When fans of the Portland Timbers first heard of the team’s kit sponsorship deal with local home improvement contractor DaBella, many who were unfamiliar with the company took to search engines to find out more. Landing in places like Reddit, Yelp and the Better Business Bureau website, one is likely to find a breadth of negative reviews, concerns about the business owners’ past ventures, and ethical questions.
But what does that mean in a broader context? And why did the Timbers enter a partnership with a company with so much negativity swirling around online, particularly given the club itself is trying to repair its reputation following years of off-field scandal?
The answer is more complicated than what appears on the surface. While the Timbers declined The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request to address these concerns, industry experts make it clear there is more nuance to the situation with DaBella than the Internet might present.
DaBella is accredited and have an A+ rating with the BBB, and that is the result of a thorough investigation process by BBB and work by DaBella to maintain the rating, BBB spokesperson Roseann Freitas explained.
“What we know is, most people only leave a review if they’re upset,” Freitas said. “It’s human nature that if we have a good experience, we’re less likely to go and leave a review. For us, the place we look is the complaint system. As an accredited business, DaBella is required to respond to every complaint. And they do.”
DaBella was founded in Oregon in 2011, the same year a similar business in Washington, Penguin Windows, shuttered. Donnie McMillan, Jr., was the president of Penguin and later founded DaBella.
In 2010, Penguin reached a settlement with the Washington Attorney General for what the AG described as unacceptable marketing practices, accusing Penguin of “misrepresenting its products, making false claims about the energy savings customers would achieve, and misleading consumers into thinking that the in-home appointments they set up with Penguin were something other than sales calls.”
Penguin denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement filed in King County Superior Court but agreed to restrictions on its marketing tactics.
Complaints about DaBella over the last few years across multiple platforms follow a similar pattern: aggressive sales tactics including door-to-door salespeople staying in homes for sometimes 4-5 hours at a time, charging high prices for what customers often perceive as unnecessary services, and pressuring potential customers to sign contracts early on in the conversation.
The company’s customer review rating on the Better Business Bureau is 2.76/5, with 474 official complaints closed in the last three years. DaBella also has 45 complaints filed with the Construction Contractors Board since 2014.
So, how did DaBella earn an A+ rating with the BBB and keep it for nearly a decade? Freitas said it has primarily to do with the industry they are in, and the number of locations (46) for a rapidly growing company with an estimated $360 million in annual revenue.
“They are experiencing huge growth right now, and spread among a number of different states,” Freitas said. “So, when you break it down by the number of locations, it’s actually not that many complaints for the body of work that they do. And for the roofing industry as a whole, it tends to have more complaints than any other construction industry. So all of that factors into our process.”
The past issues McMillan faced when leading Penguin Windows factored in, too. It took three years of business in Oregon before the BBB provided DaBella its accreditation in 2014, because the organization allows businesses time to make good on previous mistakes, Freitas said.
And accreditation doesn’t last forever. The BBB is constantly monitoring accredited businesses, Freitas said, to make sure they remain compliant with state laws and maintain their credibility and standards in perpetuity.
How, then, does the sponsorship deal between the Timbers and DaBella square with the team’s recent past?
It is clear that potentially fruitful partnerships between the two companies are on the horizon, including building roofs for local families in need and other community engagement initiatives through the club’s outreach arm, Stand Together. But persistent controversy and a perceived lack of accountability remains an issue for the Timbers, and DaBella will continue fighting an uphill battle to earn the trust of some in the community as long as negative consumer reviews keep coming in, even if those reviews aren’t fully representative of the company’s practices.
That makes this particular sponsorship deal a unique challenge, University of Oregon marketing professor T. Bettina Cornwell told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
“The pairing of a team facing controversy with a brand with reputational challenges is particularly relevant in the mind of those paying close attention to both sides of the partnership,” Cornwell said via email. “Not everyone does – at first. Over time, if the root cause of controversy, scandal, or image is not addressed, the prognosis is not good.”
The Timbers faced multiple rejections from companies before landing with DaBella as their kit sponsor. The Sports Business Journal reported that McMillan replied to the team’s inquiry within five minutes, and McMillan’s meeting in July with the club’s senior leadership — which included apparent rapport with owner Merritt Paulson — was a tipping point.
It is no small thing that Alaska Airlines — a company with nearly 25 times the annual revenue of DaBella, and one that kept its partnership with the Timbers for 13 seasons — dropped its sponsorship of the team. While it was never said explicitly by the company, PTFC’s failures as outlined in the U.S. Soccer investigation may have played a role. And it could be part of the reason why the Timbers landed with a much smaller company as their kit sponsor.
“Reputation in sponsoring has feedback loops,” Cornwell said. “When there has been reputational damage to a team, it is then difficult to attract and retain sponsors that have good reputations and want to keep them.”
Correction: This story was updated to reflect that Donnie McMillan, Jr., was the president of Penguin Windows.
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