The newly renamed Washington Commanders are the one staff within the NFL with a chief artistic and digital officer reasonably than a advertising and marketing chief.
Will Misselbrook, who hails from the UK (the place soccer is soccer and soccer is soccer) took the job in 2021 after practically three years as world head of artistic at The Wall Avenue Journal and a bunch of government company roles, together with at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Saatchi & Saatchi and Wieden+Kennedy.
He joined within the interim between the momentary title change from the Washington Redskins to “Washington Soccer Workforce,” which was used as a placeholder moniker. A part of Misselbrook’s remit was to assist shepherd the staff via the rebranding, which kicked off in July 2020 and took slightly below two years.
“I don’t assume I slept for about eight months,” Misselbrook stated.
In August 2020, the staff launched an internet site, WashingtonJourney.com (which is not lively), as a hub to maintain followers up to date on the title change and crowdsource new title concepts. There have been greater than 40,000 submissions and 1,200 distinctive title options.
Though fan response to the title change final 12 months was blended, sentiment bounced again inside a number of months, “prior to we anticipated it to,” Misselbrook stated.
“This was a really delicate factor to undergo, and we knew we weren’t going to make everybody completely happy,” he stated. “Nevertheless it was a part of an evolution of the game and an organizational transformation in addition to a nationwide shift in social consciousness, which is why we needed to undergo this rebrand within the first place.”
Misselbrook spoke with AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: Why do the Commanders want a chief artistic and digital officer?
WILL MISSELBROOK: It’s an unconventional title for the NFL, however it’s pretty frequent in lots of different industries, particularly inside leisure and content material. Our focus as a franchise is on changing into an leisure and media group, not only a soccer staff.
And so reasonably than following the norm like each different NFL staff and having a CMO, we wished to flip the standard advertising and marketing strategy on its head and put the tales and the content material on the forefront of every thing we do.
What does that seem like in apply?
I’m a soccer fan, however as an outsider trying in, even earlier than I began talking with any of the senior management, it appears like plenty of NFL groups strategy their advertising and marketing and inventive in a really comparable approach. However there are alternatives to convey a contemporary strategy and diversify the notion of the game by tossing out the playbook and creating socially and culturally related content material throughout platforms to broaden our attain with out alienating our core followers.
Additionally, media at the moment could be very fragmented, which implies conventional advertising and marketing strategies to achieve audiences simply aren’t sufficient.
So we’ve expanded our content material technique into new classes like music, meals, vogue, the auto area, the monetary area – however nonetheless rooted in our model and related to the gamers.
How does information inform your content material technique?
The advertising and marketing staff recurrently has massive artistic brainstorms the place we have a look at what’s occurring on the earth exterior of soccer for inspiration.
We’ve additionally been growing our analytics staff internally. We monitor trending subjects, what’s occurring within the information and cultural moments, and we monitor how our personal followers and customers have interaction with each single piece of content material we put on the market.
We have a look at the engagement charge, how lengthy individuals watch a chunk of content material earlier than they drop off and the place individuals are participating throughout platforms, and we use that information to assist us inform tales that resonate reasonably than simply pushing out content material or an advert as a result of we predict it’s cool after which hoping it really works.
How a lot of this do you do in-house?
We’ve got labored with know-how platforms to assist with a few of our greater activations and moments, particularly for the rebrand. However we do management plenty of this internally.
We’ve got our media staff in-house, which lets us be nimble. And we’ve our personal in-house leisure studio known as Washington Branded that we launched earlier this 12 months to create branded and authentic content material.
How many individuals do you’ve got engaged on media internally?
Your complete Washington Branded staff is round 40 individuals, and we’ve eight individuals on the advertising and marketing staff, together with individuals with media talent units.
There are three principal streams throughout the expertise we’ve – advertising and marketing, artistic and content material, which encompasses social and digital media – and there’s additionally plenty of crossover.
Do you’re employed with any companies?
We don’t. I come from the company aspect myself, however it appears like an archaic mannequin in some ways. As a result of we’ve our personal holistic staff, we’ve the capabilities to do what we’d like ourselves. That was the considering behind Washington Branded, to have the ability to management the narrative ourselves and never need to farm something out.
Which platforms have been the simplest for you?
There isn’t only one or two. We’re growing content material each day to make use of throughout Instagram, Fb, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok – as a result of the viewers for LinkedIn, say, could be very completely different than the viewers on TikTok. However we even have extra conventional retailers, like out-of-home and even linear. The whole lot is equally necessary to us as we proceed to develop our consciousness.
What about programmatic?
It’s a part of our technique to assist us get to the best audiences. Nevertheless it relies on the initiative, and we’re not working any paid programmatic proper now.
What does it rely upon?
If we’re doing one thing massive, like launching our new mascot or our new battle music, we wish to have the ability to increase our attain.
In a case like that, it is sensible to place paid programmatic behind it along with a giant model marketing campaign, as a result of we wish to share that initiative with a a lot wider viewers. We wish to attain individuals we wouldn’t essentially be capable of hit utilizing our personal media retailers and channels.
I’d say that programmatic is advert hoc for us proper now, however that the technique is at all times evolving.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
