"Branding" and the SCA

In the wake of this weekend's Board meeting to approve the East's variance to try out a Rapier Crown (yay!), I heard lots of reports about Board members saying that this change would damage the SCA's "brand".

Such nonsense deserves some attention.

Let's be clear here: the SCA's public image has never been that focused on armored combat. Yes, the cover photo of publicity tends to be some dude in armor, because it's weird and flashy, and the media like weird and flashy. But scratch just the tiniest bit beneath the surface, and all decent publicity about the Society focuses primarily on the people, and the many different activities we do.

That's always been true. My first personal experience with publicizing the SCA was a fairly long TV segment Carolingia did back around 1984. Yes, there was a brief bit of fighting -- but there was more music, and dance, and calligraphy, and mainly a focus on the way that this is something that reasonably normal people do in their spare time. It was pretty great publicity, frankly -- truthful and sympathetic, exactly the sort of thing we want.

This really cuts to the essence of the argument. Brands aren't just a picture: a good brand is a statement of who you are, and what you mean. Heavy list isn't the brand of the SCA -- it's just one facet.

What the SCA's brand should be focused on is diversity.

Seriously, that's what we're about, and it always has been. I don't just mean diversity of demographics in our membership (which heaven knows is still a work in progress, that we need to keep improving) -- I mean diversity of viewpoint, activity, and focus.

Diversity of activity has always been what distinguishes the Society from re-enactors. We don't focus narrowly and precisely on a specific time and place. Just the opposite: we are (as it's popularly put these days) three hundred hobbies in a trench coat, covering just about everything that everyone did before 1600. That's always really been the spirit of the club, even before the Board finally knuckled under and recognized it officially, by broadening our scope in the rules some years back.

That is the brand we should be leaning into -- it represents us more truthfully, and frankly it's more appealing to our target audience. Most of the younger new folks I talk to nowadays are somewhat uncomfortable with the excessive focus on "dude in armor": that brand isn't just inaccurate, it's probably hurting us in recruiting, precisely because it over-focuses on an aspect that only a fraction of our target market are looking for. The chance to dive deep into lots of different things, all of which are valued -- that's what makes us look cool and fun.

So let's please not tolerate this "heavy list Crown is our brand" bullshit. The notion that armored combatants fighting for the Crown is our "brand" is not true now, it's never really been true, and insofar as we claim it, we're mostly doing ourselves damage inside and out.

Our "brand" should be diversity -- that is both honest and positive, and it's a brand that makes us better.