Episode #1Interview With Jeremy Darlow, Author of Brands Win ChampionshipsAugust 18th, 2016
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We interviewed the author of Brands Win Championships, Jeremy Darlow, to discuss the importance of branding in College Football. We discuss how he got to where he is, social media, uniform styles, location benefits, and much more in this fascinating talk with one of the leading voices in sports marketing.
In May, we polled 100 football recruits to see how important a uniform has on their college decision. They also revealed which apparel company--Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, or Russell Athletic--they preferred. You won't believe the results!
If you are interested in learning more from Jeremy, you can buy his book Brands Win Championships today.
We apologize for the poor audio quality (apparently it comes with the territory of episode #1!). The transcript of the audio can be found below:
In May, we polled 100 football recruits to see how important a uniform has on their college decision. They also revealed which apparel company--Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, or Russell Athletic--they preferred. You won't believe the results!
If you are interested in learning more from Jeremy, you can buy his book Brands Win Championships today.
We apologize for the poor audio quality (apparently it comes with the territory of episode #1!). The transcript of the audio can be found below:
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Julian: People often criticize a coach's ability to recruit but that's only part of the process when brands play such an important role in a player's decision. As brands become bigger and bigger across the college football landscape, schools need to be active in shaping their brand, says Jeremy Darlow, author of Brands Win Championships and Director of Marketing for Adidas Football. Darlow's book offers a unique perspective on the not-often-talked-about, but hugely important, marketing side of college football. USA Today calls Brands Win Championships a must-read for anyone in sports marketing. Jeremy is our guest on The Triple Option today; we really think you will enjoy this show.
Julian: Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us today, Jeremy. As you know we got linked up via an article on our site called "Fashion Wars," where we polled 100 recruits on the importance of branding and uniform recognition in college football. 72% of them said uniforms impact their perception of a team, and by and large, a program. So now that we have the expert on, we'd love to get your input on the importance of brands in this game we love. So to start, you have a job, I think, any of our listeners would love to have. How old were you when you knew you wanted to get into marketing and branding?
Jeremy: It's funny, I've been talking about that a lot lately. I knew when I was 19 that I wanted to pursue sports marketing. I'd say I was probably 20 or 21, or a couple years after that, that I decided that my goal was to run brand marketing for either Nike or Adidas, who are both local companies (I'm from Portland, Oregon). They are both here in my hometown. So I've known for quite sometime and everything I've done since then has been to reach this point. I'm lucky enough to have made it.
Julian: We have a lot of high school and college-aged football fans listening--I'm sure they'd love to know: what steps did you take to go from high school student (and by-and-large college student) to a leading authority in football branding?
Jeremy: Well it starts with passion, quite honestly. I remember taking a psychology class when I was a sophomore in college. I fell in love with it right off the bat. Everything about it that I learned in school was definitely speaking to me at the time. I did some research and realized there weren't a lot of jobs in the space so what I did was I applied psychology with business and came out with marketing. From that point on, as I said, I knew pretty early in my career (my college career) that I wanted to be the head of marketing for football at one of the two big companies. So everything I did from that point on was to build my personal brand and my connections. So everything from reading the appropriate authors Seth Godin, Scot Medbury, and Malcolm Gladwell to making sure that my career and the paths that I took gave me the experience I needed to break into the industry. Everything I've done has been with the explicit goal of getting to this point.
Mike: Jeremy, we usually do this at the end of the show, but why don't you give fans a brief summary of your book as it relates to the importance of branding in college football since that is what we will be talking about this episode.
Jeremy: The book is about using brand marketing to build successful athletic programs. So I challenge that the most successful programs in the next ten years will be those with the strongest brands, not necessarily the most complex offenses or even the programs with the most tradition. To me brand marketing is what will be used to sort of set the tone for the next generation of athletic programs in college.
Mike: One of the quotes that I absolutely loved from your book was that pro teams sell athletes on contracts whereas college teams sell recruits on brands. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? I think that is an important point to drive home for listeners.
Jeremy: Yeah, it's one of the key points in the book for sure. And the idea is blue chip athletes are picking brands while NFL athletes, or NBA athletes, are picking contracts. And the reason I say that is, literally, that is what is happening. If you are a five-star kid coming out of school, you are picking the school that you find most relevant for you, but at the same time, elevates your brand to a degree that you are going to get exposure; you are going to get seen. While, on the flip side, once you get to the NFL or the NBA, at that point there isn't a lot of brand loyalty, it's particularly driven by contracts. So there is a major difference and that difference, for me, sets the tone and the reason why brand marketing is so much more important in the college space than it is in the professional space.
