San Diego-based Brandiose (@Brandiose) is known for its design of sports logos, notably some of the most eye-catching designs throughout MiLB. Working in that space makes social media a natural fit for unveiling the firm's new work, which includes 60 teams on retainer. Partner Jason Klein, whose favorite logo is the Padres' swinging friar from the '80s, said Brandiose took its lumps as it began to utilize various social media platforms. Klein: “What we found, in the first year, we thought we would link our social media calendar with the sales season. We have a monthly newsletter that shares business ideas, so we tried to link our social media calendar so there was some congruency. It failed. It was a good test, but we found that people, and this is going to sound obvious, they wanted to know what was happening now.” He added, “Now, what gets unveiled today gets linked on social media today.”
Crawling before you walk:
We’ve been dabbling for five years, but we only took it seriously in the last 18 months, and primarily because we are B2B. We had a hard time reconciling whether being B2B makes it worthy of dedicating the time and energy and ad creativity to it.
Peak performance:
The busiest time is what we have coined “Logovember,” which is when all of the new logos and uniforms and team names are unveiled in the minors. It is when there are wholesale changes in franchises. People want to see how the sausage is made; they want to see the final sketches that don’t make it to the logo.
Bumps in the road:
One of the challenges we have in social is we have two different audiences. We have the brands, properties and businesses we work with and market to. Then we have the fans. The logo aficionados. The fanatics about baseball hats. I would probably guess 80-90% of our audience on social is fans and cap collectors. So we tried to move into something new -- using copy with the images to either share a new business trend or go deeper into the why this is important. People want timely material, but also don’t want just a portfolio.
What works, and what doesn't:
Within the past week, going through the analytics, what I've realized is popping on social are light and/or white backgrounds. If you look at the hipster kind of stuff trending on social media, everybody is using a washed-out or white background. I don’t think that is a mistake. I think it is by design. We found at the very bottom of engagement are photos of people. Caps and just-unveiled logos are at the top.
Keeping up with partners:
We’re linked together on different platforms with the partners we do business with. The fact that they are seeing something new every day from us, that can’t hurt. Now and again, I’ll hear on a conference call, “I saw what so-and-so team did. Did you have something to do with that?” Or “We loved what you guys did with that team."
Unveiling that had the best response:
The New Orleans Baby Cakes (unveiled in '16). It was the leading edge of what a logo could be. This isn't just two guys in San Diego throwing darts at a wall for what could be ridiculous team names. These team names are designed to capture headlines, to get people talking. The Cake Baby is an important part of Mardi Gras and New Orleans tradition. We realize what we do is polarizing, because sports is polarizing. Someone asked if it is the worst thing for someone to hate what we put on social media. No. The worst thing is if they are apathetic about it. We want people to love and hate and debate and have a conversation about it.
