Of principles and pragmatism: your vote on Washington Redskins brand

Red, but not skinned!

Guest Kat Miri Frankel's recent blogpost ("Crowdsourcing a Brand New Name", here) on the sustained campaign of objections to the use of the iconic Washington Redskins name in the United States reflected concerns that the name was offensive to Native Americans which the IPKat first picked up as long ago as 2005, here, On the one hand the name is itself part of American sports history and there is no doubt that, as an intellectual asset, it has the power to attract and retain consumer loyalty and to generate highly substantial revenues. On the other hand, the fact that a brand has a long and distinguished past does not guarantee that it has a future, and both cultural attitudes and social norms have changed greatly since the name was adopted.

The IPKat ran a sidebar poll in order to give readers a chance to offer their own thoughts on the subject. This is how the 161 votes panned [Merpel was most surprised at the low turn-out: is this a further sign of voter apathy, she wonders] out:

* It's a great brand with a great tradition and should be retained at all costs 60 (37%)  

* It's only offensive to a small minority, so why worry? 10 (6%)  

* It doesn't matter if the brand's offensive or not: it's politically incorrect and should be dropped 9 (5%)  

* The feelings of all minorities should be respected: the brand should be dropped 30 (18%)  

* Isn't this an opportunity for a profitable major rebrand? 52 (32%) 

Readers' loyalty to the brand, or at least their feeling that such loyalty was a value that validated the continued use of the brand, was the most commonly-expressed sentiment, with more than a third of respondents supporting the brand's retention.  Against that, those who felt that it ought to be dropped for reasons of principle based on its being either politically incorrect or actually offensive aggregated only 23% of responses: these respondents were outnumbered by 'fellow travellers' so far as ditching the brand is concerned, but who do not so much turn a disapproving countenance to the brand's actual or potential offensive qualities as seize the moment to turn any discomfiture into a positive chance to refresh, rebrand, rebuild -- with all the commercial and cultural advantages that such an exercise might encompass.