FOR THE H OF IT

Ken Hoffman uncovers the origin of the Astros 2020 slogan

Ken Hoffman uncovers the origin of the Astros 2020 slogan
Photo by Getty Images

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.

It happens every spring, the Houston Astros come up with a slogan intended to rally the fans and get the town excited about baseball again. Some examples from recent years: "We Are Your Astros" (2011), "Root. Root. Root. (2012), "Earn History" (2017), "Never Settle" (2018), and "Take It Back" (2019).

For 2020, this year of redemption, the Astros want everybody to know they're doing it "For the H." The Astros want "For the H" to be as ubiquitous as "Keep America Great" or "Not me. Us" (maybe) or "Mike Gets It Done" (pending) and stick around just as long. That would be World Series time in November.

The Astros didn't go with the first light bulb that popped over a mid-level manager's head. Here's all the staff meetings, focus groups, and running up the flagpole that go into the team slogan — from first brainstorm to the sign outside Minute Maid Park — courtesy of Anita Sehgal, Astros senior vice president of marketing and communications.

CultureMap: How long ago did you start thinking up the campaign slogan for 2020?

Anita Sehgal: We started in November — shortly after the World Series. We have used 'For the H' on and off within other campaigns and this year felt right to elevate it and develop a campaign around it.

CM: How important to the Astros is a good slogan that connects with fans and the community?

AS: Incredibly important. Our campaign every year is intended to provide a rallying cry for our fans, players and the community. We want our fans to have a true emotional connection with our team. It is also important that we look at a fully integrated campaign – not just a slogan. Our marketing team wants to ensure our theme is more than just words.

CM: What is the process? How many steps up the corporate ladder before owner Jim Crane gives a thumbs up?

AS: The marketing team leads the process for campaign development. We anchor our process in fan insight. We take our inspiration from how our fans, players, and influencers speak about why they love the Astros and what they look forward to. The team develops mood boards, tagline options and a few design options for consideration.

The team also spends a lot of time developing creative and content ideas on how the campaign will come to life and sustain itself for a full season. It is a collaborative process among many departments within marketing. We generally go through a few iterations until ultimately I sign off and share with our entire executive team, including Jim. Once our executive team has had input, we finalize the campaign and prep it for launch.

CM: How long between first thought to the final okay?

AS: Our campaign process generally takes about two months.

CM: Was the slogan devised in-house or did the Astros go to Madison Avenue for a slogan specialist?

AS: We have an unbelievably talented marketing department in-house that takes this task on every year.

CM: It's unusual that our XFL team, the Roughnecks, also is using "For the H" as its slogan. Are the Astros okay with that? Who came first? Was it done in collaboration?

Continue on CultureMap to find out if the Roughnecks and Astros collaborated on the slogan.

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Houston defeats TCU, 60-45. Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images.

Kelvin Sampson knows how to win a Big 12 Tournament, leading Oklahoma to three straight titles in the early 2000s.

He has Houston two wins away from its own.

The Cougars ramped up their suffocating defense on TCU, Emanuel Sharp had 14 points and Big 12 player of the year Jamal Shead scored 12, and the No. 1 team in the nation rolled to a 60-45 victory on Thursday in the quarterfinal round of its first tournament in its new league.

“They're all good. All the teams are really good,” said Sampson, whose team was beaten soundly on the boards by the bigger Horned Frogs yet still won with ease. “You win by 15, you move on to the next one, man.”

In this case No. 25 Texas Tech, which romped to a victory over No. 20 BYU earlier in the day.

“Texas Tech is good enough to beat us,” Sampson said. “We're going to have to play a lot better than we did today.”

Hard to imagine it on the defensive end, where the No. 1 seed Cougars (29-3) held eighth-seeded TCU without a point for nearly 10 minutes to start the game and was never threatened the rest of the way in winning its 10th consecutive game.

Micah Peavy had 13 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Horned Frogs (21-12). Leading scorer Emanuel Miller followed up his 26-point performance in a second-round win over Oklahoma by scoring just three points on 1-for-10 shooting.

TCU wound up going 17 of 73 from the field (23.3%) and 2 of 20 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“It wasn't our day to make shots,” Horned Frogs coach Jamie Dixon said. “I don't know how many were tough shots. I thought there were layups, we had a couple of kickout 3s off rebounds. It's probably something to do with them, because you can't take away from what they've done game after game. Their numbers are off the charts.”

Longtime rivals in the old Southwest Conference, the Cougars and Horned Frogs were meeting for the first time in the Big 12 Tournament — otherwise known as a neutral floor, where Houston had never lost in eight other games with TCU.

The Cougars never left a doubt that it would be nine.

Fresh off a 30-point blowout of Kansas, the regular-season Big 12 champs scored the first 16 points of the game, shutting down Dixon's team with the kind of in-your-shorts defense that has become the Cougars' hallmark over the years.

TCU missed its first 16 field-goal attempts and did not score until Peavy's bucket with 10:25 left in the first half.

“That's a whole other level of not making shots,” Dixon said.

Even when Houston went through its own offensive dry spell in the first half, it continually hounded the Horned Frogs. They were 3 for 23 with six turnovers at one point, and during one possession, they missed four consecutive shots at the rim.

TCU trailed 31-15 at halftime, missed its first eight shots of the second half and never threatened the rest of the way.

“The past four years I've been here,” Shead said, “we've approached every game the same. We said at the beginning of the year the Big 12 was a lot harder competition at a consistent level, but our preparation is usually the same. It's just about going out there and executing what we work on.”

UP NEXT

TCU should be safely in the NCAA Tournament field for the third consecutive year.

Houston routed the Red Raiders 77-54 in January, when Shead poured in 29 points in the win.

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