With frequent rebranding and relocations, it wasn’t easy to be a soccer fan in USA, but the sport and its communal pull have both strengthened over time. Seattle Sounders and their B team form one such great story.
There is a rule in advertising when selling insurance: don’t talk about insurance. It is boring, and most consumers have a negative association with it. So, when DNA Seattle was tasked with creating a campaign for PEMCO, a regional insurance company in the American Pacific Northwest, the agency focused instead on what people liked. And what people in the region liked was the identity of the region itself.
With this knowledge, the creatives set out to highlight Pacific Northwest stereotypes and came up with a tagline – “We’re a lot like you. A little different.” They created a series of profiles on quirky yet instantly recognizable denizens of Washington and Oregon like Sandals and Socks Guy, Urban Chicken Farmer, Year-Round Shorts Dude, and the “I know I am, I’m sure I am” Sounders FC fan. The ad campaign was incredibly successful at communicating a core element in the Northwest identity: being different.
After living here for almost a decade, I appreciate the eccentricities and unique characteristics of those around me. They are at ease with themselves, totally comfortable with their own quirks, maybe even too comfortable sometimes (I just cannot get on board with the Seattle utilikilt). Their taste for the weird and offbeat led many here to embrace football when it was a fringe sport in America. The Northwest is a hotbed for the game, and it is wonderful to see how popular the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers are.
I make it out to Centurylink Field to watch the Sounders a few times each season. I would like to go more often, but each experience is a small crisis of identity because being a fan in America can be complicated.