Bradley Branding

[Da Coach]

It is an apt term. It is the term Kirk Wessler used last week on WMBD's Greg & Dan show to explain why last season ended 7-25. It was also denied by some initially, but few deny it now.

[tornado]

There's even more unfortunate fallout that our hard working staff is having to deal with that many never hear - or has anyone else even begun to wonder why we are not being named as in strong with any decent recruit in the entire midwest?
You can do the google, Rivals, and site searches - and you can find ISU, SIU, etc..offering and getting close & getting verbals for 2013 - while we are lagging distinctly behind...
Make up whatever word you want for the facts, but it IS fallout....
..and had we not offered Eric Locke last week (and joined the bandwagon of more than a dozen schools that have been after him a whole lot longer)
we wouldn't be linked by any of the recruiting sites with a single '14 kid

[Old Coach]

It is an apt term. It is the term Kirk Wessler used last week on WMBD's Greg & Dan show to explain why last season ended 7-25. It was also denied by some initially, but few deny it now.

In this case, would fallout be measured by a certain percentage of dissatisfaction?

If 75% of the people are in support of the direction of the branding efforts, does that equate to 25% fallout?

[Da Coach]

No. I think it will be measured in dollars. They probably are trying to predict the dollars the re-branding will generate, but I suspect they will underestimate the dollars it could detract. That is what usually happens. It the the Coke vs. New Coke phenomenon.

[JMM28]

Not really sure why the "get off my lawn" crowd would be opposed to a freshened logo and universal font for uniforms and apparel. Are they that easily offended?

[Da Coach]

Not really sure why the "get off my lawn" crowd would be opposed to a freshened logo and universal font for uniforms and apparel. Are they that easily offended?

It sounds like you are immediately dismissing those people and casting them in a negative light. Those are mostly the people who have supported Bradley for many years and enabled them to be a D1 school and build new facilities. Those are the people who our administration should be taking seriously.

[it's boogie time]

No. I think it will be measured in dollars. They probably are trying to predict the dollars the re-branding will generate, but I suspect they will underestimate the dollars it could detract. That is what usually happens. It the the Coke vs. New Coke phenomenon.

So New Coke was bad for the Coca-cola?

[tornado]

it was an all time disaster and caused an enormous uproar and sales dropoff until they restored "Old Coke"

"One of the most famous marketing disasters in history ....This 1980s cola mistake
has become synonymous with awful business decisions."

http://www.isnare.com/?aid=757882&ca=Business

http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/marketing-pr/branding-disasters-cola-colas-new-coke

[Da Coach]

So New Coke was bad for the Coca-cola?

You must be too young to remember. New Coke was a disaster. The Coca-Cola company did a lot of taste testing and found people generally liked the taste of New Coke. So they replaced their old formula with the new sweeter, generic-tasting formula. In the end, it was a failure, and cost the Coca-Cola company a lot of their most loyal customers. Coke lovers stopped drinking the product, and it did not draw enough new customers, and sales plummetted. In the end, they dropped the new formula, and went back to the Old Coke. Almost immediately, the old brand became the top selling beverage in the country again.
In reversing their decision, a Coke executive said-
"The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people."

Could that same thought be applied to Bradley?

Here is the story-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

[it's boogie time]

So you don't think it was deception, huh?

It was probably just coincidence that they went from pure cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

[Da Coach]

So you don't think it was deception, huh?

It was probably just coincidence that they went from pure cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

I am aware of all the conspiracy theories surrounding the New Coke changeover.
But almost nobody really believes there were any ulterior motives involved. Just bad decision making and stupidity, which they later admitted, and completely reversed. Eventually, the New Coke brand was completely dropped.

But unless you are suggesting Bradley is pulling off this re-branding as a sham for some secretive sinister ulterior purpose, then that is all irrelevant to this discussion. Bottom line is that New Coke failed miserably because the people behind it underestimated the loyalty to their old brand. That is all I am referring to here.
There are many other similar examples of this I could cite.

BTW, there were hundreds of thousands of products that switched from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup. It was entirely an economic decision.
HFCS is significantly cheaper in the United States as a result of a combination of government corn subsidies and tariffs and quotas placed on the importation os cane sugar. Since the mid 1990s alone, the United States federal government has subsidized corn growers by $40 billion in taxpayers' dollars.
And, none of the other hundreds of thousands of products went through the same "New Coke" process in order to sneak corn syrup into their products, so why would Coke do it? Besides, Coke and Pepsi both switched to high fructose corn syrup in 1984, well before the introduction of New Coke, and health concerns regarding high fructose corn syrup did not even begin until the last decade.

[Old Coach]

I am aware of all the conspiracy theories surrounding the New Coke changeover.
But almost nobody really believes there were any ulterior motives involved. Just bad decision making and stupidity, which they later admitted, and completely reversed. Eventually, the New Coke brand was completely dropped.

But unless you are suggesting Bradley is pulling off this re-branding as a sham for some secretive sinister ulterior purpose, then that is all irrelevant to this discussion. Bottom line is that New Coke failed miserably because the people behind it underestimated the loyalty to their old brand. That is all I am referring to here.
There are many other similar examples of this I could cite.

The difference here is the old brand at Bradley isn't that old. It's not as though the current "BU Braves" logo has been around since the Famous 5.

[Rusty 54]

Are we talking about changing the logo and possibly adding a mascot, or are we talking about changing the "Braves" nickname?

[it's boogie time]

Da Coach, I was just curious on your take. I first heard about the sugar switch in a low level marketing class at BU back in the mid-90s. We usually had guest speakers and one of them talked about slight of hand and taking the public's eye off the real issue. Coke with ADM was used as the main subject.

Unfortunately, Bradley can't bring back any of the old images. Unless somebody comes up with something brilliant, it looks like a losing battle for BU.

[Old Coach]

Are we talking about changing the logo and possibly adding a mascot, or are we talking about changing the "Braves" nickname?

The logo ship has sailed. Speculation is that everything else is up for discussion.