Brett: I know in your book you keep it high-level and philosophical without touching on specific examples, but if you take a look out west--USC has the trophy case, UCLA has the beaches, Stanford has the academics. You see Oregon kind of use branding and uniforms as an equalizer in recruiting. It started about a decade and a half ago, I'd say, and they've kind of elevated to new heights. How can a program follow their lead and equalize the playing field like that?
Jeremy: Well I think this is where the programs that aren't necessarily fully developed could benefit the most. The thought process would be: how do you reach the same level and how do you create a level playing field with the programs that have a head start? If you think about some of those teams ten years ago that did not exist in the top 25 but are regularly in the top 15 these days, they've used marketing and things like uniforms, facilities, style of offense, style of defense--everything and anything that they can provide a story around something specific, they are doing it. And to me, that's the most important thing and that's the biggest takeaway for a school. It's that it doesn't matter if you are a successful program in the last 70 years, or a program that has struggled for the past 70 years. You can change your future by building stories around something specific that will speak to high school athletes. The thing we have to remember: ten years from now, the kids that are coming up through the system will have no idea what happened in the previous ten years in terms of wins and losses. They are looking at everything from the day that they step onto that high school field or from the day that they step onto that college campus for their first visit. They are looking at present day. And if you can create a story or if you can create that small brand image in that present day, then you have a shot. And that is the most important thing. You just want to give yourself a chance.
Brett: You talk about creating a story and building a story, and you mention facilities, uniforms and style of play. How do you feel nowadays (it's 2016), that social media is becoming a part of branding, too. I think the prime example would probably be Clemson in the last couple years. You know Swinney and the whole program has kind of made them a team you can fall in love with, you can start to identify with via social media. How big of an impact is that right now, and is it growing?
Jeremy: Well honestly social media is one of the most important aspects of today's marketing world that has leveled the playing field. You think about 15-20 years ago--you needed money to travel to speak to the athletes across the country. There are programs that just can't afford to go from Florida to Seattle on a regular basis. But social media allows you to speak to these kids literally every day, every hour, every minute that you want if that's what you choose to do. That to me is the most important and probably the most impactful difference in today's brand marketing world, and marketing world, and athletics world vs. the last 10-15 years prior to that.
Mike: Actually another thing about Clemson is Dabo Swinney--and I love this--after every big win you can find him surrounded by thousands of Clemson students just going crazy, and Dabo is going crazier than all of them! He is just having the time of his life. And I don't want this to sound like I'm accusing him of being fake because I know he is having a great time. He has a great time after even the smallest wins, but after a big win where there's fans on the field, he is genuinely happy. But part of that, I'm sure, is calculated knowing that he is the CEO of Clemson's College Football--I mean it's a business--and he is in the middle of thousands of fans. It's already good exposure, but he certainly comes across as a coach that a high school kid (or anybody for that matter, but specifically a high school kid) would want to play for. So Dabo gets it. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Clemson is riding perhaps the highest of highs as a program under Swinney's leadership.
Julian: The videos of him dancing help too, I think.
Jeremy: Yeah, let me jump in on that one because I think that is a really good point. One of the things that I put in the book that is crucial is that I say from the groundskeeper to the quarterback, you all need to be saying the same language, you all need to be speaking the same language. And that, to me, is such a crucial point. Consistency and frequency is something that I preach to my team whenever we are talking about launching a new product or a new brand. It's also that frequency in the athletic department that I talk about. Everyone needs to be saying the same thing and everyone needs to be focused on one story. That's the only way that an idea sticks. So if your head coach is out there saying one thing and your quarterback is out there saying another, or your point guard is saying another, or your athletic director is saying another, that becomes a kaleidoscope using message amongst the fans and the recruits and the media. And because of that, it doesn't stick. But if everyone is singing the same song, that idea is going to stick and is going to benefit the program in the long run.
