Bonus Column: The Language of Uni Ads, Revisited

A sports advertising exec has some thoughts on a recent Uni Watch article

Today I have a bonus follow-up column for you (in addition to my regular Friday column, which will be published a few minutes after this one). Last week, as you may recall, I talked about the language of uniform advertising with ad industry veteran Ben Thoma. That interview prompted lots of interesting feedback and responses, including an email from a reader who said, "Having been on the advertising/sponsorship sales side of things in sports for over 20 years, I have so many thoughts on this. I would love to have been the third wheel in this conversation."

I liked that idea, so I asked the emailer if he’d like to annotate the original interview with his thoughts. He readily agreed, with the stipulation that I not divulge his identity. For the sake of this follow-up piece, let’s just call him the Adman.

So here’s a repeat of my original interview with Thoma, but with the Adman’s commentary interspersed throughout as blockquoted italic text. I’ve removed all the photos so you can concentrate on the ideas.

Ready? Here we go:

Uni Watch: One of my pet peeves is that teams and leagues never refer to ads on uniforms as ads, and they never refer to the advertisers as advertisers. They always refer to them as sponsors, or partners, or patch partners, or jersey patch partners, or branding partners. And so I recently made that point on Twitter, regarding the New York Rangers' new helmet ad, and you responded:

“As someone who works in the field, buying sponsorship, and getting your logo on a piece of apparel, is not buying an ad. As an advertiser, I would never call it that. It’s branding, or maybe an ‘activation.’” You put activation in quotes.

Now, before we get to the differences between all those terms, can you understand why the average person, someone who doesn’t work in marketing or branding, would roll their eyes at that statement?

Ben Thoma: Absolutely. Because what advertising has taught me is that intent does not equal perception.

As someone who uses these terms regularly in developing sales materials (pitch decks, presentations, etc.), these are all terms that are used to “soften” the idea of the relationship between brand and seller (in this case, the team or league). The goal is for that relationship to be positioned as more than just being transactional and based in commerce. No matter what, the buyer is a person and the sales process is largely about appealing to human nature. You could definitely make an argument that it isn’t genuine, because mostly it’s not. But there is definitely an expectation from the buyer that the seller should approach it this way. By using this type of language, the seller is basically giving the buyer what he or she wants from an approach perspective, ultimately to help get the deal done.

UW: What do you mean by that?

BT: I intend to put out a message to the world through the work that I do to help the brand that I work for, whatever that is. Once I put it out in the world, it’s completely in the hands of the receiver. And so you do your best to control the message or frame the message so the communication is what you intended. But someone can completely take it the wrong way.

What I was interested in was, you know, framing a little bit of the conversation. I think most people in the field, the people who are making these decisions and working with these leagues and teams, they would say that that particular thing [a patch on a jersey or a decal on a helmet] just doesn’t do what an advertisement or what a marketing message should do.

A patch doesn’t do exactly what a full-blown ad would do, but the intent is generally the same — to divert your attention from something else (in this case the game, the team, the play, etc.) and onto the brand. The tactics used for that effort (jersey patches, helmet ads, billboards, Instagram ads, TV commercials, etc.) are varied, but are most successful when used in concert with each other (as Thoma suggests multiple times in this interview). But with that said, it doesn’t mean that any one tactic can’t be powerful in and of itself as a piece of advertising. All of these tactics essentially lead a recipient’s attention to the same place — from something else, onto the brand.

UW: Okay, but I’m not talking about people in the advertising or marketing industry, or people who work for teams or leagues. I’m asking if you can understand that the way you phrased it — “this is branding,” or “this is an activation,” or whatever, but it’s not advertising — might get the average person, not a person who works in that field, to roll their eyes a little?

BT: Oh, yeah, totally. I spend a lot of time thinking about advertising and marketing and the language, because it’s my job. Using thoughtful language helps in the way we communicate what we do internally. But I totally get that, you know, the average fan is gonna say, “Look, they put an ad on the helmet.”

