Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South …€¦ · · 2012-11-13Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South Carolina Beaufort Crafts a New Image Mark S. Nagel

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Volume 1 Case Study 9IN SPORT MANAGEMENTCase STUDIES

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Dr. Mark Nagel is currently an associate professor in the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Lynn W. McGee is currently Vice Chancellor for Advancement at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.

Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South Carolina Beaufort Crafts a New Image

Mark S. NagelUniversity of South Carolina

Lynn W. McGeeUniversity of South Carolina Beaufort

Keywords: college athletics, branding, marketing, logo, mascot, North America

In 2002, the state of South Carolina authorized the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) to alter its role and mission from a two-year college to a four-year, baccalaureate-granting institution. As part of its desire to become a “full-service” university, USCB planned to begin intercollegiate athletic competition by 2007. In addition to launching the athletic department, USCB needed to select a mascot and logo that would be appropriate not only for the new athletic department, but also for the two-campus institution that was located in the beautiful South Carolina Sea Islands. Rather than simply have the chancellor or the new athletic direc-tor select the mascot and color scheme, USCB formed a mascot selection committee comprised of various on and off-campus stakeholders who utilized survey research to solicit a wide variety of potential mascot choices before undertaking its evaluations and making its final recommendation. This case provides details regarding USCB’s mascot selection process and poses a variety of questions for students to contemplate when making athletic branding decisions.

Case Applications

This case is designed to help students understand the logo and mascot development process. Though many students will not ever have the opportunity to design a logo from “scratch,” the case provides students insights into various methods that institutions could implement to undertake branding, re-branding, or brand extension efforts. Since brand-ing, logos, and mascots are critical components of a variety of organizations’ marketing efforts in sport management, the case is applicable to nearly every sport management student. Many college athletic departments and professional teams have recently altered some aspect of their name, logo or color scheme, making this case an important learning tool for students to understand an important aspect of the branding process. Even though many sport franchises and university athletic departments have not changed their mascot name or color scheme, sport managers must have the tools to continually analyze their branding efforts and evaluate how their brand is portrayed. The case is applicable for both undergraduate and graduate sport marketing classes and also would be appropriate for a management or strategic management in sport class. Since a key component of the case is designing, administering, analyzing and utilizing survey data, the case could also serve as a supplement to a research methods class.

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Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the case, students should be able to:

• State the key campus and off-campus stakeholders involved in intercollegiate athletics strategic branding decisions;

• Explain a process whereby an athletic department and a university can create a logo and mascot that appeals to multiple stakeholders. Consider alternative processes to develop/refine/update logos and comment on their strengths and weaknesses;

• Summarize and debate the various strengths and weaknesses of potential branding options;

• Evaluate potential mascot choices as they relate to a university’s brand architecture;

• Describe the link between the university strategic plan and the athletic strategic plan. Summarize the benefits athletics brings to an institution, even if it does not generate enough revenue to cover the cost of operations; and

• Formulate strategies to announce/unveil the logo that will accelerate logo adoption and build meaning behind the brand.

Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South Carolina Beaufort Crafts a New Image

Universities must work both hard and smart to build themselves as brands…to link themselves with that in which people take pride, with what they value as a society and with what they consider to be distinctive, central and enduring (Toma, 2003, p. 196).

When Kim Abbott was hired as Director of Athletics (AD) at the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) on July 20, 2005, she faced a variety of daunting tasks. Abbott would begin her role with USCB as the first member of an athletic department that did not yet exist. The university had set a goal of fielding intercollegiate athletic teams beginning in fall of 2007 and Abbott, a former college golf coach and athletic administrator at the University of South Carolina’s flagship campus in Columbia, was tasked with developing short and long-term strategic plans. She would choose the sports in which to compete, hire coaches and other athletic personnel, develop athletic facilities and solicit community support and donor funding. In addition, Abbott would need to develop a mascot and color scheme to represent not only USCB’s new athletic teams, but the school’s overall identity.

As Abbott began her tenure, she established relationships with a variety of constituents on and off campus and began to shape the future of USCB Athletics. By 2006, Abbott and USCB Chancellor Dr. Jane Upshaw had decided that USCB would join the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The NAIA’s focus on the “scholar-athlete” and their “Champions of Character” program appealed to both leaders. Also, because the NAIA’s Florida Sun Conference was eager to expand into South Carolina and Georgia, they were willing to let USCB begin competition without immediately meeting the minimum number of teams required for membership. Abbott planned to field teams in men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s cross country beginning in the fall semester of 2007. The strategy for future sport sponsorship was flexible, but they hoped to add the first team sport with audience potential, men’s baseball, in 2009. By encouraging cross country athletes to also participate in men’s and women’s distance running in the spring (with plans to expand to a full track and field team later), USCB would move quickly to meet the minimum number of sports (six) required for membership in the NAIA. Women’s softball, women’s soccer, and track and field for both men and women were viewed as likely future candidates to follow in the 2011-2012 academic year. Other sports thought to have potential included women’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s tennis.