Mike: Now let me ask you this, Jeremy, because we are talking to you, the director of marketing of Adidas Football--i.e you get brand marketing. It seems to me that some of the theories that we are talking about, some of the things that I wrote about in my article, and you wrote about in your book, conflict with the traditional head coach (head football coach) mentality of bring your lunchpail to work everyday, nothing leaves the locker room [mentality]. It seems to me that that mentality might not perfectly mesh with some of the strategies that you talk about in your book and I wrote about in my article--just overall being conscientous of branding your program. Of course coaches understand the importance of getting talented players, I'm not saying that. But I could imagine a lot of coaches say, "we will worry about getting players when we go on the road recruiting." In my article I made the comparison of attracting top players to a big company trying to sell their products. You might have a marketing department and you might have a sales department. Neither one of them makes the sale on their own. The better job the marketing department does, the easier the sale will be for the sales department. So from your experience talking to these head coaches, how many of them really, really emphasize the brand of their program? [Trying to improve the brand "marketing" to help the recruiting, or the "sales pitch"]
Jeremy: It's a case by case basis. Some individuals and some programs are more apt to use the platforms that are exist today, and some aren't. At the end of the day, it is what it is. The world is not going to change. If anything, it's going to become more of a socially driven, a digitally socially driven, culture. And if you look at the future, that's how you're going to differentiate yourself. Like I said previously, the program that, 20 years ago, you didn't have to worry about as the perennial power--you do have to worry about them now because they do have access to the kids that you were able to a charter a plane to go and see. At this point, everyone has access to the kids. At the end of the day, in my opinion, the strongest story is the one that is going to win. There is a lot of level playing field out there right now and the brand and what you stand for could be the thing that truly differentiates you. And to not use social media to speak to that I think is a huge miss.
Julian: Switching back to uniforms a little bit--in our piece when Mike polled these recruits, we had Maryland pop up on both lists on which teams have the best uniforms and which teams have the worst uniforms. And it seemed like any attention is good attention, in terms of your brand. Would you agree with that, Jeremy, disagree with that? How would you react to that?
Jeremy: Well it's funny, one thing that I tell, and I preach--I preach a lot--I preach to my team is that we need to polarize. Anything that we do, anything that I do as a marketer--people need to either love me or hate me, but they need to feel me. And I believe that is important for anybody because if the consumer or the audience that you are speaking to is indifferent on your methods then I think as a marketer, you've failed. So whether it's a uniform, or a facility, or an advertising campaign, the goal is to create some kind of emotion. At the end of the day, you hope it is on the right side, but, for me, if they are feeling something I've done my job.
Mike: Alabama and Penn State were rated the ugliest uniforms in that same poll. Now I don't think, back in the day, somebody decided "let's make the blandest uniforms so that we can evoke the strongest reaction from recruits." I think, on paper, they can be pretty ugly uniforms, but I believe they are effective at the same time because they represent and people perceive them and associate them with elite, top-of-the-heap college football. So my question for you is, how do you feel about the classic uniforms on some of these blue blood programs?
Jeremy: If you look at the landscape right now, just about every program has a new uniform, or multiple uniforms rolled out throughout the season. So you've got to take a step back as a program, you have to look at who you are, ask yourself what's authentic. I don't think that it makes sense for some of these so-called "blue bloods" to change their uniforms if they don't believe that that's what their brand is about. For me, you have to have confidence in who you are. You have to, again, love me or hate me, but this is who we are--that's sort of the mentality that I always produce. So for me, if that's who you are, that's who you are. Now I will also say that looking at the scenario that we are in right now, from an NCAA athletics perspective, specifically football, everybody has multiple uniforms, which means if you stick with a design and if you have sort of the "classic" approach, the reality is that that's more differentiated today than anything. There's positives and negatives to both sides, but right now that might be a differentiator more than anything.
Mike: Now switching gears here real quick, I want to ask you about a team that I'm sure you're very familiar with, and that's Miami. I absolutely love the new Miami uniforms made by Adidas and that's because when I watch Miami now, they just feel South Beach. Their uniforms are exotic, they're vibrant, and it just really encapsulates where they're from. And, of course, South Beach is a very desirable place to be so the whole look tells that story of South Beach when you are watching on TV. Miami's always had a strong brand, but I think back in the 90s and early 2000s, you could probably attribute most of that strong brand to the winning, and the style of play, and the individual players. Really my question here is: how important do you think it is for a team, especially from a favorable location, to sell that location in their uniforms and in their marketing strategies?