This is definitely a place where we in the ad industry talk to ourselves (as mentioned below). For a helmet deal in the NHL, a CMO/COO/CEO type is going to have to decide that they want to spend their company’s money on that thing. That thing will be expensive. They will have to justify that expenditure to the powers that be. The seller will provide that person with all sorts of data from their research team as to how it will help that person’s brand sell more paint (to use the N.Y. Rangers example), or whatever it is that they sell. But back to my earlier point about people, they will have to make that justification to a person or group of people. The seller is basically softening that language to help that person have a softer thing to “sell” to the powers that be (who are people as well).

One could then argue, “That's just more gobbledygook” and “This just sounds dumb.” And if someone made that argument, I would agree with them — I agree that using plain language is a better way to go. But it’s not the way that most entities go about getting to the point of closing these deals. I can’t tell you how many times I use plain language in initial versions of proposals and am asked by salespeople to “soften this line” or “I know what it is, but I want it to sound more like this.” I’m just giving you a bit of why this is happening; I’m not saying that it should be happening. It’s just how people on the sales side think.

UW: What is the difference? Can you explain, as you see it, the difference between advertising, sponsorship, branding, and activation? And why does something like a patch on an NBA jersey not qualify as advertising?

BT: First of all, I’d say I think of advertising as a pretty big umbrella. And so, yeah, a company’s logo on a patch worn on an NBA jersey squarely fits within that umbrella. But I think that there’s some benefit in the nuance of certain types of advertising you can do under that umbrella, and what those types do for a brand or don’t do for a brand.

So for me, the fundamental difference is this: Advertising is about delivering a message, whereas branding is usually around impressions. Every brand wants to gain impressions — it’s why Nike puts a swoosh on their shoe in such a big way, because then their product is also a brand impression. Now, the message that the shoe sends, you can’t define that, right? That shoe says something different to every person. So I’d say that’s branding, not advertising.

Eh, this is a bit of talking out of both sides of your mouth. I agree with Paul, as stated above, that it is advertising and that there are different types of advertising. But that doesn’t change that each individual tactic is still advertising. The Nike swoosh on the sneaker is not the same exact thing as the Nike commercial I saw on the NBA game last night featuring Zion Williamson, but its intent is certainly the same — to divert my attention from something else to Nike. I can cook a steak in a frying pan, on a grill, or in a wok, all of which would be different methods, but all of those methods are still cooking a steak.

UW: And when you say true advertising conveys a message, you mean like some sort of scripted narrative?

BT: Yeah. And so when I think about traditional advertising, I go to mediums that are different, where there usually is a message, whether it’s a billboard, a bus stop, a TV or radio spot. Usually, a brand wants to convey something, whether it’s something new about their product, or a tagline. And that usually leads to what is called a call to action — you know, purchase, inquire. “Learn more” is the worst one, but it’s used so frequently. Anyway, there should be some kind of message and usually a value proposition in that.

So when I look at just a company logo on a helmet or jersey, I don’t know what value that logo brings to me. Like, I don’t know why to buy that product. By putting it there on the helmet, they’re trying to affiliate themselves with a product that a fan is going to appreciate. But if that company’s marketing or advertising staff is worth their salt, they’re not just putting that on the helmet — that’s part of a much larger purchase they’ve made, which gets them the poster in the arena, gets them the TV ad during the game, gets them the radio announcer call or whatever.

One of the reasons I kind of got animated about this one was because an advertiser would never just buy that [the helmet]. So that’s not the ad to me — that’s just the brand impression that they got as part of this mix of media that they’re getting. It’s an overall campaign or partnership that’s benefiting them in a lot of other ways. Advertising is repetition and reach, and you get repetition through the number of impressions you get, and you want that brand association in as many places as you can possibly get it. So that is kind of where I get into saying, “This is a branding play, because you’re just looking at that one particular tactic.” Tactic is another word that we use a lot. That’s one tactic.

UW: Okay, so “advertising” is for message and “branding” is for impressions. What about “activation”?

