I Have An Idea… Talk About Wrestling

“Two things are key to making a story stick: Consistency and Frequency.” – Me

Universities are just like any other corporation. Typically, the money and resources go to the products, or in this case sports, that drive the most revenue. I’ve lived through that reality in multiple industries over the course of my career and I see it happening all over the country today in college athletics. But there, within that homogenous approach to story prioritization, lays the opportunity. Most of the country can be categorized as either a “football school” or “basketball school” and many universities feed into that perception. Which means that when that designated priority program (be it football or basketball) has a down year, the school tends to lose its identity and relevance. It’s a classic scenario that can be traced back to just about any industry.  The counter to the inevitable down year is to build a brand around the university overall, rather than relying entirely on the success or failure of a single program.

First things first, decide who you are and what makes you unique, meaning your positioning statement and strategy. If you’re a blue-collar university, from a blue-collar state, located in a blue-collar town, guess what, your brand is blue-collar. I don’t care if we’re talking about football or soccer, basketball or volleyball, blue-collar is your story. With that story will come an audience that identifies with you and the values your school embodies. Because of that deeper principle alignment, your audience will be rooting for all of your programs, whether you’re known for one sport or not. And when that one program has a down year, those fans will be more likely to stick with you because they are fans of the university, not simply a single program.

That’s where some of the smaller programs come in. Your job as a brand manager is to establish your brand as something tangible and relatable to fans, recruits and key media. When you’re telling a blue-collar story, programs like wrestling and lacrosse and baseball, become invaluable brand bullets in your gun. It’s all about consistency and frequency. If you’re only aligning a blue-collar story to a single program, it’s that program, and only that program, that takes on that characteristic and personality. When you align that same blue-collar story to all of your programs, it’s the university that gets credit, in turn providing each of your programs with a differentiated story to build from.  

Every program matters when you’re trying to establish your brand identity…even wrestling.

 

 

“I Have An Idea…” is a series written for College AD by the author of Brands Win Championships, Jeremy Darlow.