The following post was previously published in August, but its marketing lessons remain relevant.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.