BT: I may have been using that a bit loosely, but activations are often used with events. Like, Caesars has the naming rights now for the Superdome in New Orleans, and there’s no way they bought that without having a whole slew of marketing activations with it. I’m sure they have street teams that are going to be handing out cards to download their app, or they’re going to have a booth at the stadium that lets you throw a football into the Caesars logo. Those are activations. And I don’t think Caesars would put their name on that stadium if it wasn’t for all that activation opportunity around it. The name alone is probably not enough.

Thoma is a bit all over the place here. Activation is a term that’s mostly used in the industry as just doing something together (brand and seller). The sign on the outfield wall is often called an activation. But so is the booth in the concourse where you can sign up to win a free something or other. It’s a term that’s used quite loosely to mean many things to industry folks. But to the average fan, it doesn’t really apply.

UW: Okay. I don’t mean to put words in your mouth here, but I’m going to try to boil down our respective positions. Your position, I think, is that because a jersey patch or a helmet decal is part of a larger overall package of advertising, or promotion, or marketing, or sponsorship, and because the patch is not itself a message or message-driven, you would not call it an ad. Whereas I would say that I fully understand that the patch is part of a larger package, but this component of the package — the patch on the jersey — is a form of advertising. And that to call it something else, I find sort of deceptive, especially when the something else is cloaked in the language of fellowship and goodwill, like “partner” or “sponsor,” rather than the language of commerce, which is what this is all about. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with commerce — believe me, I engage in plenty of commerce! — but I do think that if we use plainspoken, straightforward language, that makes it easier to assess good commerce vs. bad commerce.

BT: I kind of agree with your point about the “sponsor” or “partner.” I think you’re absolutely right, that a sponsor traditionally is someone who made something possible. But to the average Joe fan, which is what you were talking about, I think they would definitely say “sponsor.”

Paul, your summary here is on point as I see it and I mostly agree with you. Seems that Thoma agrees too, but with a couple of semantic exceptions. The one part where I might have issue is with the use of the word sponsor. I understand that by its dictionary definition, the word is not being used correctly here. But, in the vernacular of sports, including use by fans, it has come to mean a brand that gives money to this team/league/sports entity and in return it gets to market its product or service to me through official spaces that the entity controls. A fan may not use that exact language, but I would bet that most would agree. It’s used quite regularly and seems to have been so for many decades, so in my book it gets a bit of a pass for being used incorrectly. The word has evolved in this context over a long stretch of time that isn’t recent so I would let it be.

UW: Oh, for sure. I fully concede that that type of language has basically become part of our cultural vernacular — but in a way that I feel is inaccurate and is basically a Trojan horse that opens the door to more and more advertising, because it’s much easier to get more advertising in there if you call it something else. That’s what bugs me, that’s why I’m trying to push back against it.

How about this: A minute ago you were trying to explain what is or isn’t advertising, and you said that a billboard is advertising. But I’ve certainly seen billboards that don’t have a message — they just have a logo. So are you really trying to tell me that a billboard on the side of the road with a giant Pepsi logo is not advertising?

BT: To me, that is a brand impression. It’s not good advertising in the sense that you’re —

UW: Wait wait wait — I didn’t ask if it was good advertising. I’m just asking you whether it is or isn’t advertising.

I agree with Paul’s point generally but will make an exception for the word sponsor (as noted above).

BT: Well, like I said at the top, it sits under the umbrella of advertising. So to me, it’s fair [to call it advertising], even though I wouldn’t call it that. It’s really semantics.

Yes, this is true across the conversation — there are semantics involved. But the fact remains that a helmet logo or jersey patch or the like is a form of advertising.

UW: Okay, but I don’t see the difference between a billboard on the side of the highway and a patch on an NBA jersey, regardless of whether they’re message-driven. In each case, someone who owns a certain space has sold that space to a business entity that wants to promote itself. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of advertising? So if the billboard with the Pepsi logo is advertising, why isn’t the jersey patch with a company logo advertising? Isn’t it just a very small billboard?

