General Session D: Re-branding the Tampa Bay Rays: New Name, New Logo, and New Attitude

"Batter up!" In this session, Tampa Bay Ray's VP of Marketing and Community Relations Tom Hoof began his lecture reflecting on the nostalgic experience of recreating the Rays' image and turning a broken brand into a championship team and company.

In 2006, the Rays went through an "Under Construction" campaign. They researched their previous name, " Tampa Bay Devil Rays" and realized a strong negative assocation between their name, "Devil Rays" and how fans spoke of them. When the fans spoke highly of the team they would exclaim, "Go Rays!" or "The Rays were great when... ." This led to the name change, "Tampa Bay Rays" and the new sunburst logo (a ray of light). To properly announce and educate the public on this new change they held a concert with Kevin Costner and his band; which inspired the "Summer Concert Series." They flooded the crowd and media with the new logo and name. To help the public engage the new brand a "Street Team" of college students was created, who were able to interact with children, as well as talk ball with season ticket holders.

The Rays campaign also featured (and currently features) promotion through different mediums, including:

• TV, print, and radio
• Outdoor
• New media
• Social networking
• Experiential marketing

In addition to being active within the community, the players themselves dedicate time to the community on a personal level. Upon signing with the Rays, each player must agree to a contract requiring them to donate a part of their salary back to the community. They are also given the opportunity to use their donations towards their own pet project. Overall, the campaign Hoof and his team designed was very successful. (The winning season helped!) Ticket sales increased 40 percent from their media campaign and the morale of the fans grew tremendously in the past few years.

As students with a passion in the sports marketing and community relations industry we greatly enjoyed this session. For more information on the Tampa Bay Rays visit www.raysbaseball.com.