Tag Archives: San Jose Sharks

Branding, Market Research

Identity and Logo Development: Avoid a crapshoot

Whether creating, reinventing or refreshing a team’s, facility’s, event’s or product’s identity, it pays dividends to invest time and effort in a systematic and objective approach.  Shortcuts have paved the way to a mortuary of missed opportunities and costly mistakes.

Here is the process we used building the San Jose Sharks identity and what we learned about how to capitalize on the best practices of consumer-driven industries worldwide.

●          Put someone in charge who has strong project management skills and experience managing the creative process. Then EVP Business Operations, I was assigned responsibility for developing the  team name, logo, uniform design and colors by Art Savage, President & CEO.

●          Build a multifunctional team that understands the customer and is comfortable with experimentation and open to alternatives. We forged a team of freelance talents (rather than delegate the project to one outside agency) to develop the NHL’s first “family” of logos and logotypes, i.e., a primary crest (the shark biting stick treatment), a shoulder patch (the stylized fin), the serrated tooth typeface and an alphabet of its own (Triangle Gothic). Among the four designers engaged to develop the logo family, Terry Smith eventually Continue reading Identity and Logo Development: Avoid a crapshoot →

Market Research, Marketing, Organization Effectiveness

Reasoned Relocation

George/Gordon Gund (Owners: Cleveland Cavaliers,  Cleveland Barons/Minnesota North Stars and  San Jose Sharks)  . . . introduced to me by my former employer, McKinsey & Co., asked for assistance to determine the success prospects and risks at the Richfield Coliseum near Cleveland for their newly acquired, struggling Barons NHL club (formerly the California Seals); they took my assessment and conclusions to the NHL Board of Governors to help make the case for the unprecedented action, relocating the Barons franchise and merging it with the Minnesota North Stars.

See SI feature for in-depth insight into the principals.

To gain these insights, we can carried out in-depth qualitative and quantitative marketing research with the region’s pro hockey followers, event attenders and those who had defected, followers who had stopped attending. In this case, we found that the Barons attending fan base was heavily segmented by seat location preferences, patrons with the deepest hockey knowledge preferring to sit in the corners and behind the goals in mid-range to high locations, while basketball crossovers, newly introduced or lightly wed to hockey, were drawn to the red line at center ice.

Branding, Market Penetration, Market Research, Product Development

Birthing the San Jose Sharks

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Art Savage  retained me five months before the National Hockey League granted Bay Area expansion rights to George and Gordon Gund(shown here). The first CEO of the new club, initially dubbed “Bay Area Hockey ’91”, Savage asked me to craft the new franchise’s overall business plan, organization/ staffing plan, marketing/sales plan (including naming the team and designing its logo family) and week-by-week launch countdown for what became the San Jose Sharks.

Upon completion, he hired me as employee #2 to become the EVP Business Operations, overseeing all revenue streams (tickets, premium seating/suites, sponsorships and merchandise), TV and radio production, community development, advertising/ promotion and media development.

The role also included defining the culture and values of the young entity, ensuring they were synchronized with those of ownership and the marketplace.

We gained an in-depth understanding of the market and its segmentation over a 15-week period with a comprehensive mix of marketing research activity that included 32 focus groups that I moderated, “crowd group” concept testing, executive interviews with corporate and affinity group targets by phone and a global team naming sweepstakes, carrying out $350,000 worth of work for $45,000 out-of-pocket.

Having to launch the franchise twice, once in 1991 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, 40 miles north of San Jose, and two years later in San Jose when the city’s new downtown arena was completed, understanding attitudes influenced by geography and distance as well as familiarity with and interest in hockey was paramount.

Branding, Product Development

Design as a Value in Brand Building

During the the launch of the San Jose Sharks in the early 90s, graphics excellence was highly valued, from the design of the original logos and uniforms, collateral materials and game staging production values (including the iconic Shark Head Tunnel) to commissioned art employed on game magazine covers and retained as part of the franchise’s private collection and heritage. Among the stable of almost 20 graphic artists and illustrators recruited to execute this commitment, five stand out. Continue reading Design as a Value in Brand Building →

Branding, Building2Sell, Marketing

Building Asset Value that Attracts Investment

Growth potential, disruptive technology and profit economics top the list of factors influencing an emerging company’s value.

But without perceived brand value embodied in its image/reputation/marketplace validation, customer excitement/buying traction, a multi-layered “story” that piques imagination and a prominent scent of innovation and leadership, investors will never even get to the due diligence process, let alone ask for the financial statements.

We have exerted an important impact on building high order company value that was embraced by investors, subsequently measurably enhancing the purchase price of four companies and their assets.

  • In the mid-80s, it was Arena Football, helping client inventor/founder Jim Foster refine the game’s attributes and validate or repudiate his early assumptions about how the game should be played and what would appeal to fans. The end product was a compelling case for how Arena Football could succeed and should be marketed, to whom, the plan for which helped Foster find the owner/investors and a TV network to buy into his ambitious dream. Continue reading Building Asset Value that Attracts Investment →
Branding, Innovations, Organization Effectiveness, Technology/Sports Equation

Facilitating the Marriage of Sports and the Web

On March 17, 1995 the San Jose Sharks, with my guidance, the programming assistance of a St. John’s University junior and the encouragement of franchise owner George Gund, became the second pro sports team in the world to mount a web site.

We beat the major pro sport leagues to the internet, including the National Hockey League, and followed only the Seattle Mariners, who had launched their site to connect with disenfranchised fans during the Major League Baseball stoppage late in the 1994 season.  This was a decade before the blogosphere and social media explosions. An early home page appears here.

In fact, upon hearing that we had just gone live, Sun Microsystems President Scott McNealy looked at me incredulously one night at a game and exclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding! The Sharks have a web site? The Sharks? . . . How can we help you?” Between periods, he introduced me to Ed Zander,  who then introduced us to others and Sun became our first technology partner/sponsor. Before then, we had been unable to demonstrate to Silicon Valley companies the linkage and shared interests between technology and sports.

This type of partnership is now a prominent part of sports industry revenue streams and a highly effective way for technology companies to reach “C” level decision makers and tech savvy consumers.

Organizing across functions within sports entities to assess, embrace and effectively implement new technologies, however, remains a work in progress.