By late fall 2006, Abbott had hired an assistant AD/cross country coach and an assistant golf coach with the intention of starting competition in those sports during the 2007-2008 academic year. The NAIA expressed interest in approving USCB to complete its probationary membership year in 2007-2008 if those teams had begun com-peting. Abbott and the chancellor thought it would be great to unveil a new mascot, logo, and color scheme at the

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March 2007 announcement of NAIA membership as well. In December 2006, the athletic department conducted rudimentary research to solicit names for the new mascot. Abbott placed cardboard boxes at various locations on campus where members of the campus community could leave suggestions. Though a number of ideas submitted were interesting and potentially usable, when Abbott met with Chancellor Upshaw in early January 2007 to report her progress on the mascot initiative and set a plan to proceed, the chancellor felt Abbott needed some support from the USCB marketing and communications staff in order to meet a new mascot announcement deadline of fall 2007. Upshaw asked Lynn McGee, Vice Chancellor for Advancement, to join the meeting. Dr. McGee, hired in August 2006, was responsible for developing the branding and messaging for the institution. Abbott advocated that the three of them choose one of the options in the suggestion boxes and that Advancement hire a graphic designer to create the image in eight weeks—in time for the March media event to announce USCB’s NAIA membership and entry into intercollegiate competition. Abbott’s strategy was a fast way to get a solution; however, Dr. McGee added a different perspective. Dr. McGee focused on how the mascot would contribute to the university’s brand architecture. As the university began to build its new brand as a 4-year institution, the mascot would be a key building block in the overall brand. It was important to Dr. McGee that the mascot chosen not only help the athletic department succeed, but also that it build a strong sense of ownership amongst local citizens, convey some distinctive message about the institution’s unique features and demonstrate its membership in the USC system. In a “normal” branding context, the university’s brand message would be fully developed before sub-brands like athletics were pursued--so that together all the brands would “speak with one voice” about what made USCB unique. Since the chancellor wanted to move forward, Dr. McGee quickly explained the importance of considering how the athletic brand needed to fit into the larger university and academic program brand architecture. Specifically, Dr. McGee pointed out that the mascot selected must communicate a message about USCB’s unique strengths to a national audience and it also needed to touch the hearts and minds of the local community to galvanize support for the athletic department’s new teams.

This conversation led to the three leaders agreeing that:

• Since the mascot, color scheme and registered trademark(s) would be the second major component of the univer-sity’s identity, they must support the overall brand architecture and messaging, and

• To help engage and sustain interest and excitement for the creation of the teams, finding a way to involve the campus and the local community so that those constituents felt personal ownership of the chosen mascot from the day of its unveiling was critical.

Dr. McGee asked for time to develop a plan for the mascot selection process. She did some secondary research and bench-marking against other institutions, thoughtfully considered potential options, and met once again with Chancel-lor Upshaw and Athletic Director Abbott a few days later. At the meeting, Dr. McGee presented a rationale for using a systematic, research-based mascot selection process -one that included greater involvement of on-campus and off-campus stakeholders in considering potential names and color schemes.

Chancellor Upshaw directed Dr. McGee to chair and Ms. Abbott to serve as vice-chair of a mascot steering com-mittee that would recommend a new mascot name and logo. Dr. Upshaw agreed that involving the university’s many stakeholders would provide immediate buy in and support, not just for the mascot, but also for the athletic teams. Included on the mascot selection steering committee were members of various stakeholder groups: students, student-athletes, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the local community. In addition, university personnel who would be intimately involved with the day-to-day utilization of the new logo, such as the athletic department, university graphic design office and the university bookstore, were included on the committee. Realizing that such a diverse group needed a common starting point, Dr. McGee looked to USCB’s mission statement to guide the process: “With its mission of teaching, research and service, USCB draws upon regional strengths, meets regional needs and prepares students to participate successfully in communities locally and across the globe.” With a service region that included over 1,300 sea islands, among them popular resort destinations like Hilton Head Island, Dr. McGee realized that the regional con-nection would be an important theme for all aspects of the University’s branding. She proposed three criteria that the committee subsequently adopted as a way to screen ideas and make a final selection:

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• Provide a strong image for athletics,

• Represent USCB’s unique geographic region in a way that would resonate with local and regional community members, and

• Build a unique national institutional identity by conveying a distinctive attribute of the region.

