camp were wearing royal blue and yellow gold, 10% wearing the Fearsome Foursome blue & white combo and the other 10% in the St. Louis colors.

 

If the Rams decide to go all white at home is there any chance they'd swap out the gold horns on the helmets for white ones? Would the NFL allow it?

 

Since the helmet shell colors are the same, it would definitely be possible.

[C-Squared]

17 hours ago, rams80 said:

business and marketing degrees that impart no wisdom, competence, or knowledge

 

Expand on this. please.

[rams80]

Just now, C-Squared said:

 

Expand on this. please.

 

I believe your posting over the last few days is sufficient expansion.