5 Tips On Marketing for the Long Term with Andrew LeRay, Director of Brand Marketing at the National Women’s Soccer League
As a Marketer, your job is to live in the future.
Not in a flying-cars-and-robot-butlers kind of way but more like:
What will people be into next week?
Next MONTH?!
NEXT SCROLL?!?!
You need to be constantly looking ahead and thinking of what the path ahead means for your brand.
And today’s guest is doing that EVERY SINGLE DAY on 1 of the largest stages in the sports world.
Andrew LeRay is the Director of Brand Marketing at the National Women’s Soccer League and if being a Marketer is about living in the future, then consider him Marty McFly.
Also, who doesn’t love soccer????? ⚽️
Here’s what he had to say about building your brand for the long term in his own (lightly edited) words:
1️⃣. Brand is how you’re perceived, not what you say.
Andrew’s Take:
“It’s not enough to just tell people to think one way or another about the league.”
You’ve got to keep one hand on the wheel and one eye on who’s in the rearview mirror gearing up to join the ride.
Loyal fans matter, but so do the next ones.
Takeaway:
You can’t just shout your brand story into the void and expect people to buy in.
Real branding? It’s earned. Through consistency, resonance, and showing up with the right partners, players, and content.
2️⃣. If you’re an underdog, act like it.
Andrew’s Take:
“I love being able to adopt this identity we’ve given ourselves as a challenger brand.
We’re a group of people who want to make noise, who need to make noise, and break through.
We’re willing to put ourselves out there in ways that other leagues, which have been around for so many years, simply aren’t.”
Legacy brands have history.
If you’re not them, you need to have HUSTLE.
Andrew would know. He came from Major League Baseball, the definition of a legacy brand.
Now? He’s helping the NWSL play offense by beating their drum as loud as they can.
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Takeaway:
If you’re not the default choice, you better be the loudest one.
Legacy brands can coast on name recognition. Challenger brands?
They’ve gotta outwork, out-create, and out-shout everyone else in the room.
No one’s handing you attention…you’ve gotta demand it.
So turn up the volume, break the rules, and make them look.
Silence isn’t an option.
3️⃣. Top of funnel is the power position.
Andrew’s Take:
“I live at the top of the funnel… everything I do is about awareness. We already had the loyal fans – now we needed to get the curious ones.”
Brand building isn’t just about loving on your superfans.
It’s about making new people give a sh*t.
Andrew flipped the league’s focus from retention to expansion…investing in awareness, culture, and storytelling that speaks to the casually curious.
Takeaway:
Most marketers think they’re doing top-of-funnel right. But chasing views isn’t the same as building awareness.
Andrew’s playing a different game:
He’s not just driving impressions, he’s earning interest.
The real top-of-funnel work?
It’s not about going viral. It’s about being remembered.
Reach is easy. Resonance is rare.
If your awareness doesn’t stick, it doesn’t scale.
4️⃣. The brand game is a long game.
Andrew’s Take:
“Brands aren’t built overnight.
You can’t force people to perceive your brand a certain way.
You have to build a story. You have to know who you are, decide what you’re trying to do, and how you want to tell that story.
And that, in itself, takes time.”
You can’t shortcut brand trust.
You can’t fast-track emotional connection.
And you definitely can’t brute-force your way into relevance.
What you can do?
Keep showing up. Keep telling your story.
Keep building momentum until people can’t ignore you anymore.
Takeaway:
You don’t build a brand in a sprint.
You build it in the reps. Showing up with the same energy, clarity, and purpose OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
The brands people trust most?
They don’t just make noise. They make sense.
Consistency earns attention.
Repetition builds belief.
That’s how you become unforgettable.
5️⃣. Let your people build the brand with you.
Andrew’s Take:
“Our players are the brand. New fans follow people before they follow teams or leagues. So our job is to empower players to share their story and make it easy for them to do it.”
Most brands try to control the narrative.
The smart ones equip their people to tell it better.
Andrew’s team gives players exclusive, high-quality content from games and events so they can show up on their own channels with something worth posting.
Takeaway:
Your best brand builders aren’t sitting in marketing.
They’re the faces your audience already trusts.
Give them tools to speak.
Make it effortless to share.
That’s how you scale belief.
IN A MEME
While we’re on the topic of SOCCER, never forget this legend. #SorryNotSorry