As the committee first convened in the spring of 2007, it had a variety of tasks to complete. Each commit-tee member was tasked with creating their own subcommittee of approximately eight members who would meet to review options and make recommendations prior to steering committee meetings. The eventual selection of a mascot would require thoughtful consideration of the outlined criteria. Any mascot selected would need to repre-sent both USCB’s historic campus on the waterfront in the charming small southern town of Beaufort and also the high-tech setting of its new campus at the gateway to the international resort community of Hilton Head, South Carolina. In addition, the committee would need to solicit input from a wide variety of stakeholders before sub-mitting their final report and recommendation to Chancellor Upshaw in fall 2007. Ultimately, the final name and mascot choice would need to galvanize community support and enhance the athletic department and the University’s image.

The University of South Carolina

In 1801, the South Carolina legislature, with encouragement from Governor John Drayton, founded South Caro-lina College one block from the state capitol in Columbia. In 1805, the college established a classical curriculum. Though initially only one building, the campus slowly expanded around what is known today as the historic Horse-shoe. During the early 1800s, the University attracted greater numbers of students as the state of South Carolina slowly grew from its agrarian roots in the 1700s. With the onset of hostilities between the North and South after the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the College was closed temporarily until fighting in the Civil War had ceased in 1865. In 1866, the college was reopened as the University of South Carolina. In addition to the traditional curriculum, the University now offered programs in law, engineering, mathematics and medicine. Despite the reopening, during Reconstruction the University experienced a variety of setbacks, including low enroll-ments and a debate in the legislature to permanently close the campus. Though the University was reorganized as South Carolina College in 1891, it was later permanently reestablished as the University of South Carolina (USC) in 1906.

Despite the reorganization in 1906, the University of South Carolina continued to struggle during the first 30 years of the twentieth century. However, by the 1930s, the University began to increase enrollment consistently and its reputation within the southeastern portion of the United States was enhanced. As World War II began, the Univer-sity experienced a drop in enrollment as many potential students elected to enlist in the armed forces. However, the U.S. Navy established a variety of training programs at the University which helped moderate the loss of students. At the conclusion of the war, the University experienced a dramatic increase in enrollment as returning servicemen utilized the GI Bill to fund their educational pursuits.

An important component of the University of South Carolina flagship campus is its athletic department. Since it first fielded a football team in 1892, the popularity of athletics has increased on campus and throughout the state. While it was a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference from 1953 to 1970, it currently is a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) where it competes in a variety of men’s and women’s sports at the highest level of intercollegiate competition. Its football team plays home games in Williams-Brice Stadium (80,250 capacity), the 20th largest college football stadium, and its men’s and women’s basketball teams play their home games in the 18,000-seat Colonial Life Arena. The USC men’s baseball team won back-to-back National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I national championships in 2010 and 2011. Its athletic program budgeted $65 million in the 2008-2009 academic year (“SEC Athletic Department Budgets,” 2009) making it one of the top-35 spending programs in the country. The popularity of the athletic teams is often cited by incoming students as one of the main reasons they choose to enroll at USC.



The University of South Carolina Beaufort

USCB’s heritage extends back to Beaufort College, the second higher education institution chartered in the state in 1795. Beaufort College served the elite of the flourishing sea island region and, in its antebellum zenith had one of the most extensive libraries in the nation and sent many of its graduates to Yale, Harvard, and South Carolina College to complete their university degrees. Like many other southern institutions of higher learning, it closed in 1861 as the Civil War commenced and most of its students enlisted.

In 1957, the University of South Carolina first began to establish branch campuses outside Columbia. The establish-ment of the University of South Carolina system coincided with a desire by the legislature to increase citizens’ access to higher education in all regions of the state. The USC system eventually grew to include the flagship research campus in Columbia, three senior, comprehensive universities and five 2-year campuses. The University of South Carolina system is governed by a 20-person Board of Trustees that appoints a President to oversee the day-to-day operation of the flagship campus in Columbia and to lead the entire USC system. Each senior campus is led by a chancellor who reports directly to the president; each regional campus is managed by a dean who reports to a vice provost. The entire system serves over 44,000 students and offers a variety of undergraduate programs and graduate programs including law and medicine.

After local leaders in Beaufort organized support for a campus, the University of South Carolina created a two-year regional campus in Beaufort in 1959 on the original site of Beaufort College. The campus opened with 57 students and consistently increased enrollment while slowly expanding from its initial footprint. By the 1980s, USCB had developed into an eight-acre campus on the Beaufort River, which included a renovated elementary school to which a theater had been added, historic homes converted for faculty offices, an art studio, and two other buildings.