Jeremy: It's absolutely important. And there's only a few programs, in my opinion, that truly have location benefits. I think you obviously look at the teams in Los Angeles, you look at at the teams in South Florida--if you are a high school athlete growing up in one of the northern states and it's the middle of November and you are walking outside and you have to shovel snow to get out of your driveway, you go visit Miami or you go visit a program in Southern California, that's a huge difference. That's going to change your perception right off the bat. That has to play a part. That's part of who you are. That's part of your DNA as a program. That's part of what makes you who you are as an athletic department, as a university, as a program within the overall entity. And to me, there's not a lot of programs out there that can use it to there advantage. And the one's that can--they have to, because that's such a differentiator. Everything comes down to recruiting. Anytime I speak to any athletic director, any coach, even any team, it's all about recruiting. Those two cities alone can bring top talent to a program.
Mike: Yeah one team for me that needs to embrace their location a little more is Colorado. Colorado comes out every year in the most traditional uniforms. They'e not winning a whole lot of games. I think they could really sell their location a lot more than they are doing.
Brett: Yeah, speaking of traditional looks--you look at Nebraska: they might tinker with a new helmet here and there, but they have that block 'N' and the most traditional uniforms you can find. But you look at them now, they are trying to grab someone else's location and use it as their own. They started a movement called the "Calibraska" movement. I'm not sure if you're familiar. Mike Riley has ties on the West Coast and he's really targeting California heavy. He's already pulled in Keyshawn Johnson's son and a bunch of other four star recruits. How effective do you think that is--grab someone else's location and make it your own almost and try and grow from there? It's gotta be unique.
Jeremy: Well I think what's happening in some of these cases is that schools offer something different that the athlete's not choosing. One huge opportunity for a lot of schools out there, quite honestly, is the opportunity to sell the college town atmosphere. When I went to school, I loved being part of a college town. I went to Oregon State University; it was very much a college town in Corvallis, Oregon. Nobody really knows about it until you get there. When you get there, it's beautiful and you don't want to leave, but it's not nationally known. I think that some of these kids that come out of big cities, they're looking for sort of a slower, more peaceful environment that they can just focus on football or basketball or whatever sport it is, and the books and their education. And I think that's a benefit. It's not going to work for everybody. Not everybody is going to be into that. For me, right now as an adult, I couldn't live in a small town. I want to live in big cities now. I've changed. But it's the same sort of situation for a kid--what are you looking for? Are you looking for the hustle and bustle or are you looking for focus and quiet and college and the college experience. A lot of these programs can really provide that and that's something that becomes a part of who you are and what your town can provide.
Mike: This might be a little bit of a tricky question, but how difficult is it to build a brand when one of the greatest factors to a brand can sometimes be winning. As I mentioned Miami back in the '90s and early 2000s--they didn't have the greatest uniforms, but because of their winning and their style of play, they had such a tremendous brand. How difficult is it for you to do your job when you have no control over one of the greatest factors to a successful brand?
Jeremy: Well if you look at one of the things that I put into the book--if you look at the athletic program life cycle--that, to me, is the answer to your question. There are four pillars. The first is perception. Anybody can change the perception of their brand. Is it going to go from 0 to 60 in year one? Absolutely not. It's the same with any product, any service, any personal brand. You always have the opportunity to change brand perception. And that to me makes perception so much more important than anything else in that stage. Perception leads to recruiting. We all know recruiting leads to winning. The facts suggest that the teams with the best recruiting classes are typically the ones that have the most wins. The wins from there lead to money, attendance, booster support, all of those things that come with winning. And then that money is fed back into the program, which only elevates perception. So, if you think about it, I might start as a 1/10 on the perception scale, but every year I might pick up another point, and another point. It's not always about winning on the field. Winning is absolutely going to help build equity into who you are, but it doesn't have to start there. There are a lot of programs, who, as I said, 15-20 years ago were not even sniffing the top 25. Yet, they are regularly in the conversation around the Playoff and around March Madness and potential national championships. Those programs have used perception to their advantage and they've changed the trajectory of the program through marketing elements and marketing strategies. I think that's the thing that people need to recognize is that you don't always have to go find the silver bullet coach. You can start right now. It's not about, again, that silver bullet. It's about building for the long term. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was a successful brand. Brands are built over the long haul, over years. To me, it's definitely related, but you can start with perception today.
