Ah, soccer. The beautiful game. As the most popular activity in the world, with endless appeal, creativity and flair, it obviously creates a space where teams are equally creative with their means of advertising. And that’s why we’re here today looking at the latest promotional merch released by Forward Madison FC: a branded potato.
Forward Madison potatoes are officially back in stock! Get yours now before they sell out again! 🥔
— Forward Madison FC (@ForwardMSNFC) November 18, 2019
The team, which plays in the USL League One (the third tier of American professional soccer) already has appeal for looking around at its Wisconsin home, paying attention to the landscape and tradition, and going, “Yo, we’re gonna be flamingos.”
Heck yeah you are, FMFC. While you’re at it, go with some garish blue and pink colors. Jazz it up. Throw some crazy patterns on those jerseys. Splash some color on that winter landscape. Badgers and meat-packing professionals be damned!
So, a team having that much fun not taking itself too seriously in a weird American soccer climate, where teams go for overly grandiose names that copy their European counterparts (looking at you, Real Salt Lake), should be the ones who sell something like a branded potato.
The potato was just restocked yesterday, and is already sold out on the FMFC page. But fear not, Flamingo faithful. There’s a nifty little workaround that the team is offering.
You can buy your own at Festival and walk up to our office, we'll help you tape our logo on it.
— Forward Madison FC (@ForwardMSNFC) November 18, 2019
How’s that for service? Every household potato becomes a FMFC potato with a trip to the pitch (that’s fancy soccer talk for “field”).
After a quick look at the FMFC store, we also spotted gravy boats, which we have not seen for sale from any other professional soccer team both foreign and domestic.
To be brutally honest here, there isn’t a huge market for lower-tier professional soccer in medium-small cities in the U.S. Teams don’t have the history of those in Europe, and soccer is still gaining steam in the States, so even the MLS is working overtime to put people in seats. A lot of people outside of Madison would likely have never heard of FMFC, but thanks to a potato, the team is getting national attention.
This is how distributors can help their clients grow through word-of-mouth. No, they don’t have to advise their clients to tape their logo to produce (that’s not a bad idea, though). Creative, weird and sometimes risky promotional merch can help brands stand out amidst the white noise of advertising anymore.
If the U.S. Soccer Federation implements a promotion/relegation system for no other reason, it needs to be so that smaller teams like FMFC can show MLS colleagues how to market themselves and have fun. Maybe baseball can do the same.