The University began offering classes on Hilton Head Island in 1985. By 1989, students had the opportunity to pursue a few baccalaureate degrees through USC Aiken and USC Columbia cooperative programs. The specialized programs offered many classes on USCB’s campus with students also occasionally travelling to Aiken or Columbia. When International Paper donated 80 acres of land near Hilton Head Island to the school in 1994, campus leaders began to contemplate an expansion of USCB’s two-year associate degree programs into four-year baccalaureate programs. Support from a variety of university and community leaders led to the state of South Carolina authorizing USCB to pursue provisional accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, thereby expanding its role and mission to a four-year, full service university and awarding its own baccalaureate degrees. To enhance educational opportunities, USCB opened a new campus on 200 acres at the gateway to Hilton Head Island in Bluffton, South Carolina (30 miles from Beaufort) in August 2004. The new campus was just off of Interstate 95 and only 30 minutes from Savannah, GA. In the fall of 2005, on-campus student apartments opened on the Bluffton campus and occupancy increased each academic year. By 2007, USCB offered baccalaureate degrees in 14 majors and several concentrations; it had established short-term goals to add additional degree programs, to finish the second floor of the science and technology building to house a nursing facility and to add a campus center with dining and recreation facilities. These facilities were clearly needed to continue the institution’s growth and development of new programs. The 2002 change in university mission led to a dramatic increase in student enrollment. From 2002 to 2007, USCB increased its full time equivalent (FTE) enrollment from 680 to 997. In fall 2011, USCB had increased its total number of students enrolled to 1,591 and the chancellor realized that as a full service university USCB needed to reach the size of its peer, USC Aiken, which enrolled 3,000 students. Development of the intercollegiate athletic program was vital to achieving this strategic goal.

USCB Athletics

In the 1960s and early 1970s, intercollegiate athletics at USCB were student driven, and consisted largely of informal matches with other USC system campuses. During the 1962-1963 academic year, the school fielded men’s basketball and baseball teams that competed as the “Pirates” (“Our story…,” n. d.). Throughout the rest of the 1960s, USCB con-tinued to field teams that competed with other South Carolina institutions such as USC Aiken, USC Spartanburg (now USC Upstate), and USC Coastal Carolina (now Coastal Carolina University). Many of the athletes who participated

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were students concurrently serving in the military at the nearby Parris Island Marine Corp Recruit Depot or the Marine Corps Beaufort Air Station. By the 1970s, with many of the other South Carolina institutions now competing at the four-year level, USCB had disbanded its athletic teams. Though there were no longer intercollegiate athletic teams, students led initiatives to field intramural and campus recreation teams in basketball, flag football and volleyball and other sports at various times.

When the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees voted to change USCB’s role and mission to a four-year institution, Chancellor Upshaw’s vision was for a “full service” institution that offered intercollegiate athlet-ics as a component of the university experience. Chancellor Upshaw was encouraged by USC President Andrew Sorenson to build an intercollegiate athletic program. Kim Abbott, who had previously been the head women’s golf coach at Dartmouth College and the University of South Carolina, was hired as its first athletic director on July 20, 2005. Abbott would also serve as USCB’s first men’s and women’s golf coach. From 1998 to 2005, Abbott had served in the University of South Carolina’s athletic department in a variety of athletic positions of increasing rank, from assistant to the senior associate athletic director to associate athletic director. Throughout her tenure at the University of South Carolina in Columbia she was responsible for a variety of activities including coordinating student-athlete housing and summer camps and working with coaches on scholarship and travel arrangements. In addition, she coordinated a variety of post-season NCAA events. During her last year at the University of South Carolina, Abbott served as interim senior women’s administrator before accepting the position of athletic director at USCB.

When she arrived on USCB’s new Hilton Head Gateway campus, Kim Abbott laid the groundwork for athlet-ics and supported overall student recruitment by organizing intramural offerings in sports such as basketball, flag football and soccer as a campus recreation program. However, because the on-campus residential student population was small, usually only one or two student teams formed and they competed in community leagues.

The Gamecock Brand

The State of South Carolina, as well as the University of South Carolina, has a long affiliation with “Gamecocks.” During the American Revolutionary War, South Carolina native General Thomas Sumter was known as “The Fighting Gamecock” for his commitment to success in battle, regardless of the size of his supporting forces. A gamecock is a fighting rooster that participates in intense battles with other roosters, usually with death as the outcome for one of the combatants.

In the late 1800s, the University of South Carolina football team was unofficially called the Gamecocks. In 1903, The State newspaper began referring to the football team as the Gamecocks and the moniker has since been adopted by all of the University athletic teams. The official colors of the University of South Carolina are garnet and black and the school’s mascot “Cocky” has been recognized as one of the most popular mascots in the country (“Top Gamecock…,” 2003). Even though each University of South Carolina campus is part of the same system, the flagship campus retains exclusive use of the Gamecock moniker for intercollegiate athletic competition. Each of the other USC campuses developed their own mascot and logo once they began intercollegiate athletic competition.

