On July 23, the Cleveland Indians took to Twitter and announced a rebrand to the name Cleveland Guardians with a stirring video, narrated by Tom Hanks and scored by the Black Keys. This news came
after the team had conversations about changing its name with local community members and Native American groups in the summer of 2020.
The MLB team didn’t make this change lightly
or base it on feelings. Its strategists used data to inform the rebrand, surveying 40,000 fans and conducting 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders, and front-office personnel,
according to its website.
The one thing they apparently didn’t consider? The team's future digital presence.
The OG Cleveland Guardians
If you go to
ClevelandGuardians.com today, you’ll find a website for the roller derby team by that same name. The Cleveland Guardian roller derby team has been around since at least 2014 and not only owns
the domain, but also the corresponding Facebook and Instagram handles.
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Yes, the multimillion-dollar sports team, after dedicating hours of interviews, thousands of surveys, and who knows how
many hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars, forgot to check that the domain and social handles were free before choosing a rebrand.
Queue the Cleveland Guardians Trademark
Battle
On the same day they dropped the rebrand announcement on Twitter, the MLB team applied for a trademark. Four days after the baseball team announced their rebrand, the
roller derby team by the same name applied for a trademark.
It might seem that the baseball team has the advantage as the first to file, but the U.S. law often awards trademarks based on
the first to use rather than first to file. The roller derby team has sold branded merchandise since at least 2007 and now has an online store to bolster their trademark application.
What
does this Cleveland Guardian Hoopla Mean to Marketers?
Honestly? Not much.
The Cleveland Guardian saga just goes to show the dangers of deprioritizing digital initiatives. This
entire issue could have been solved if someone had Google searched the name, looked at digital properties, and made inquiries at the beginning,
It all sounds a little like a modern-day
fable:
Multimillion-dollar brand in a billion-dollar industry spends a year and untold dollars on a rebrand, focusing on the brand story, the merch, and the optics, only to realize in the 11th
hour (8th inning?!) that they forgot about their digital branding.
Alternatively, local brand stands their ground against incoming branding behemoth and (maybe?!) walks away victorious.