Firstly, North Sydney is not a small market, by Australian standards.
I was just refering to the fact that North Sydney died...
The Bear brand wasnt the issue, the market there just couldnt sustain them.
Secondly, the Bears brand is still very valuable, but the Reds brand would be much more valuable in Perth then the Bears brand as they have a direct connection to Perth and you'd be able to "sell their story" to a much larger amount of people in Perth, not just the expats from the East Coast.
Yes in some circumstances old brands can be extremely valuable in different markets then their original target market, but only if the new market already recognises the brand, has some understanding of it's history (especially in the case of sporting brands) and at least at some level respects that brand's history (preferably they'd value it).
For example it'd be pointless to move the Otago Highlanders brand to Darwin, as almost nobody in Darwin has any connection to the Otago Highlanders whatsoever and I doubt that to many in Darwin even know of the Highlanders brand's history, let alone care or have any interest in said history.
So in the imaginary case of the Darwin Highlanders they may as well have created a new brand as to Darwin the Highlanders may as well be a new brand anyway, in the long run a new brand probably would have saved them money. Selling sports brands is definitely all about getting fans to emotionally attach themselves to the team/club.
But the only people in Perth that a NS Bears revival would be valuable too are already RL fans! Too the rest the Bears may as well be a completely new brand.
I think of it more as if and NFL game, or a college football team, was to play down in Australia for a period; so Notre Dame, the Giants, Jets, whoever...
Those brands would draw far more attention and support than new teams (Koalas and the Kookaburras, or some shit).
Not because everyone here knows the history of these US teams or feel connected to them. The draw would be the opposite; you know there is a rich and well-established culture there that you arent part of, and maybe that is something you should be joining in on...
The only thing i have against 'clean' brand (Titans, Rams, Pirates) it that they have no history, no emotion and inspire nothing in someone that looks at that logo or that jersey.
Sure, they MIGHT develop this EVENTUALLY, but that takes decades. Why waste that time and that opportunity when we have old brands (and well loved brands) that want to come back?
So why waste such a valuable brand on Perth where it is basically worth as much as any new brand would be, when we could use the brand somewhere like Brisbane, CQ, etc where it actually has more value then a new brand would normally!?
This is a good point, but the is an issue with this line...
The only market the Bears would have intrenched support is NSW. Beyond that, you are dealing either with the same situation as perth (where only a few people know who they are) or places like Brisbane or CQLD were they have their own estalished RL history and would probably react to the Bears like an Imperial Invasion come to destroy their own teams.
QLD already have an assload of dead teams that could be brought back, and people would be far more receptive to a local brand.
That really just leaves markets like Perth (or MAYBE new zealand) to reintroduce a Bears team.
Which is exactly why it would be a bad idea to use any old brand in Perth except the Reds.
Targeting the East Coast expats as the long term main source of patronage would be setting up this new club for failure! You always target the richest majority in your market! The expats are not the richest majority in Perth and any expats that would be interested in a NRL club in Perth would follow it whatever the name was (like PR for example).
RL State Expats will be the first people the Perth team go for, and will probably be their core fanbase for a few generations. Look at the Storms marketing strategy for the first decade of their existence; they searched for former NSW/QLD/NZ locals living in Melbourne and focused on them directly. They tried to build a core group then entice other with that community they developed. A Bears team will definitely stir the hearts of former-East Coaster over 20 more so than *insert new team name here*...
As for Perth locals, the sell will be, not only the game itself, but the culture and community the club inspires. You can wait for 20 years when that culture has properly developed for the pirate or you can transfer the Bears history...
But to the wider community, which in Perth's case generally doesn't follow RL, the Bears brand would be worth as much as any random team name. You may as well call them the Spartans or the Bandits.
(im trying to think of a new angle to say this from)
Take a random NRL fan as an example. As a child, had no input into the events that shaped the culture of your club and no idea they even happened. Yet, as they grew up, they become proud of the history and culture that you were not part of and could have gone your whole life without knowing.
The point it, they may not have a direct association to the events or the people that made say the Rabbitohs or the Dragons great clubs. But they can observe the passion this team inspires in others, look a bit deeper into there history and internalise the feeling.
Someone in Perth that has never heard of the Bears will obviously not care about them now. But exposing them, not only to RL, but the 100 years of history the Bears represent and the passion the logo can inspire in people will have a much greater impact than giving them a team with no history and saying "want culture? do it yourself"
The best way for any new club to build a brand in it's market is to piggy back on something that already has a relevance to the area, in other words they should connect themselves to something that would be a unique brand but the people in the community (their target market) hold dear in an attempt to in the short term connect themselves to the community and in the long term build a banner that (most of) the people in the community can get behind.
That is just flat out not true. That kind of marketing is so easy to ignore...
You have to make your brand relevent to the area, not take something relevant to the area and commercialise it (not saying you cant use native culture, just that it doesnt in itself create relevance).
Warratahs took every partiot-porn thing about NSW, put it into a franchise and no one gives 2 shits.
For all intents and purposes you'd be making the same mistake as the Titans did if you called the new Perth team the Bears, you've picked a cool name with a good amount of novelty factor that in the short term would sell well, but it will take longer to connect your brand to the community and then establish it in the community.
Youre right that gimmick names have little value, but Bears has 100 years of RL history attached to it and the love/hate of a lot of fans. Thats not a gimmick.
IMO the Titans brand will take 20-30 years to establish it's self on the GC, where the GC Dolphins or Surf would only have taken 5-10 years to establish themselves after the novelty period wore off.
Id argue all of those names would have faced the same problems as Titans (times got tough and they dont have a rusted on image to fall back on), but i cant prove that...