As a two-year institution without athletics for most of its history, the USC Beaufort community felt a strong loyalty to the flagship campus’ athletic identity. Intramural teams often called themselves “The Gamecocks” and the primary image and colors on bookstore merchandise—and in the Beaufort campus’ decorating scheme—were the Gamecock logo and the garnet and black colors of the Columbia campus. Even the student government leaders, who best understood the need to establish a separate athletic identity for the new programs, still felt torn personally and were pressured by the many students who were reluctant to give up their identity as Gamecocks. To ease this transition, and to build an integrated branding system with Columbia and to convey USCB’s membership in the USC system, Dr. McGee recommended that the committee consider incorporating one or more of the Gamecock official colors, garnet and black, into the new USCB logo.



Geography and Cultural Heritage of the Sea Islands of South Carolina

One of the British Colonies that would form the 13 original United States, South Carolina has a long history of agri-cultural production and sea-based trade. An area typically defined as the counties of Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper that are just north and east of the coastal city of Savannah, Georgia are referred to as the Lowcountry or the Sea Islands of South Carolina. However, the regional lines are sometimes blurred and the designators “Lowcountry” or “Sea Islands” often extend north past Charleston. The Beaufort region gained economic power and influence due to the natural harbor of Port Royal, its key location for defense, the optimal climate for producing agricultural goods and the ease of transportation of the goods through the waterways of the Sea Islands to major ports. During the 1700s and 1800s, the Lowcountry rode an economic boom based on production of rice, indigo and cotton as well as cattle and hogs through large-scale farming. Agriculture continues to be an important component of the local economy, but other industries have influenced the region’s recent development.

Tourism is now one of the most important economic sectors in the Lowcountry, since the coast is the best known section of South Carolina. During the 1950s and 1960s, particularly once air conditioning became widely affordable, tourists began to visit the beautiful South Carolina Sea Islands. With its mild winters and dramatic scenery, the area quickly began to develop a variety of resort communities that offered year round golf, tennis, and beach activities, including Hilton Head Island, Fripp Island, Edisto Island and others stretched along the coast up to Charleston. As tour-ists continued to visit and former visitors purchased homes in the area, the economies of towns in the region shifted to serving these new guests and residents. Communities further inland that were once small crossroads, like Hardeeville and Bluffton, began rapid growth in the late 1990s. Older communities, such as Beaufort, found that their historic build-ings’ location amongst the hauntingly beautiful marshes, islands and tidal waterways and the “Lowcountry lifestyle” were distinctive and attractive to retirees and guests alike.

Though the Sea Island region’s dominant economic driver is now tourism, other sectors of the economy play an important role. Marine Corp Recruit Depot Parris Island, just outside of Beaufort, trains every male and female enlisted

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recruit living east of the Mississippi River. Members of the military and military retirees benefit from the U.S. Naval Hospital in Port Royal and the Marine Corp Air Station Beaufort. Retail trade, light manufacturing, health care and financial services have all grown in influence over the past 15 years. Some employers in the information technology sector have found that employees’ desire to live in the Lowcountry because of its mild weather, historical sites, and unique culture and cuisine. With close proximity to Savannah, Georgia (25 miles from Bluffton, SC), residents of the region that USCB serves have easy access to an international airport, bustling port, manufacturing center and the other amenities of a city of 125,000 people.

Brand Management

Athletic brand management “involves the design and the implementation of marketing programs and activities to build, measure, and manage brand equity” (Keller, 2003, p. 44). The components of brand equity are brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty (Gladden & Wong, 1999). Certainly, a brand that is not recognized has limited potential value to a consumer. As organizations and individuals enhance their brand awareness, they then typically shift their focus to creating positive brand associations. These positive associations can help build a percep-tion among consumers that the brand provides a high-quality product which, in turn, creates brand loyalty among consumers.

In the sport context, the retrieval of positive brand associations is strengthened with a logo (Gladden & Funk, 2002). The choice of logo and its corresponding color scheme is critical to a sport brand’s equity. From the 1950s to the 1970s most professional and collegiate sports teams did not spend considerable time identifying mascot names and color schemes that would enhance their brand and result in higher sales of licensed merchandise. Team nicknames were often chosen simply for convenience, given the team’s geographic location. In some cases, when professional franchises moved, they did not bother to change their nickname even though their new location often bore little relationship to their former home (e.g. what was originally a New Orleans team became the Utah Jazz; a Minneapolis team became the Los Angeles Lakers).

In addition to paying little attention to team nicknames, color schemes were usually not chosen with an eye toward marketing effectiveness. In the case of the Oakland Raiders, owner Al Davis believed that utilizing black and silver would provide the team a tough image. He did not realize that the use of black would later be identified as a strong sport marketing color that spurred licensed merchandise sales. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, numerous teams utilized logos and color schemes that now are often mocked for their ugliness. For instance, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played many years in orange cream-sickle colored home jerseys. The San Diego Padres played in brown and yellow road jerseys while the Houston Astros sported multi-colored jerseys that are now often mocked as the worst looking jerseys in sports history (“Top 10 ugliest…,” n. d.). While there were some examples of teams changing their nickname and logo – most notably at colleges and universities where offensive Native American imagery was utilized (e.g. Stanford Indians became the Cardinal) – for the most part, institutions focused their marketing efforts on selling tickets rather than designing and utilizing more effective logos and color schemes.

