MLS has traditionally let the teams market as they please on a local level, but perhaps the time has come to end that practice. Marketing, for better or worse, *does* help mold brand perception, and if the following message gets sent enough times, as it did in Vancouver and Houston in the run-up to the season - this is a boys league, women and children need not apply - then it will start to negatively impact the bottom line. If MLS actually wanted to identify itself as hostile toward women in its marketing, then it has a good start, but I honestly don’t think the question has even been considered at a high level and communicated to all the teams.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a fair amount lately. I like that each MLS team, at least to an extent, has its own identity. Some really great marketing has come out of that, like Portland’s fan portraits or DC’s current ad campaign. But then you get the teams that don’t seem to market much at all, or Vancouver’s current issues (and Houston’s, true, but Vancouver’s was a billboard that got national criticism, and as far as I can tell, Houston just posted to their Facebook). I’m glad to see the marketing moving away from solely kids-and-families, but there has to be some middle ground between that and focusing on single dudes to the exclusion (or active alienation) of everyone else. Not sure where that middle ground is, though.
Fantasy, being sexy and being 14 are in and of themselves awesome. My complaint is about a sports corporation trying to get money by plugging into its fans’ genitalia in the most base way possible with an attempt that just looks pathetic. This marketing is what you do when you’ve run out of ideas. Slap a couple of breasts up there, everyone loves breasts, even babies love breasts. And who cares if those breasts belong to a woman? They’re working for MLS Franchise Number 18, bitches.
Trashy FC - Fake Sigi Soccer, re: Vancover’s latest marketing fail. (Probably-NSFW pictures at link)