Julian: Alright Jeremy, we have one last question for you. You mentioned you're an Oregon State alum. We've got to ask: how are the Beavers going to do this season?
Jeremy: Man, I would like to say that they are going to do well, but it's the early part of a long road to building that program back up to where it was 5 or 10 years ago. I think that they are just short of a bowl game, but they are absolutely on the right path. I love everything I hear coming out of the school, and, quite honestly, as an alum and a marketer, I love what they are doing to build the brand. Like I said, in the short term I look at this year--maybe we are not talking about a bowl game, but I think in the next 3-4 years you're looking at a successful brand.
Julian: Awesome, I like the optimistic outlook. Well again, Jeremy's book is Brands Win Championships. You can buy it on Amazon (link). Jeremy, how can our listeners get in contact with you via social media or online?
Jeremy: I'm honestly a big Twitter guy so if you want to get a hold of me it would definitely be on Twitter. @JeremyDarlow is my Twitter handle.
Julian: Awesome, well again--thank you very much. We appreciate having you on.
Jeremy: Thanks guys, I appreciate it.
Julian: Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us today, Jeremy. As you know we got linked up via an article on our site called "Fashion Wars," where we polled 100 recruits on the importance of branding and uniform recognition in college football. 72% of them said uniforms impact their perception of a team, and by and large, a program. So now that we have the expert on, we'd love to get your input on the importance of brands in this game we love. So to start, you have a job, I think, any of our listeners would love to have. How old were you when you knew you wanted to get into marketing and branding?
Jeremy: It's funny, I've been talking about that a lot lately. I knew when I was 19 that I wanted to pursue sports marketing. I'd say I was probably 20 or 21, or a couple years after that, that I decided that my goal was to run brand marketing for either Nike or Adidas, who are both local companies (I'm from Portland, Oregon). They are both here in my hometown. So I've known for quite sometime and everything I've done since then has been to reach this point. I'm lucky enough to have made it.
Julian: We have a lot of high school and college-aged football fans listening--I'm sure they'd love to know: what steps did you take to go from high school student (and by-and-large college student) to a leading authority in football branding?
Jeremy: Well it starts with passion, quite honestly. I remember taking a psychology class when I was a sophomore in college. I fell in love with it right off the bat. Everything about it that I learned in school was definitely speaking to me at the time. I did some research and realized there weren't a lot of jobs in the space so what I did was I applied psychology with business and came out with marketing. From that point on, as I said, I knew pretty early in my career (my college career) that I wanted to be the head of marketing for football at one of the two big companies. So everything I did from that point on was to build my personal brand and my connections. So everything from reading the appropriate authors Seth Godin, Scot Medbury, and Malcolm Gladwell to making sure that my career and the paths that I took gave me the experience I needed to break into the industry. Everything I've done has been with the explicit goal of getting to this point.
Mike: Jeremy, we usually do this at the end of the show, but why don't you give fans a brief summary of your book as it relates to the importance of branding in college football since that is what we will be talking about this episode.
Jeremy: The book is about using brand marketing to build successful athletic programs. So I challenge that the most successful programs in the next ten years will be those with the strongest brands, not necessarily the most complex offenses or even the programs with the most tradition. To me brand marketing is what will be used to sort of set the tone for the next generation of athletic programs in college.
Mike: One of the quotes that I absolutely loved from your book was that pro teams sell athletes on contracts whereas college teams sell recruits on brands. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? I think that is an important point to drive home for listeners.
Jeremy: Yeah, it's one of the key points in the book for sure. And the idea is blue chip athletes are picking brands while NFL athletes, or NBA athletes, are picking contracts. And the reason I say that is, literally, that is what is happening. If you are a five-star kid coming out of school, you are picking the school that you find most relevant for you, but at the same time, elevates your brand to a degree that you are going to get exposure; you are going to get seen. While, on the flip side, once you get to the NFL or the NBA, at that point there isn't a lot of brand loyalty, it's particularly driven by contracts. So there is a major difference and that difference, for me, sets the tone and the reason why brand marketing is so much more important in the college space than it is in the professional space.
Brett: I know in your book you keep it high-level and philosophical without touching on specific examples, but if you take a look out west--USC has the trophy case, UCLA has the beaches, Stanford has the academics. You see Oregon kind of use branding and uniforms as an equalizer in recruiting. It started about a decade and a half ago, I'd say, and they've kind of elevated to new heights. How can a program follow their lead and equalize the playing field like that?
