Will Wade right to ask fans to stop attacking Brand Management Staff over retros, but the point remains

NC State won their 3rd game in a row, but before Wade even addressed the game, he weighed in on the ‘retro jersey’ saga that’s been unfolding online.

Here is the transcript and my thoughts on it.

WADE: “All right, before we get into the game tonight, I want to address my comments on our retro uniforms and logo usage. I never intended for this to get out of hand, but I appreciate our fans. Our fans are incredible. Their energy…their passion…there’s nothing like it in college athletics and college basketball. But the attacks on our strategic brand management staff, there’s no place for that. These people are doing their jobs. I apologize. I texted every one of them and apologized privately. I’m apologizing publicly now. But we need to stop. This is their job. Whatever anybody thinks, this is their job, and it’s our job to do what’s best for the university, and what’s best for the university is our Tuffy logo and moving forward with that.”

Wade is 100% spot on about protecting the Brand Management Staff. This is the reason Pack Insider chose not include any names in my piece about the email. That’s not what it’s about. This isn’t about singling out one person or even the staff over in branding.

It’s about explaining the fans’ (customers) perspective, giving a different side to the story, and questioning corporate ‘best practices’ in hopes that we can have a brand celebrated by alumni, students, and the fans alike. One that everyone feels proud of.

This should not be a witchhunt. That won’t change anything.

What it will do is prompt apologies like these, which act as a pivot point for those who don’t want to have this conversation, and turn a truly valid (and much-needed) conversation about brand into finger-pointing and name-calling. In that scenario, nobody wins.

This conversation should continue, but the doxxing, emailing, and calling for people to get fired is counterproductive to making your voice heard.

That said, the one area I’ll push back on is “…what’s best for the university is our Tuffy logo and moving forward with that.”

Now the quote itself is fine and potentially true. But let’s not move the goalposts on this one. No one is against the Tuffy logo. In fact, we all love the Tuffy logo.

What we’re frustrated with is the fact that our coach is being told what he can and can’t wear. We all love the Slobbring Wolf, but no one wants that to be our main mark. We just want to take the chains off the retro marks. If Wade wants to lean into them, let him. It’s his first season, let him wear a jacket with whatever approved NC State mark he wants.

And more importantly, take the chains off the retros (which is really what this debate is about).

Go order a ton of them, make them our home jerseys 4 or 5 times per season, and sell the heck out of them in your campus stores.

The main mark can always be Tuffy, heck, Tuffy is on the back collar of the retros.

This isn’t about the fanbase being against Tuffy. It’s about the fans feeling like our history is constantly held in a ‘vault’ and used for promotion only, instead of being ingrained in the overall brand itself.

WADE:  So I urge our fans. These folks are good folks, hardworking folks who are doing their job, and we don’t need to attack anybody. If you want to attack somebody, attack me for starting this and saying something that I didn’t realize was going to do all that. Set this off. But these are hardworking, good folks. They don’t need to be dealing with this. They don’t need to be dealing with this. They’ve been great to work with. They’ve worked with us on many other issues, and they’ve been very, very good to work with. So they’re great partners with us on campus, and we don’t need that. We don’t need that. These folks work extremely hard and want to advance NC State just like all of us do.”

Wade shouldn’t even have to apologize; heck, he’s just the conduit here. This was happening well before he arrived. In fact, it’s kind of a breath of fresh air.

He’s just acting human. God forbid.

He feels like the fans do about the jerseys and brand, and he’s voicing his opinion.

Maybe the University’s brand department, instead of feeling bitter or frustrated about the blowback, should use it as a once-in-a-lifetime data point.

You get a TON of unfiltered customer feedback, and you don’t have to spend a single marketing dollar.

Brands all over the nation spend millions on customer feedback like this.

In fact, your customers are TELLING you what they want to purchase and what they feel an emotional connection to.

LEAN. INTO. IT.

And look, I hate people who point out a problem and fail to have a proposed solution. So here you go…

Here is some unsolicited advice that will make you millions of dollars, build you tons of brand equity, and make the fans re-embrace the Strategic Branding Department…

On February 17th, when UNC comes into town…

– Rock the Retros

– Create a new intro video that ‘tells NC State’s story’ flashback cuts, cuts from this year, create the tie-in.

– Stock the ‘Retros’ in every NC State store out there, leading up to the UNC game.

– Watch the entire fanbase unite and watch your merch fly off the shelves.

Then go back to your normal stuff until the ACC Tournament or another big moment. Surprise the fans with the retros. Use them as your main alternate jersey and stop with the ‘vault mark’ stuff. These are corporate branding tactics that are tired, white-labeled solutions that are copy-paste for branding consultants. I used to work in this world. I know this well.

So go against the grain and listen to your fanbase. Question the consultants, push back on anyone who ‘learned the passion,’ and find people who have ‘lived the passion.’ If you want the names of NC State grads who are superstars in the design and branding world, email me. They are out there and I bet they’d give a discount on consulting.

You can do this and win. Or you can try to silence it over and over and convince yourself that you know better than your customers.

Isn’t the goal of branding to create an emotional bond with your userbase? To symbolize your story and your product? And eventually parlay those things into selling your product? If it is, then what are we really doing here?

I think we can all appreciate Will Wade’s apology, and he obviously wants to be done with this and focus on basketball. I think we can also understand the school’s concern about online witchhunts and wanting to protect their employees. But I think all of that is possible, while still having this very important, and overdue conversation about NC State’s brand.