BT: I guess for me, it’s about matter of wanting a better specificity of what type of advertising it is. By just saying it’s advertising, it becomes so broad that it’s missing the value of that type. It’s like, if you said to me, “That’s PR,” I would say, “No, it’s not really PR.”

UW: I would agree with you there — an ad on a jersey is not PR.

BT: But some people might say, “No, it is PR, it’s good PR, you get your brand everywhere, it’s good PR, it’s good publicity.” And to me, that’s an aspect to it, but it’s not as accurate is what branding is. So to me, it’s the same situation where like, you’d be absolutely right to call it advertising, but I would choose to make it more specific — branding or a brand impression.

PR is different because, unlike advertising, it does not include a commercial transaction. It’s certainly something that brands use to get positive press coverage and thus more attention and then more people will hopefully buy their stuff. But I think a line of differentiation here is with the money changing hands. PR is a form of marketing, which is an even larger umbrella than the advertising umbrella.

UW: I totally get what you’re saying. But one reason I find that language troubling is that we all know there’s a debate about our society having too much advertising, whereas branding is seen as a more positive thing — people are now encouraged to develop their personal brand and all that. So when you take a form of advertising and call it branding, it feels to me like you’re using this more benign term to sort of whitewash the reality of the situation. And then you can escape or avoid certain critiques by, well, rebranding the ad as branding, instead of just calling it advertising.

And just to be clear, I’m not 100% opposed to advertising. I run advertising on my blog, there are plenty of TV commercials I think are clever or even brilliant, and I even have some vintage print ads framed and displayed in my house. But I do think that advertising, like so many things, is a mixed bag. I think there are some places where it doesn't belong, and I think its role in our society is worth questioning, so I think calling it something else feels a little insidious in that regard.

I agree with this point — there are some places where it doesn’t belong. But the definition of those places gets blurred more and more each day as the technology of media changes so rapidly. And even as someone who works in advertising, I don’t see this as a good thing, but it’s certainly not stopping. It’s only going to move more rapidly as technology continues to change the way people consume sports.

BT: You should know that the people who hate advertising the most are the people in advertising. Oh, and my wife just said, “And their wives.”

UW: Why is that?

BT: Because so much of it is terrible. And not in the sense that people are trying to do things that are terrible. It’s just that we’ve given ourselves so many avenues and so many spaces to fill that it’s impossible for the quality to match the quantity. So when you do see something good, it’s just so refreshing. And I think also we ultimately know how people feel about us, like we’re like one rung above car salesmen. It’s not like you’d tell your son or daughter to grow up to be an advertiser.

I was really struck by this statement: "It’s just that we’ve given ourselves so many avenues and so many spaces to fill that it’s impossible for the quality to match the quantity." Truly profound, and it made me think a lot.

I have a 12-year-old boy who is hugely into sports and he is distinctly aware of brands in sports. That's partly because of what his dad does for a living, but also because it’s unavoidable. We talk a lot about what’s good and bad, what’s right or wrong. But your statement sums up this challenge perfectly. Well said.

UW: What about the ads that we now see on the back of the mound in Major League Baseball games — is that advertising, in your mind?

BT: I hate those. And it’s not like advertising hasn’t existed in sports — like, yeah, the outfield fence has always been filled with ads. But with the mound, now you’ve literally crossed a line, you’re on the field of play. And they’re so poorly done — one thing I’ve learned in this business is that, as an advertiser, you are interrupting every time you’re showing up. You’re generally never called upon to come into people’s lives — you’re always interrupting. And so you might as well make it worthwhile so that it’s worthy of someone’s time to interrupt them. And those mound ones, every time I see one, I’m like, “It’s not worth it.” Sometimes you can barely read it. There’s nothing there.

Is that advertising? Again, I would call it branding, or a branding opportunity. Is it a type of advertising? Yes. Either way, it’s not worth it.

The space on the back of the mound being sold as ad space was mostly born out of the pandemic. Mostly. Teams struggled to drive revenue because there were no fans in stands when the games were played. (You can definitely argue that the owners have plenty of money and didn’t need to make the same amount they usually make, but that’s not really in their nature and that’s an argument for another day.)

