Chicago Fire FC And The Uncanny Valley Of Rebrands
One of the unspoken truths that any company or designer has to tackle when handling a major rebranding effort is when that practice charges headfirst against the cliched philosophy nearly every business must follow to survive: the customer is always right.
With 20 years of fan support and history to contend with, this was the challenge facing the Chicago Fire soccer club and, as recent history has shown time and time again, it appears the team failed to win over their customer base.
Leaked the day prior on the US Patent And Trademark Office database, Chicago Fire FC officially unveiled the efforts of their “18 month” rebranding endeavor as they return to downtown Chicago, after 14 years in nearby Bridgeview, ahead of the 2020 MLS season.
The launch, whether planned in advance or kickstarted early due to the USPTO discovery, has the hallmarks of many corporate rebranding efforts nowadays: testimonials of the branding’s development, a handful of token fans used to drum up feeling of FOMO over not being one of the first people to embrace this change, and enough positivity to make even Santa squeamish.
Given their relocation back to the heart of the Chicago, and the existing brand being one of the last two that remain from the 90s in MLS, many fans anticipated a rebrand was incoming. Coupled with the fact that a network TV show has since pummeled them into SEO submission and the team is under new ownership, fans were even anticipating a name change to coincide with a new logo and color scheme.
What fans of Chicago Fire and ownership are now left with is finding that the identity of their beloved team finds itself somewhere that no new brand wants to find itself in: the uncanny valley of rebrands.
The new logo boils down to two prominent elements according to the team, “a simple icon that contains the fire itself, and a crown for the triumph over adversity of a people undefeated.”
That’s all well and good. As a fan and designer of simple minimalistic logos in sports, I’ll even go to bat for the simplicity of the reflected “crown” and “fire” pattern. If this were the brand for the future USL Chicago club, I’d be alright with it and most people would have no qualms about it.
But…it’s not.
There in lies the problem that many unexperienced ownership groups and designers end up overlooking en route to a rebrand: the rebrand has to either be similar enough to the old one that it doesn’t alienate any of the existing clientele or it has to be such a departure from the prior branding effort that the clientele can collectively recognize that this is an entirely fresh start and new endeavor.
The rebrand that Chicago Fire FC unveiled today accomplished neither of those two conditions.
What fans are left with is a team that appears stuck between two forking paths and is unwilling to commit to either one long-term. If the club had modernized the existing logo, much like recent rebranding from the Columbus Crew, FC Cincinnati, DC United or Orlando City, it would’ve had a warmer reception and was the direction many anticipated the team would take anyways. If this brand had been unveiled in its entirety, with a brand new name like Chicago Crown FC, it wouldn’t been viewed as a cleaner cut from the existing Fire brand and thus fans would be able to differentiate between the two eras; much like how the Kansas City Wizards successfully reignited their dwindling Kansas City fanbase with their Sporting Kansas City rebrand.
Ultimately, the Chicago Fire decided on taking the Colorado Rapids approach: take an existing brand name and change everything else about after moving across town.
The issue for the Chicago Fire, with that line of thought, is the brand that Colorado had prior to 2007 had many hallmarks of a poorly constructed identity, especially for a professional soccer club in the 21st century. Chicago Fire have twice as much time invested into the existing identity as did Rapids fans back in 2006 on top of a more passionate fanbase who were far more attach to team than Rapids fans at the time.
Beyond the Fire, it’s worth noting that this has been the direct result of many rebrands in the world of soccer which were remedied in various ways.
In 2013, Premier League side Everton updated their crest by removing the scrolled text from the bottom of their shield and editing the colors of the crest by adding black and a darker shade of blue and yellow. Within a season, the team reversed course following fan backlash which resulted in a rebrand that was received far more positively by fans and is noticeably superior to the 2013 endeavor.
In early 2018, the ownership group of Leeds United FC, the inferior #LUFC, attempted to capitalize on a prominent fan salute by drastically changing their logo, removing a now iconic white Yorkshire rose, and replacing it with the torso of a man that needs to let out a burp.
Owners, eyeing a new brand to attract the international market, were resoundingly mocked by that aforementioned market, including various clubs, and shortly thereafter were forced to scrape the rebrand altogether.
Domestically, the Los Angeles Chargers were given the same mocking reaction in 2017 after unveiling their new LA logo. After attempting to remedy the situation by changing the colors of the logo, which did little to quell the mockery, the rebrand was ultimately scraped in lieu of their future rebranding as the London Chargers.
When other teams who understand the same difficulties that come with developing and marketing a profitable brand start piling on the Internet outrage and mocking your new brand, you’ve lost. While rebrands by Juventus and FC Barcelona have also had their detractors, neither of those teams have faced the same onslaught by their peers that the likes of Leeds, London Chargers, and now Chicago Fire FC face.
It remains to be seen what Chicago’s next course of action will be regarding their new brand given that it hasn’t even been twenty four hours since it was officially unveiled but given the fact that the media has already picked up on the overwhelmingly negative fan reaction, the future doesn’t bode well for this new brand.
One thing which I have yet to mention that none of the prior rebrands have faced is the new Chicago Fire FC logo’s association with a notorious latino gang called the Latin Kings.
Given the immediate red flag that this possible association in their local market warrants, it seems the Fire, unlike other teams, have an excuse to abandon their rebrand if they so choose that doesn’t reflect as poorly on them as designers.
Coming from someone who grew up in a city with similar issues regarding the display of possible gang imagery and even colors in certain parts of town, I can’t imagine an oversight like this by a club of Chicago Fire’s scale; especially given the amount of research the team touted during its unveiling.
What Chicago Fire choose to do going forward won’t be an easy decision but if they got themselves into this uncanny valley, they can just as easily get themselves out if they’re willing to swallow a tough pill or two in the process.