Jeremy: Well I think this is where the programs that aren't necessarily fully developed could benefit the most. The thought process would be: how do you reach the same level and how do you create a level playing field with the programs that have a head start? If you think about some of those teams ten years ago that did not exist in the top 25 but are regularly in the top 15 these days, they've used marketing and things like uniforms, facilities, style of offense, style of defense--everything and anything that they can provide a story around something specific, they are doing it. And to me, that's the most important thing and that's the biggest takeaway for a school. It's that it doesn't matter if you are a successful program in the last 70 years, or a program that has struggled for the past 70 years. You can change your future by building stories around something specific that will speak to high school athletes. The thing we have to remember: ten years from now, the kids that are coming up through the system will have no idea what happened in the previous ten years in terms of wins and losses. They are looking at everything from the day that they step onto that high school field or from the day that they step onto that college campus for their first visit. They are looking at present day. And if you can create a story or if you can create that small brand image in that present day, then you have a shot. And that is the most important thing. You just want to give yourself a chance.
Brett: You talk about creating a story and building a story, and you mention facilities, uniforms and style of play. How do you feel nowadays (it's 2016), that social media is becoming a part of branding, too. I think the prime example would probably be Clemson in the last couple years. You know Swinney and the whole program has kind of made them a team you can fall in love with, you can start to identify with via social media. How big of an impact is that right now, and is it growing?
Jeremy: Well honestly social media is one of the most important aspects of today's marketing world that has leveled the playing field. You think about 15-20 years ago--you needed money to travel to speak to the athletes across the country. There are programs that just can't afford to go from Florida to Seattle on a regular basis. But social media allows you to speak to these kids literally every day, every hour, every minute that you want if that's what you choose to do. That to me is the most important and probably the most impactful difference in today's brand marketing world, and marketing world, and athletics world vs. the last 10-15 years prior to that.
Mike: Actually another thing about Clemson is Dabo Swinney--and I love this--after every big win you can find him surrounded by thousands of Clemson students just going crazy, and Dabo is going crazier than all of them! He is just having the time of his life. And I don't want this to sound like I'm accusing him of being fake because I know he is having a great time. He has a great time after even the smallest wins, but after a big win where there's fans on the field, he is genuinely happy. But part of that, I'm sure, is calculated knowing that he is the CEO of Clemson's College Football--I mean it's a business--and he is in the middle of thousands of fans. It's already good exposure, but he certainly comes across as a coach that a high school kid (or anybody for that matter, but specifically a high school kid) would want to play for. So Dabo gets it. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Clemson is riding perhaps the highest of highs as a program under Swinney's leadership.
Julian: The videos of him dancing help too, I think.
Jeremy: Yeah, let me jump in on that one because I think that is a really good point. One of the things that I put in the book that is crucial is that I say from the groundskeeper to the quarterback, you all need to be saying the same language, you all need to be speaking the same language. And that, to me, is such a crucial point. Consistency and frequency is something that I preach to my team whenever we are talking about launching a new product or a new brand. It's also that frequency in the athletic department that I talk about. Everyone needs to be saying the same thing and everyone needs to be focused on one story. That's the only way that an idea sticks. So if your head coach is out there saying one thing and your quarterback is out there saying another, or your point guard is saying another, or your athletic director is saying another, that becomes a kaleidoscope using message amongst the fans and the recruits and the media. And because of that, it doesn't stick. But if everyone is singing the same song, that idea is going to stick and is going to benefit the program in the long run.