The use of logos and color schemes to enhance the brand equity of professional sport franchises and college ath-letic programs changed in the 1990s. In early 1990, Gordon and George Gund became owners of a National Hockey League (NHL) expansion franchise that would be located in San Jose, CA. The team’s marketing department utilized an extensive market research program that dramatically altered the licensed merchandise industry. After testing numer-ous color schemes and logos, the team unveiled the new San Jose Sharks logo which pictured a black shark chomping through a hockey stick (M. Levine, personal communication, April 17, 2012). In addition to black, the logo also utilized teal, a color most other sport teams did not incorporate into their uniform design. The Sharks’ logo was a resounding success; the franchise was one of the top sellers of NHL licensed merchandise – even before the team had played its first regular season game in 1991.

The marketing success of the San Jose Sharks prompted other professional and college sport teams to reassess their mascot, logo, and color scheme. Teams began to implement their own market research programs to investigate ways that they could enhance their brand equity and licensed merchandise sales. In many cases in professional and college sport in the 1990s and early 2000s, new uniforms were designed, sometimes with black and teal as a component of

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the color scheme. Though black and teal are currently not necessarily the “hottest” colors in sports, the impact of the Sharks’ marketing efforts is still seen throughout the industry (M. Bordelon, personal communication, April 17, 2012).

Many college and professional teams utilize “alternate” jerseys for select home and road games. One of the most famous examples is the San Diego Padres use of camouflaged jerseys for their military-game promotion. In each case, the new logos and color schemes not only enhance the brand equity of the organization, but increase licensed mer-chandise sales. Ultimately, the initial work of the Sharks and subsequent marketing success of other franchises have demonstrated to the industry that sport brand and logo development is a critical facet of an organization’s marketing plan and extensive marketing research is required.

USCB Mascot Steering Committee Plans

As Dr. McGee and Athletic Director Abbott assembled their committee in spring 2007, they realized it was important to involve on and off-campus stakeholders who would become brand “apostles” (Veldre, 2007). Each committee member would build support for the new mascot and the new athletic teams it would represent. Gathering accurate information would be critical as their committee developed a final recommendation for the Chancellor.

To assist with designing and implementing a market survey, Dr. McGee hired an outside design consulting firm. After interviewing advancement leads at institutions that had made mascot changes, officials from the Collegiate Licensing Company and the marketing and licensing staff at the University of South Carolina’s Columbia campus, and doing some web research and informational interviews with design firms, three potential types of design firms emerged for consideration. Each would utilize a different process to help USCB reach a final mascot decision. The final choices included:

• A full service, high profile New York-based design firm, or

• A couple of mid-sized, West Coast-based firms that specialized in professional sports logos, or

• Rickabaugh Graphics, a smaller design firm that focused on mid-sized institutions’ logo development.

Dr. McGee noted distinct strengths and weaknesses of each of the potential choices. Certainly, most of the biggest graphic design companies were based in New York. Most of those firms were not cost feasible given USCB’s limited budget. In addition, the most well-known firm among this group was not willing to provide much individual atten-tion or flexibility in the mascot selection process. Many of the West Coast firms had produced excellent outcomes for professional sports clients, but there was a concern that they did not have as much experience in the college market. In addition, the distance between the graphic designers and USCB would potentially be a problem, especially since Dr. McGee and the steering committee desired a unique logo, tailored to USCB’s very distinctive region of the country.

Founded in 1986, Rickabaugh Graphics was widely considered to be one of the leading collegiate branding firms with over 500 collegiate logos designed. From the interviews that Dr. McGee conducted, it was clear that Rickabaugh Graphics worked hard at listening to their clients and developing design solutions that fit the client’s goals and personali-ties. Owner and head designer Eric Rickabaugh was intrigued by the opportunity to work with a “blank slate” to develop a new athletic identity and committed to lead the project for his firm personally. Rickabaugh Graphics willingness to work with the committee directly throughout the entire identity development process impacted the decision, since it would build on the group decision process already chosen. Eric Rickabaugh made an exploratory visit to USCB to see both campuses and the geographic area. On this visit, he and Dr. McGee began to design a survey to solicit ideas and feedback from constituents regarding the new mascot and logo. When Chancellor Upshaw and Athletic Director Abbott called the March 27, 2007 press conference to announce USCB’s intent to field teams as a provisional member of the NAIA in the fall of 2007, Dr. McGee pitched the ideas of USCB’s mascot selection as a topic for community conversation—and asked the media to include a link to the soon-to-be-released 9-item online survey in their reports and opinion columns. The survey would be completed by USCB students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as local government and business leaders and local citizens. The questions solicited mascot name suggestions and sought input regarding potential color schemes and other icons that would represent USCB not only in athletics but throughout the entire university. The survey also asked the respondents to provide feedback regarding the following:



