What Does It Take To Win Around Here? Re: Nike, Soccer & Aspiration

This blog post was inspired by Sam Gregory’s “Nike, Soccer & Aspiration” (which I believe was inspired by a blog post by Jonathan Cheng).  Sam tailored his blog post to the ability of a renowned company (Nike)’s ability to use aspirational social reference figures from different parts of the world (that have a common feature–the fact that they are professional soccer players) to appeal to various geographically dispersed target markets.  As I have been raving about the start of the Toronto Blue Jays season (now in less than 9 days!!!!), let’s see what they have done in terms of aspirational marketing to build hype for the upcoming season!

This season, the Blue Jays have branded their main product (the physical playing of Baseball) with the following phrase: “Hustle & Heart 2.0”.  The Blue Jays compete in the most competitive division in baseball, the AL East, partly because two of the richest teams in baseball (The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox)’s ability to buy any player at any price on any given day.  Thus, the Blue Jays are basically a write off in many baseball fans’ mind.

The Blue Jays have in fact embraced this view, and positioned themselves as the underdogs of the division.  While embracing this standpoint, they then decided to coin their play based on “Hustle & Heart” (this was last season, thus this season is H&H 2.0) as a tribute to the players that they are shaping their organization around (read the last few blog posts to learn more).

All in all, the underlying message is “Hustle & Heart” is what the Blue Jays think is needed to beat the big market teams in their division, and league for that matter,  and have personalized their organization with sufficient personnel to serve as aspirational social reference figures that embody this strategy through their actions, both on and off the field.

Click here to watch the Hustle & Heart 2.0 season opener video.

-Faiz