Flashback: Mis-marketing the Portland Trail Blazers

NOTE: This is an interesting fragment I've had sitting in my drafts folder for almost a year. Almost to the day. And given the recent news about the Blazers potentially being on the auction block, I thought I would release this incomplete thought. Because, truly, a fragment is much more representative of the team than a complete thought. Now, now, don't you fret, snookums. I've more bile to spill on the subject. Just consider these misaligned snippets a foul-tasting hors d'oeuvre.

ORIGINAL DRAFT March 10, 2005

Okay, this one may be a little rambling. So, buckle your seat belt, gentle reader, it could get bumpy. (If you already feel like you know about the public relations nightmare that is the Portland Trail Blazers, please feel free to skip ahead.)

Here, in scenic Portland, Oregon, we have a major public relations problem. Oh sure, the scenery is beautiful, the weather is mild, and the people are friendly. But we have a problem, a plague, that really takes away from our fair city, especially in other towns throughout the United States. That bundle of bad PR is the Portland Trail Blazers, a walking, talking, and breathing marketing nightmare.

When I first moved to Portland, and even before that, it was love, love, love for the Blazers. Memorial Coliseum was always sold out. Always. The players were seen as positive influences in the community. They were respected and revered. They were All Stars in the league. Unfortunately, slowly but surely, that began to fade. And it morphed into what we have today.

Some would argue that the slide began with the 1984 NBA draft. In the second slot, Portland selected Sam Bowie at center. Who was chosen next? By Chicago? Shooting guard? Anyone? Anyone? No worries. Portland (well Beaverton) would eventually get a piece of him, as the folks over at Nike turned him into a marketing masterpiece.

Now, some would argue the erosion occurred when Blazer management started breaking up the team that met up with Jordan in the 1992 finals. Nevermind that these guys continued to play as All Stars with their respective teams for many, many years to follow. And still others would say the most recent slippery slope began by trading, Brian Grant, one of the most well-liked Blazers in history, and others for Scottie Pippen. And some would say that hit a new low, when they fired coach Maurice Cheeks, just recently.

But none of that really matters. They continued to build a team of unruly upstarts. They tried to find young talent. They tried to build a team. Everyone does it. But why is it that no one has quite the PR problem that the Blazers do? You can’t tell me that every other NBA team doesn’t have just as many troublemakers as the Blazers. So what’s the problem?

Well the front office thought the way to fix the problem was to rebrand the team. Not change their identity, but change the Blazer brand. Okay? Got it. Good. Hold that thought while we jump tracks.

I'm reading the paper today. I don’t intentionally read The Oregonian, but sometimes it's laying there, minding its own business, and I get suckered. And I start reading it, unaware. Unwilling victim. Anyway, I read an article on Michele O'Hara. The name sounds familiar. Where do I know that name? And I see that she's renaming her brand consultancy, from Nerve to Luminous.

Interesting. Nerve Nerve Nerve. Oh yeah. Nerve was the agency that was spun off from the Thomason Group, a local car dealership. While their creativity brought the auto group a ton of recognition, it also started to erode some brand equity that they had had built.

Now, I also discover that Nerve was brave enough to try to take on the worst marketing/public relations season in Blazer history.... (At this point, I really start trailing off into completely unintelligble gibberish. There may--and I stress may--have even been a few expletives. Suffice it to say, the campaign didn't exactly "work out," given the current status of the team. Or maybe it did? They did manage to bring the public opinion of the team to all new lows. Perhaps this was the intent?)

Technorati tags: Portland, Oregon, Oregonian, Trailblazers, Marketing, Nerve, Luminous