• Importance of the mascot being gender and race neutral,

• Importance of the new name’s relationship to the school’s geographic region,

• Character of the mascot desired: friendly, proud, tough, aggressive, mean, dignified, cute, or active, and

• Style of the artwork desired: collegiate, classic, traditional, stylized or cartoonish

As chair of the mascot steering committee, Dr. McGee asked each steering committee member to recruit his or her own subcommittee of similar constituents to complete the survey. In addition, Dr. McGee and her staff maintained a media relations campaign to generate awareness and excitement in the local community regarding the upcoming athletic teams and the selection of the mascot and color scheme. Members of the local media playfully suggested ideas such as “The Flip Flops,” “The Pluff Mudders,” or “The Tourists.” Humorous newspaper columns and the resulting conversations encouraged citizens with an interest in the future of USCB and its athletic department to make serious suggestions through the online survey.

The earlier on-campus suggestion boxes sponsored by the athletic department in December 2006 yielded 56 potential mascot ideas, but the April 2007 online survey yielded 282 responses and over 110 potential mascot sugges-tions. The survey respondents were well balanced across key stakeholder groups: 21% students, 21% faculty/staff, 8% alumni, and 55% community supporters/friends of the university. Clearly, a wide cross section of the key audiences were represented - an improvement on the suggestion boxes, which reached only faculty, staff and students and for which no respondent demographic data was collected.

Survey Results

Only 55% of the respondents to the survey felt it was important to select a mascot that was gender and ethnically neutral. Since the NCAA and the NAIA policies required members to remove any potentially offensive names and imagery from its athletic department, this survey question was not included to make a decision about ethnic and gender neutrality. Instead, it gave the committee an assessment of how much education might need to be done with committee members and other audiences concerning this issue.

As was expected by the committee, 75% of the survey respondents felt it was very important that the new mascot be related to the institution’s geographic region. There was consistent support across all subgroups (64% of students, 87% of faculty and staff, and 76% of community supporters) for selecting a mascot that would represent the unique history, culture, environmental ecosystems or geography of the Lowcountry.

Though there was agreement across the various subgroups on the first few questions, other questions yielded dis-parate results. While each subgroup felt that the style of the new USCB athletic artwork should be collegiate, students were much more likely to select cartoonish as their second choice, while faculty were more likely to select modern. In regards to describing the athletic image, each respondent subgroup selected proud as one of their top choices. How-ever, students were much more likely to suggest aggressive than other respondents while faculty and staff more often chose active and friendly and community members were more likely to suggest tough. As the committee considered the data analysis, they indicated an interest in primarily following the students’ suggestions regarding the mascot’s image. Though every subgroup was an important stakeholder, the committee felt that student buy-in was critical for the mascot acceptance on campus (and beyond since students become alumni) and therefore sought an aggressive image as being an important component of the final mascot selection process.

Reviewing the Mascot Research Data

After evaluating the survey responses regarding the colors, image, and style, the USCB mascot steering committee began its deliberations regarding the final mascot selection. The committee initially established that it wanted a mascot that was different from those already well known in its region and throughout college sports. In particular, it wanted to avoid choosing a mascot already used by local high schools and other colleges and universities that competed in South Carolina and throughout the Southeast.

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The committee began by placing the mascot submissions in five categories: (a) People; (b) Sea Life; (c) Birds; (d) Insects; and (e) Other. Once each suggestion was placed into a category, certain submissions were immediately eliminated due to the following factors: (a) Race/Gender/Politically Correct Issues—USCB wanted a mascot that could represent all races and genders; (b) Same as local team; (c) Not unique; (d) Not tough/aggressive; (e) Not seen as a serious suggestion. Tables 3-8 display the developed categories and the placement of submitted names in each category.

Once the committee had eliminated potential choices due to previously established criteria, it began to deliberate in earnest regarding the remaining choices in late May and early June 2007. The first decision deadline was to choose the mascot name and colors by early July 2007 so that team uniforms for the fall athletic competitions could be ordered. The committee would then work on the athletic logo design, which would be revealed in early January 2008 during the annual spring semester “Welcome Week.”

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Making the Final Mascot Selection

After the initial cuts were made, the committee had to make more difficult decisions as it narrowed the list to its final candidates. In order to create greater ownership of the process, the steering committee sent out the condensed list of suggestions to the various stakeholder subcommittees each committee member represented in hopes that a list of 10 final potential selections could be established. As the various committee members reported back to the committee, the final list of 10 mascot choices was established and a decision date was set for the committee. However, less than a week before the final meeting where the final 10 choices would be evaluated, one of the most influential people on the com-mittee came to Dr. McGee and demanded that “Hawks” be re-inserted into the list for final consideration. Despite the earlier evaluation of Hawks as unsuitable since it was not unique, Dr. McGee recognized the importance of the political aspect of the mascot selection process and “Hawks” was inserted as a final choice to be evaluated by the committee.

