Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 18, 2004
Brand A

An interesting sidelight in this story on Angels starting pitchers competing for jobs. Moreno is trying to create an Angels brand:


Owner Arte Moreno's goal to brand the Angels name was evident with the release of the club's media guide. Even though they added the best free agent pitcher and position player in baseball and feature an emerging star in Garret Anderson, no players grace the cover.

Instead, the cover simply features the "A' logo with a red backdrop that includes the word "Angels' inscribed 80 times.

Unlike last year's guide, the City name of Anaheim does not appear on the cover, which dovetails with Moreno's decision to remove Anaheim from road uniforms and almost any literature associated with the team. The Angels' lease with the city requires them to keep the city name on the home stadium, which is why it is Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

"It was determined that the brand is the most important thing right now,' said Tim Mead, the Angels vice president of communications. "That's a theme we'll see throughout the year.'


This makes me wonder if they'll go back to being the California Angels at some point. Maybe Moreno wants them to be the LA team, so he wants to distance them from Anaheim? If anyone has any ideas about this, please let me know.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:57 AM | Mechandising | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Its funny you brought this up. I was just thinking about this the other day. There's really no motive for any team to be associated with Anaheim(imo, as a non CA resident). The Anaheim thing was always purely a Disney creation. I would assume that whoever buys the Mighty Ducks, will also change the Anaheim part if not the whole name.

Posted by: shawn at March 18, 2004 09:57 AM

I've never heard anything but positive things about Moreno but the move to brand the team is puzzling. An attempt to brand the team is pretty meaningless if all you're going to do is beat people over the head with the logo. The Yankees and Dodgers are great brands not because someone wwrote a great marketing plan, but because of the things they stand for, the players associated with the franchise, and years of tradition. You have to make the brand mean something. I will say that it looks like Moreno is doing all the things that will build brand equity (investing in players most notably) but then to leave them off the cover of the media guide?

Calling themselves the California Angels again would be a very smart move.

Posted by: Steve at March 18, 2004 10:26 AM

I agree with Shawn. Disney bought the Angels and emphasized the Anaheim connection as part of an effort to create an "Anaheim" brand associated with Disney. Since buying the Angels, Disney also built another theme park in Anaheim and a shopping plaza they are trying to make into an event locale. (The most egregious of Disney's efforts to tie it all together was the renaming of the hockey team after a team in a movie with a purposefully stupid name.) It makes sense for a new owner to deemphasize the Anaheim association because it only localizes the team and he gains no other benefit from the association, unlike Disney.

Posted by: Capy at March 18, 2004 02:17 PM

I realize that using "Anaheim" was part of a Disney branding, and that the Anaheim name doesn't do anything for the team (I live in Long Beach and work in Orange County), but it's always bugged me when sports teams used something other than a city as their hometown designation. And Anaheim is too removed from L.A. for them to be the Los Angeles Angels again... it seemed dumb for the LA Rams to play there.

I mean, even if they were called the California Angels, would anybody think they were on their home turf when they play in Oakland? Were the Colorado Rockies worried that people in Pueblo or Colorado Springs wouldn't consider them their home team? And sometimes it's just confusing... I can still never remember where exactly it is that the Carolina Hurricanes or the Carolina Panthers play.

Adam

Posted by: Adam Villani at March 18, 2004 04:10 PM

I agree with Adam. Disney's renaming of the Angels was a pure marketing move on their part, but at the same time it really bugs me that we have a team like the Florida Marlins - they have another team in Florida (no Tampa Bay Devil Ray jokes, please). It's wrong for them to attempt to coopt the entire state for their own team. A team like Colorado I can almost stomach considering there isn't another pro baseball team anywhere nearby (are the DBacks the closest?).

But, shoot, we still call them the New York Giants (and Jets) and they don't even play in New York!!! How bogus is THAT?

Posted by: sabernar at March 18, 2004 04:28 PM

I don't think Moreno will make change the geographic designation for a while. It will look silly to keep switching back and forth.

I would have thought that the Angels needed to market themselves as an Orange County team more, but today at work I saw a Metro (LA area) bus in Downtown Los Angeles completely covered by an Angels ad. Garret Anderson's visage was smiling down at me from this bus.

Posted by: Bob Timmermann at March 18, 2004 05:57 PM

I think that if Moreno were to re-brand the team it would not be specifically aimed at the Los Angeles market. He wants to look south to San Diego County as well, which has a large hispanic population. And many people in SD County live closer to Angels Stadium then Petco Park. That’s what it comes down to ultimately- the distance one has to travel on So. Cal freeways. I wouldn't even consider driving too Chavez Ravine unless I absolutely had to, and I think many people feel the same way. On game nights it takes me about an hour and a half to get to the game, and I can practically see the stadium from my backyard! (I live in Lake Forest.)

Posted by: Richard at March 18, 2004 09:45 PM

I don't know. Renaming the hockey team to the Orange Ducks has a certain glaze to the sound of it :)

I doubt the team is seeking to get rid of the name Anaheim, but they may be focusing on getting people to only think "Angels"

Posted by: Loogy at March 19, 2004 10:54 AM