I keep thinking about the article in the WSJ about the Mets new branding efforts.
He and his wife Alexandra Cohen have prescribed a marketing overhaul that will include an update to the team’s brand design, including customized fonts in marketing materials like photography, signage and ads, as well as new experiences and features at its stadium meant to give the Mets more cultural credibility.
So…while the article suggests some things that don’t sound crazy to me like using the unused space at Citi Field…I keep staring at “customized fonts.”
Fonts are not the problem. The game is boring is the problem. If you do an exciting game people will get over $100 tickets and even your players booing the fans (see all my fellow fans who have sold their souls now to Baez). But it is boring. David Wright’s final game ruined my son forever as the Mets and Marlins played the most boring game in baseball history.
This idea of live comedy during the game? There is no way that will be good. You can either do knock-knock jokes for the 7 year olds or you will have some hack comedian who can’t make a living touring. Bad idea.
“Cultural Credibility” can be a trap as well. You follow the trends and the Mets could wind up being the baseball version of this…
…which the Mets being the Mets likely will become.
I refer the Mets to another brand of New York Baseball, the Yankees. Year after year, decade after decade, they leave their brand alone. Saint George declined to do the Turn Ahead The Clock stuff because he (correctly) said the Yankees were wearing what they would be wearing.
Chasing the latest trend is not the way Steve. What solves everything is winning baseball. Baez can do whatever he wants as long as he hits, we saw that this month.
Donald Trump once said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”….and that’s how your typical Mets fan behaves. Win baseball games, hit home runs, and a Met probably could do whatever they want on 5th Avenue.
So I get the desire to market. I get the desire to get younger fans in here. The answer isn’t fonts. It’s fixing the basic sport and winning games. It’s an NBA2K world, and strikeouts and home runs isn’t an attractive product no matter what typeface you use.
