Logo Pitfalls (2): Branding disaster for new CanAm baseball team
The CanAm Baseball League announced a new team for Ottawa this winter. They featured a great logo, incorporating Ottawa’s whitewater river. The name was also appealing in both of Canada’s official languages: french and english (featured below).
It came as a surprise this week that before the team had even played a single game, it was already sold. The buyers are the founding members of Zip.ca, a Canadian version of Netflix. Ok… You’d think they’d have better business sense. To match their business’ cozzzy “z” name they switched the team’s name to the unilingual rapidz (in french, the plural “s” is silent). Because nearly half of the Ottawa region’s population is french, they’re missing out on a huge addressable market. This is especially important for sports merchandising.
To add more insult to injury, the Rapidz logo was transformed to a cheap cheesy “welcome to Canada’s capital” souvenir-style brand. That’s all the tacky made-in-China branded crap that tourists buy when shopping on Sparks Street (shown on right).
I do wish success to the team. We have a great stadium. Hopefully this season won’t become the baseball snozzzefest that the previous team had become. Go Rapidzzz, go. er… Rapidz!
Doltz!
It’s a crappy name and logo. that is too bad since I was getting excited about the team and looking forward to the first game
if you go to zip.ca you can see the owners don’t have a very good sense of design. the zip logo is what a carrier font? non logo.
I think it’s great that Zip.ca has bought the team. It’s terrible that a few people in Ottawa wine so much about the little things that can’t change the world, like a logo!
That facts are we have a great opportunity to sit on a warm summers day in North America’s second largest indy ball park and enjoy a good game of baseball. It’s too bad more companies like ZIP.ca don’t step up to the plate! Who cares if the logo looks regular. It’s our team. It’s my home team! Go RapidZ!!!!!
Idont think this article was wining about zip buying the team. Who even knew the team was for sale. This is about the business of sport. a new franchise needs a good business plan, great marketing plan, and most important the broadest community support possible. I’m with ya Ken go team go. but we need to know the business side is solid. Even a solid company like zip wont keep pouring money into a money pit if the team deosn’t at least break even. the Rapids had nothing but great relations wth the community from the start. This switchover just alienated a lot of people for no purpose. I would have rather seen Zip’s Rapids than rapidz. Rapides de Zip. hey maybe theres a marketing job for me over at zip!