A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers trademarked the name, “Los Doyers.”  This story is a good reminder that brands are never really “owned” but rather, they are “shared.”

What’s Los Doyers?

Here’s how UrbanDictionary.com defines it:
“A common nickname for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Jokingly caught on because of the huge percentage of Mexican American fans. A purposeful mispronunciation which now appears on t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and jackets. At any given game a huge portion of the audience is Mexican American or Latino.”

In the communications world, we are used to thinking of brands as constructs we create and manage. This carries the implication that we hold a degree of ownership over brands and are free to maneuver them, as we like.

The truth is, this really isn’t true.

The truth is that we share brands with the people that bring them into their lives.  With people who pick up the story where our communications leave off, and with the people that breathe new life into them, which we in turn try to infuse into the stories we tell about the brand.

Technically, the Dodgers are within their right to trademark Los Doyers; you can say even with more reason when you take into account that it is a play on their name. Technically this is true.

But, as one fan put it “why are they trademarking something we have been saying for years?” If you read between the lines what this fan is really saying is “what gives the Dodger’s the right to own something we say?”  The Dodgers are The Dodgers, but Los Doyers are ours.

Fans have interpreted the Dodgers move as a simple way to exploit Los Doyers for their own economic benefit – but it left nothing for the fan.  The name that they use on their homemade or unofficial t-shirts, hats, and stickers will now technically be illegal.

Yet, Los Doyers is a brand, a construct, and an idea they created.  It’s Los Doyers that lived the Fernando Valenzuela phenomena in the 80’s and fills up Chavez Ravine today.

The Dodgers are the ones that hike up prices, but Los Doyers are the team you root for.

Sure, people alter brands all the time: FedEx, KFC, MickeyD’s, Tar-jay, and more.

The question is, how do you reflect how people adapt your brand to their lives, while respecting the sense of ownership and belonging they feel towards it?

How do you bring people into your brand’s storytelling, and not alienate them?

This is a story the Los Angeles Lakers should play close attention to as they look outside of those shiny Staples Center windows to see all of those “Los Lakers” jerseys and hats being sold.

photo credit: la lemon