LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BRAND!

It is my favorite time of year--college and high school football season! Have you noticed how team uniforms have changed over the past few years? Teams have been re-branding themselves--in some ways with new uniforms. TCU (Texas Christian University) are the horned frogs; their colors are purple and black. This year they have new black uniforms with purple highlights. Their new uniforms use the frog's scaly body armor as inspiration for patterned numbers, sleeves, gloves and helmets. Nike says the uniform's detailing is a "visual reminder of the 'bloodlines' and brotherhood of the team [and] creates a head to toe aesthetic from cleat to helmet."

Georgia Athletics, in collaboration with Nike, has a new department-wide brand identity system. The university and Nike looked at Georgia's primary identity (the "G" logo), their secondary identity (the bulldog logo), typography, and color palette. The university wanted a brand identity that was consistent in all areas of their athletic programs. Georgia's traditional Power "G" logo is the primary brand identifier and was fine tuned. Even their bulldog graphic has been updated to "reflect the strong, iconic characteristics of the animal itself as well as the spirit of The University of Georgia Athletics."

My favorite college football team, the Auburn Tigers, does not change its uniforms often. Auburn's colors are orange and blue with white used as an accent color.  Navy jerseys and white helmets have been the tradition since the 1960s. Their traditional "AU" logo has been used on the helmets since 1966.  Orange jerseys have only been worn three times since 1946. The university's new marketing campaign is "This is Auburn." According to the website, this marketing campaign "provides a flexible way to describe the many positive qualities contributing to the university as a whole."

How do we make sure our product or program is distinguished from the rest? I stumbled upon the importance of marketing during my years as a cheerleader coach. When I began coaching in the 1980s, cheerleading was a social activity; team members were even chosen by popular vote of the student body. As I grew as a coach and as the activity gained more attention, I saw this "social activity" evolve into a skilled athletic activity. I have a competitive personality, and this certainly worked well with encouraging my teams to continue to perfect their skills and enter cheerleading competitions. It was in the 90s that a choreographer opened my eyes to better marketing and branding of my teams.

When we think about high school mascots, we may think of tigers, bears, wildcats, panthers. In our area we have several schools with the same mascot; how does one "Wildcat" stand out from the other? Our cheerleading uniforms had always been enhanced with either EHS, CATS, or WILDCATS. EHS is a bit more distinctive, but which EHS--Elba High School, Etowah High School, or Enterprise High School--you see the problem. WILDCATS is even more generic--this gave us no distinctive branding. As our talent level increased, we were gaining more attention, but audiences only knew us as EHS or WILDCATS. This is where the choreographer helped us "brand" our team. He explained that by using ENTERPRISE on jackets, uniforms, etc., we would be more distinct and recognizable.

 

This made sense, so we entered into a process of informally branding our teams. This was not an easy process because it meant purchasing new cheer vests, warm-ups, and other clothing with the lettering ENTERPRISE. Trying to fit 10 letters across the front of a size 2 vest was a challenge. I remember a phone call from the manufacturer who said I would have lettering from arm pit to arm pit--didn't I want to shorten the name? Nope! The point was to have the entire name on our uniforms. As we bought into the branding process, we worked diligently to perfect "the look." This entailed uniform hair styles, hair bows, shoes--every uniform aspect was the same (actually that's the definition of uniform!). I knew we had accomplished our goal when I overheard a coach comment, "That must be Enterprise walking in the gym"--she had only seen my team from the side, but she knew by "the look" it must be Enterprise. We had been successful in our branding choices.

This branding process had unexpected benefits. I think we performed better with ENTERPRISE on the cheer uniforms. I know we behaved better when in public with ENTERPRISE CHEERLEADER on t-shirts and jackets. We weren't just representing a high school, we were representing our city. This bit of pride nudged us to work harder and perform better. We won several state and national championships while wearing ENTERPRISE, and I have to give some of the credit to the branding process.


In researching branding, I have found we can even brand ourselves. This may sound a bit strange, but this is becoming popular with professionals wishing to further their careers. This may also be important to keep your identity distinctive. There is a story about one young man who had excellent credentials, but his resumes were continually rejected. He learned that upon Googling his name, one of the top results was an article about a man with the same name who was a convicted sex offender. Peter Kistler is this man, and he co-founded BrandYourself to help people control what shows when their name is Googled. According to their website, 75% of HR departments are required to Google prospective employees. Their promise "is to make it as easy as possible to help anyone improve their own search results and online reputation."  I'm not advocating you use this service, but I do suggest you look into what appears when you Google your name. Have a friend Google your name. If you don't like the results, it is time to brand yourself. Suggestions from Nate C. Hindman include purchasing a domain that contains your name such as DebbieBracewell.com, building a personal website, using LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or Twitter to build a professional profile, and signing up for Google Alerts to let you know when your name is used in news articles or blog posts.

Branding is not new; however, with today's technology and the invasive nature of social media, it is something we should seriously consider in the world of business and in our professional lives. If we have too many slogans or logos, it may appear we don’t actually know our identity. If we haven’t changed our slogan or logo for a long while, it may appear we are too set in our ways to change. Whether you are branding yourself or your business, take out those logos or slogans, spiff them up so they send the message you want sent.