The newly renamed Washington Commanders are the one workforce within the NFL with a chief artistic and digital officer fairly than a advertising 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 international head of artistic at The Wall Road 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 Group,” which was used as a placeholder moniker. A part of Misselbrook’s remit was to assist shepherd the workforce by means of the rebranding, which kicked off in July 2020 and took just below two years.
“I don’t suppose I slept for about eight months,” Misselbrook stated.
In August 2020, the workforce launched a web 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 recommendations.
Though fan response to the title change final yr was blended, sentiment bounced again inside just a few months, “before we anticipated it to,” Misselbrook stated.
“This was a really delicate factor to undergo, and we knew we weren’t going to make everybody pleased,” he stated. “However 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, nevertheless it’s pretty frequent in lots of different industries, particularly inside leisure and content material. Our focus as a franchise is on turning into an leisure and media group, not only a soccer workforce.
And so fairly than following the norm like each different NFL workforce and having a CMO, we needed to flip the standard advertising method on its head and put the tales and the content material on the forefront of the whole lot we do.
What does that appear like in observe?
I’m a soccer fan, however as an outsider wanting in, even earlier than I began talking with any of the senior management, it looks like loads of NFL groups method their advertising and inventive in a really related approach. However there are alternatives to carry a contemporary method 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 in the present day could be very fragmented, which implies conventional advertising strategies to achieve audiences simply aren’t sufficient.
So we’ve expanded our content material technique into new classes like music, meals, style, the auto area, the monetary area – however nonetheless rooted in our model and related to the gamers.
How does knowledge inform your content material technique?
The advertising workforce commonly has massive artistic brainstorms the place we have a look at what’s taking place on this planet outdoors of soccer for inspiration.
We’ve additionally been creating our analytics workforce internally. We observe trending matters, what’s taking place within the information and cultural moments, and we observe 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 fee, how lengthy folks watch a bit of content material earlier than they drop off and the place persons are participating throughout platforms, and we use that knowledge to assist us inform tales that resonate fairly than simply pushing out content material or an advert as a result of we expect it’s cool after which hoping it really works.
How a lot of this do you do in-house?
We now have labored with know-how platforms to assist with a few of our greater activations and moments, particularly for the rebrand. However we do management loads of this internally.
We now have our media workforce in-house, which lets us be nimble. And we’ve got our personal in-house leisure studio known as Washington Branded that we launched earlier this yr to create branded and unique content material.
How many individuals do you may have engaged on media internally?
The complete Washington Branded workforce is round 40 folks, and we’ve got eight folks on the advertising workforce, together with folks with media ability units.
There are three predominant streams inside the expertise we’ve got – advertising, artistic and content material, which encompasses social and digital media – and there’s additionally loads of crossover.
Do you’re employed with any businesses?
We don’t. I come from the company aspect myself, nevertheless it looks like an archaic mannequin in some ways. As a result of we’ve got our personal holistic workforce, we’ve got the capabilities to do what we want 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 creating content material every single 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 totally different than the viewers on TikTok. However we even have extra conventional shops, like out-of-home and even linear. All the things is equally vital 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 proper audiences. However it is determined by the initiative, and we’re not working any paid programmatic proper now.
What does it rely on?
If we’re doing one thing massive, like launching our new mascot or our new combat music, we would like to have the ability to increase our attain.
In a case like that, it is sensible to place paid programmatic behind it along with an enormous model marketing campaign, as a result of we need to share that initiative with a a lot wider viewers. We need to attain folks we wouldn’t essentially have the ability to hit utilizing our personal media shops and channels.
I’d say that programmatic is advert hoc for us proper now, however that the technique is all the time evolving.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