In preparing for the final meeting, Dr. McGee went back to key sources for more in-depth research regarding the nature and character of each choice—and on the design potential of each entity. Dr. McGee interviewed Eric Rickabaugh

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about the design and marketing aspects of each potential mascot. In addition, Dr. McGee also discussed the potential choices with Todd Ballantine, a well-known naturalist in the region, as well as Dan Abel, a marine scientist from Coastal Carolina University. This expert opinion research was reported to the committee prior to the final evaluation of the mascot names.

Each committee member prepared for the final decision meeting by gathering evaluations from their constituents regarding each of the 10 potential names. Dr. McGee and Athletic Director Kim Abbott were excited and nervous as they prepared for the meeting. Though there were unlikely to be any major confrontations in the meeting, it was expected that the leaders on the steering committee, pressured by the opinions of their respective subcommittee members, would take strong positions. Regardless of the final decision and the potential emotions among the committee members, the University of South Carolina Beaufort academic and athletic administration would need to present a united front to the various stakeholders. The choice was important to the future growth of the new athletics program and to the brand architecture of the University.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their appreciation to the many leaders across the University of South Carolina Beaufort who supported this project, particularly Chancellor Jane T. Upshaw, Athletic Director Kim Abbott and the project partner Eric Rickabaugh of Rickabaugh Graphics. The expert advice offered by naturalist Dr. Todd Ballentine and by Dr. Dan Abel, Coastal Carolina University faculty member with an active shark research program in Port Royal Sound, was critical to the project’s success.



Case Questions

Besides athletic department personnel, what other on-campus and off-campus stakeholders are actively involved in key athletic department decisions?

Why is an athletic department logo important? What value does it add to an athletic program? How does it impact potential marketing activities?

What were the most important criteria USCB utilized in its mascot decision? What other criteria might have been included?

What were the advantages of utilizing market research and, in particular, an online survey to solicit information from a variety of stakeholders before proceeding with the mascot decision?

Among the final choices for the USCB mascot, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

What would have been your top three choices for USCB’s mascot? Why?

Was there clearly a “top choice” or could USCB have selected any of its final choices?

How would you introduce the logo to the athletes, to the university and to the community at large?

What “giveaways” would you initially purchase and distribute to insure the logo will be quickly adopted by students, faculty and staff?

USCB chose to work with a small design firm that truly became a partner in the entire mascot selection process from research through the announcement event. What other sorts of design partners are available for projects like these and what criteria might you use to select one?

What level of awareness--and ability to identify the logo--would you expect amongst students after two years? How would you measure this?

How do you feel USCB’s mascot and logo compare to the other mascots and logos of USC system institutions? Why do you think there is a wide disparity in the “quality” and appearance of many of the logos?

After selecting the mascot and colors and image, how does an organization protect its logo legally?

Why would USCB’s marketing lead invest so much time in an athletics branding decision? How would the new image and the extensive press it would receive in the sports pages affect the university’s visibility and reputation?

What sort of on-going investment is required to build the athletic identity over 3-5 years?

References

Gladden, J. M., & Funk, D. C. (2002). Developing an understanding of brand associations in team sport: Empirical evidence from consumers of professional sport. Journal of Sport Management, 16(1), 54-81.

Gladden, J. M., & Wong, G. M. (1999). The creation and maintenance of brand equity: The case of University of Massachusetts basketball. In M. A. McDonald & G. R. Milne (Eds.), Cases in sport marketing. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Keller, K. L. (2003). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brandequity. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Our story: UCSB 1959-. (n. d.). Retrieved June 21, 2011 from http://www.uscbathletics.com/documents/2010/8/3/uscb_athlet-ics_history.pdf?tab=historyofuscbathletics

SEC athletic department budgets. (2009, March 31). Retrieved November 11, 2011 from http://capstonereport.com/2009/03/31/sec-athletic-department-budgets-2/1970/

Toma, J. D. (2003). Football U: Spectator sports in the life of the American university. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Top Gamecock: Cocky named to 2003 Capital One All-America mascot team. (2003, Aug. 4). Retrieved October 21, 2011 from

http://www.gamecocksonline.com/genrel/080403aaa.htmlTop 10 ugliest sports uniforms. (n. d.). Retrieved October 24, 2011 from http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-ugliest-sports-uniforms.phpVeldre, D. (2007, February 23). Sports branding: The image makers. B and T Weekly, 24.

Documents

Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South …€¦ · · 2012-11-13Building an Athletic Brand: The University of South Carolina Beaufort Crafts a New Image Mark S. Nagel