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LinkSpeak: Slogan Slingers Anonymous (or how the Coyotes get it all wrong and how Preds can do no wrong)

The Arizona Coyotes recently launched Coyotes 2.0 with an apology and a promise to “show” rather than “say.” In the interest of having no gimmicks or taglines, the Coyotes offering up the following trio of taglines:

  1. No taglines (woops)

  2. No promises (they’re going to show how you that they are “Here to Stay,” that they’re “One Pack,” or whatever “Hockey the Hard Way” means, but they aren’t promising anything!)

  3. No excuses (they can have this one)

But I’m not writing specifically about the Coyotes’ commitments (again, totally no promises) to their fans. I’m writing because the letter lead me to consider that any number of teams in non-traditional markets (and the Minnesota Wild) have had their fair share of stupid slogans and absurd taglines. No franchise is immune from doing stupid things in the name of brand or identity (especially the Minnesota Wild). The question remaining with me is what would a marketing apology letter look like coming from the Nashville Predators to the fans.

Dear Smashville,

We’re sorry.

Sorry for all the slogans and taglines.

Sorry that we suggested hockey players could “Hurtle Through Space” or that “In Gold We Trust” or…

Wait, we’re not sorry.

We’re not sorry for the gold puns and Barb Murphy and that one time we painted your grandmother gold during the open casket visitation right in front of everyone.

We’re not sorry for the onenote branding. It is with pride that we send fans, bloggers, and hockey writers notes reminding them that neither the helmets or jerseys are yellow. We don’t be satisfied until YOU literally bleed Predators Gold. We’ve spent the summer working with scientists to develop a serum that cause gold dye to bond to the iron in YOUR blood. And you can bet that when you bleed, you’ll bleed a slightly different shade of yellow because color matching is HARD.

We don’t care what anyone thinks. Thinking is for people who can’t tell GOLD from yellow. We are SMASHVILLE and we know how much you love skating bananas, Barb Murphy, and velveeta cheese. We’re not merely going to promote that we’re GOLD. We’re going to SHOW you how gold we can be.

We’re not going to tell you to “Stand With Us.” We’re going to turn all of you into gold statues and hang you from the ceiling like Han Solo in Jabba’s palace.

We’re not going to just tell you to “Live It.” We’re going to turn your life into Three Kings but with everyone song on the soundtrack being performed by Lee freaking Greenwood.

All in.

All gold.

All the time.

Predators Gold.0