So they were looking for any way to make up the losses and the networks weren’t willing to give up the ad space (in the actual commercial breaks) to team sponsors for free. But the networks eventually gave in, and one of the "gives" was the mound. They did it reluctantly. The mound ads are mostly virtual and the technology to serve them wasn’t well tested (which is why they often look so bad). Let’s just say that the networks didn’t put their all into it. The logos that are physically in the dirt, if you can get past their actual existence in that space, are done pretty well.

UW: One of the catchphrases we’ve seen a lot of the NHL teams using for their helmet ads, or branding, or whatever you want to call it, is that they refer to the company as a “helmet entitlement partner.”

BT: [Laughs.]

UW: You’re laughing as I say that, which I guess is appropriate, because that term — “helmet entitlement partner” — sounds somewhere between laughable and Orwellian, at least to me. And it’s not just one team — lots of NHL teams have used that same term. Not all of them, but many of them. And it’s not just in the fine print of the contract. They’re using that term in their social media posts, on their websites. That’s how they’re communicating with their fan bases.

BT: I’ve never heard “entitlement” used. I don’t even know how that meaning is defined. “Helmet partner” would have been good enough. Yeah, that just throws a weird wrench into the mix that makes you stop and pay more attention to it. Like what does that even mean?

UW: Why would a team do that? Wouldn’t it probably make the average fan even more cynical and alienated than they already are?

BT: Well, I can’t speak for fans. I guess the teams will find out.

Teams do that because they aren’t thinking about the fans in those announcements. They are thinking about the people from the brand. They are speaking directly to the people who cut the check. Sure, the general public sees those announcements and the teams should be concerned about their response, but that’s secondary. The intended audience is the people at the brand to help them feel good about their purchase.

UW: Let me ask you this: Would you agree that one issue people have with corporate marketing and advertising — rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly — is that they think marketing and advertising tend to be deceptive and misleading? And again, I’m not saying that’s necessarily true. But would you agree that that’s a common perception?

BT: Oh, it’s definitely a perception, although I don’t think it’s altogether accurate.

UW: But if that is the perception, wouldn’t it make sense for the advertising and marketing world to use more straightforward language when referring to itself? Like, “helmet entitlement partner” —

BT: But is that the marketing company doing that? Or is that the NHL doing it?

UW: Does that even matter? They’re both part of the transaction.

BT: I think I know why you’re asking the question, because you want it to be more clear, right? You want to have more transparency.

UW: Yes, exactly. On the one hand, here’s an industry that suffers from a perception problem about how it communicates to the public, and then it’s referring to its own activities by throwing around terms like “brand activation” and “helmet entitlement partner,” which to most people just sounds like corporate gobbledygook. So yeah, to me that just reinforces the notion that this industry is not interested in transparent communication.

BT: I think it’s an industry that talks to itself a lot and should do a better job of understanding the customer’s reaction. Because if you’re not listening to your customers, then why are you doing it? But there’s so much — bureaucracy might be the wrong word, but there’s so much work that we’ve created within the work to get something out the door. It’s almost like that term, “helmet entitlement partner,” was created by someone who was talking to someone within the larger ecosystem without thinking about the customer. And one thing I do give smart advertisers credit for is that when you’re good at what you’re doing, you acknowledge the intelligence of your customers. And so this is a case where I think they’re not doing that, because they’re saying something that doesn’t make sense.

This furthers my earlier point about the intended audience. The seller is servicing the brand in these situations and is hoping that they don’t exhaust the tolerance of the fans in exchange for money. That tolerance has proven to be pretty elastic. If fans begin to push back in any meaningful way, the brands will begin to pull back and the sellers will adjust accordingly. It’s a constant give and take.

UW: Let’s try a thought experiment: Let’s say you work for a pro sports team in their communications department. They’re about to announce that they have sold space on their uniform to an outside company, and now it’s your job to write the press release for that announcement. What sort of language do you use?

