know your customer - or not(ts)

OK, so you may think I am being picky about this one - but in a marketing context I have a valid point.

This ad appeared on a newspaper's website where I was reading a match report on my team - Nottingham Forest. Now we all appreciate that Nottingham is a long-ish word and an abbreviation is often necessary - and the shortened version is Nott'm. Notts, on the other hand, is the abbreviation of Nottinghamshire - the county of which Nottingham is the capital. The county has its own football team - Notts County.

And here is the marketing issue:

• Forest fans - realistically - represent the only segment of the market that is likely to buy the club's memorabilia
• Forest fans HATE the term Notts when used in context of their club
• So if you are trying to appeal to that segment you should use text that endears them to your ad and your organization
• So don't use Notts in those ads