Kansas City, home to one of The Pert Group‘s U.S. offices, is a sports crazy town. With our passion for our major league teams: Chiefs (NFL) and Royals (MLB) and our collegiate teams (KU, KSU, MU and anything border war related), we cheer, we cry, we often say, “wait until next year.”
We’re also hungry for a winner. If you’ve been in this town long enough, you remember the glory days of the Royals – I can name the starting line-up for the 1982 Royals team, go ahead, ask me; and the oh-so-close playoff years for the Chiefs. Want to know how hungry we are? We showed up by the thousands for last year’s MLB All-Star weekend. We’re hungry and also tired of absentee owners who feed their teams enough money to keep the lights on, but aren’t willing to commit anything more to return our major league teams to their winning ways.
But that’s all changed with Sporting KC, Kansas City’s MLS soccer team. And this week, Kansas City is host to the MLS All-Star game. The city is jumping with all-star activities (free Macklemore concert!) and excitement for the opportunity to show off the brilliance that is Sporting Park while the nation watches.
Photo Credit: Ed Zurga/Getty Images
How did Kansas City go from barely acknowledging we had a soccer team to becoming “one of the great sports turnarounds in the history of soccer in America?” It’s a brand story worth sharing, at least the New York Times thought so. And it is a success story from which many other brands, sports related or not, can learn.
Do the Work & Listen to Your Customers
Time and again we see brands who don’t invest the time and money into listening to their customers before making a significant change to their business or brand strategy. J.C. Penney and Netflix come to mind. Both companies jumped in with significant pricing and service changes without testing the waters. The backlash from their customers was consequential in both sales and customer losses. The media frenzy around both didn’t help matters either.
The new owners of Sporting KC wouldn’t suffer the same fate. They invested in getting to know their fans by listening and engaging via social media and creating events suited to their liking, including an exhibition match against Manchester United and arranging watch parties for the World Cup matches in 2010. When the team name changed from the Wizards to Sporting KC, loyal fans were ready for the future.
Dare to Create the Future
If you had asked any loyal Kansas City soccer fans in 2004 what the future looked like for MLS in this town, my guess is no one would have envisioned a state of the art, European-like stadium that sells out regularly each season. Sporting Park was “built with a strong Wi-Fi presence, constant social media connections among fans, and stadium video boards and advanced camera systems that made for more entertaining replays.” The new owners dared to create a future for soccer in Kansas City that no one had believed in (or invested in) previously.
How do you create the future? At The Pert Group, we excel at seeing the future. We can spot trends before they are formed by digging in deep with consumers to understand their preferences, emotional motivators and what drives their purchasing behavior. Through co-creation we can bring diverse groups together for ideation and product innovation to fill the innovation pipeline.
A Happy Ending
Whether you’re a soccer fan or not, the Sporting KC brand story is one you can admire. I have my fingers crossed that the other major league teams in town are working on a game plan for success as well. After many lean years, this town deserves more happy endings.
Interested in reviving your brand or business strategy? Let’s talk. And feel free to share your favorite brand story below.