BT: I think I would probably lean into sponsor and partner.

UW: We’ve mostly talked about language here, but I want to wrap up by getting you to make a prediction. Do you think American sports uniforms will eventually look like European soccer kits, where the advertiser’s or sponsor’s logo supersedes the team brand? And if so, how long do you think it’ll take to reach that point?

BT: I was thinking about this because my son’s love of soccer has now made me an Austin FC fan. And Yeti [the Austin-based outdoor accessories brand whose logo appears on Austin FC’s jerseys] is a brand that I admire, because I’m an Austinite. So I’m like, “This makes sense, it’s logical.” But where is the team logo? Like, you can’t even see it. Now, I know what the team logo looks like, because I’m here in Austin. But what about when someone else looks at that uniform? To me, the identifier is Yeti, like this is Team Yeti. To me, that’s the inverse of how it should be. The uniform should represent the team first and the sponsor second.

So will it happen with other American sports? I don’t know if I could say it won’t happen, but one reason why it might not happen is that soccer is uniquely set up for it with its crest or badge iconography, so you have all that space available on the chest. But that doesn’t work in sports where you have logos and scripts on the chest.

UW: Hmmm. But think about this: You just mentioned your son being a soccer fan. If a whole generation of kids like him gets used to seeing “Yeti,” or whatever, on the chest of their favorite soccer team’s jerseys, will that just look normal to them? Could it even reach the point where they think a jersey should look that way, because it doesn’t look “official,” or something like that, without the ad or sponsor?

BT: I think that’s more in the hands of the sports marketers — the teams and leagues — than the advertisers. Advertisers generally take what they’re given — like, here’s the space you’re given, now what do you want to fill it with? So I don’t think the advertising community would ask for it as much as the sports community would offer it. I hope that won’t happen in my lifetime.

I don’t think the Big Four will adopt a soccer kit approach. But I do think that you’ll see advertising in one place or another in all four major sports.

I can tell you for sure that the NHL is really happy with the balance they feel they’ve struck with the helmet ads. They avoided the “soiling of the sacred hockey sweater" effect and still get a big asset to sell that gets a ton of exposure and thus will drive a ton of revenue for the teams. They look at the helmet as more of a piece of equipment than a component of the uniform. (I know, more semantics.)

The NHL is moving ahead with jersey ads next season, but we have had no conversations with the league or any individual team on jersey ad sales. All conversations have been around the helmet. My guess is that the teams will overvalue the jersey asset, similar to how the NBA teams did. The NBA teams’ sales process had a lot of “sizzle” about being the first in American sports, essentially telling potential sponsors, “You’ll be the first and that will get you additional coverage and interest.” That additional coverage has a tangible value that drives the asking price up. That got stale pretty quickly and many of the initial brands that bought those patches didn’t renew because the cost doesn’t justify the exposure after the initial buzz factor. The NHL’s pitch could say, “You’ll be the first in the NHL” but that doesn’t have as much teeth as being the first overall.

The lack of continuity in the NBA patches since they first went to market (meaning many brands are jumping ship after the initial investment) leads me to believe that it’s an asset that won’t be a long-term thing for a brand like the league originally thought it would be. They will rotate brands in and out as the market dictates. They seem to be OK with that approach.

My gut says that MLB will eventually do a helmet deal, rather than jerseys.

The NFL is sort of the white whale here. The market doesn’t currently support what the NFL thinks they deserve for a jersey sponsorship. Simply put, no brands want to spend as much money as the NFL wants. But that may change. Imagine what Jerry Jones thinks a patch on the Cowboys' jersey is worth!

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And there you have it. Some interesting insights there, right? Big thanks to the Adman for sharing his thoughts with us.

Paul Lukas has been writing about uniforms for over 20 years. If you like his Bulletin articles, you’ll probably like his daily Uni Watch Blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Want to learn about his Uni Watch Membership Program, check out his Uni Watch merchandise, or just ask him a question? Contact him here.