What’s in a name?
With growing interest in women’s professional sports leagues in Toronto, new teams face this branding question from the get-go.
Earlier this month, the Toronto Tempo played their inaugural Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) game at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, which is also home to the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Toronto Sceptres, having just completed their third season.
So, how well is the ‘Tempo’ name meeting its branding challenge? It’s early days, and reviews have been mixed, but here’s what marketers look for in a new name.
Described as ‘brand equity,’ marketers account for the assets and liabilities of a branding strategy in evaluating a team’s value with the name as its core component.
Tempo, synonymous with pace and speed, is reflected in the team’s logo — a stylized ‘T’ within a basketball, lines extended to convey forward movement.
True to the team’s identity, the roster was built to integrate a pace-and-space style of play, with the team selecting a guard-heavy group of players in the WNBA expansion draft.
Toronto Tempo’s use of alliteration — two successive words starting with the same letter — creates a memorable brand and is commonplace for sports teams — think of Buffalo Bills, Chicago Cubs, Tennessee Titans. The Tempo are the second WNBA team, after the Seattle Storm, to use the rhetorical device in their branding.
When Edmonton’s Canadian Football League (CFL) team dropped their ‘Eskimos’ nickname, it was clear that they wanted to retain the alliterative power of their double E logo, settling on the ‘Elks,’ while passing on the ‘Eagles,’ ‘Evergreens,’ and ‘Eclipse.’
Going a step further in an alliterative conga line is the Scarborough Shooting Stars, of the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL), with three successive words that begin with the same letter.
The Tempo name has favourable characteristics. It’s short and simple, easy to spell and pronounce (the same cannot be said for the Sceptres), and easily rolls off the tongue. It also conveys an upbeat attribute.
There are, however, shortcomings.
It’s unlikely the team will always live up to its identity of being speedy and scoring many fast-break points.
The team’s name should also preferably have geographic relevance.
Despite being the only Canadian-based team in the WNBA, Tempo does not have any patriotic associations. Further, as a city, Toronto does not have any obvious links with the Tempo like alternatives passed on in the naming process such as the ‘Towers,’ which would have flicked at tall players and the iconic CN Tower.
Reputationally, the pace of life in Toronto might be widely perceived as faster than other parts of Canada. Still, extreme speed or urgency does not speak fully to Toronto’s identity, unlike the common New York City idiom ‘In a New York minute.’
The team’s burgundy-coloured uniforms (‘Tempo Bordeaux’) are elegant and sophisticated, though lack any apparent link to Canada or Toronto.
There’s also the issue of branding prominence on the team’s uniform.
It’s notable that CIBC branding gets a comparable amount of real estate on the jersey’s front to the team’s name (CIBC branding appears under the player’s number while ‘Toronto’ or ‘Tempo’ appears above).
An additional marketing dilemma concerns whether a team name is legally available for use.
Just look at the National Hockey League (NHL)’s Utah Mammoth. The ‘Utah Yetis’ would have been an amazing name, but it was rejected by the U.S. trademarks office to avoid confusion with Yeti Holdings’ YETI-branded coolers, tumblers and bags.
There are already major companies or products known as Tempo, including a sub-brand of Hilton hotels, but it’s not apparent that Toronto’s WNBA team faced legal hurdles in adopting the name.
And while the team’s branding might be meh, the fans’ focus will quickly shift to their ability to win.
I’d give it a .500 record.