Mike: Now let me ask you this, Jeremy, because we are talking to you, the director of marketing of Adidas Football--i.e you get brand marketing. It seems to me that some of the theories that we are talking about, some of the things that I wrote about in my article, and you wrote about in your book, conflict with the traditional head coach (head football coach) mentality of bring your lunchpail to work everyday, nothing leaves the locker room [mentality]. It seems to me that that mentality might not perfectly mesh with some of the strategies that you talk about in your book and I wrote about in my article--just overall being conscientous of branding your program. Of course coaches understand the importance of getting talented players, I'm not saying that. But I could imagine a lot of coaches say, "we will worry about getting players when we go on the road recruiting." In my article I made the comparison of attracting top players to a big company trying to sell their products. You might have a marketing department and you might have a sales department. Neither one of them makes the sale on their own. The better job the marketing department does, the easier the sale will be for the sales department. So from your experience talking to these head coaches, how many of them really, really emphasize the brand of their program? [Trying to improve the brand "marketing" to help the recruiting, or the "sales pitch"]
Jeremy: It's a case by case basis. Some individuals and some programs are more apt to use the platforms that are exist today, and some aren't. At the end of the day, it is what it is. The world is not going to change. If anything, it's going to become more of a socially driven, a digitally socially driven, culture. And if you look at the future, that's how you're going to differentiate yourself. Like I said previously, the program that, 20 years ago, you didn't have to worry about as the perennial power--you do have to worry about them now because they do have access to the kids that you were able to a charter a plane to go and see. At this point, everyone has access to the kids. At the end of the day, in my opinion, the strongest story is the one that is going to win. There is a lot of level playing field out there right now and the brand and what you stand for could be the thing that truly differentiates you. And to not use social media to speak to that I think is a huge miss.
Julian: Switching back to uniforms a little bit--in our piece when Mike polled these recruits, we had Maryland pop up on both lists on which teams have the best uniforms and which teams have the worst uniforms. And it seemed like any attention is good attention, in terms of your brand. Would you agree with that, Jeremy, disagree with that? How would you react to that?
Jeremy: Well it's funny, one thing that I tell, and I preach--I preach a lot--I preach to my team is that we need to polarize. Anything that we do, anything that I do as a marketer--people need to either love me or hate me, but they need to feel me. And I believe that is important for anybody because if the consumer or the audience that you are speaking to is indifferent on your methods then I think as a marketer, you've failed. So whether it's a uniform, or a facility, or an advertising campaign, the goal is to create some kind of emotion. At the end of the day, you hope it is on the right side, but, for me, if they are feeling something I've done my job.
Mike: Alabama and Penn State were rated the ugliest uniforms in that same poll. Now I don't think, back in the day, somebody decided "let's make the blandest uniforms so that we can evoke the strongest reaction from recruits." I think, on paper, they can be pretty ugly uniforms, but I believe they are effective at the same time because they represent and people perceive them and associate them with elite, top-of-the-heap college football. So my question for you is, how do you feel about the classic uniforms on some of these blue blood programs?
Jeremy: If you look at the landscape right now, just about every program has a new uniform, or multiple uniforms rolled out throughout the season. So you've got to take a step back as a program, you have to look at who you are, ask yourself what's authentic. I don't think that it makes sense for some of these so-called "blue bloods" to change their uniforms if they don't believe that that's what their brand is about. For me, you have to have confidence in who you are. You have to, again, love me or hate me, but this is who we are--that's sort of the mentality that I always produce. So for me, if that's who you are, that's who you are. Now I will also say that looking at the scenario that we are in right now, from an NCAA athletics perspective, specifically football, everybody has multiple uniforms, which means if you stick with a design and if you have sort of the "classic" approach, the reality is that that's more differentiated today than anything. There's positives and negatives to both sides, but right now that might be a differentiator more than anything.
Mike: Now switching gears here real quick, I want to ask you about a team that I'm sure you're very familiar with, and that's Miami. I absolutely love the new Miami uniforms made by Adidas and that's because when I watch Miami now, they just feel South Beach. Their uniforms are exotic, they're vibrant, and it just really encapsulates where they're from. And, of course, South Beach is a very desirable place to be so the whole look tells that story of South Beach when you are watching on TV. Miami's always had a strong brand, but I think back in the 90s and early 2000s, you could probably attribute most of that strong brand to the winning, and the style of play, and the individual players. Really my question here is: how important do you think it is for a team, especially from a favorable location, to sell that location in their uniforms and in their marketing strategies?
Jeremy: It's absolutely important. And there's only a few programs, in my opinion, that truly have location benefits. I think you obviously look at the teams in Los Angeles, you look at at the teams in South Florida--if you are a high school athlete growing up in one of the northern states and it's the middle of November and you are walking outside and you have to shovel snow to get out of your driveway, you go visit Miami or you go visit a program in Southern California, that's a huge difference. That's going to change your perception right off the bat. That has to play a part. That's part of who you are. That's part of your DNA as a program. That's part of what makes you who you are as an athletic department, as a university, as a program within the overall entity. And to me, there's not a lot of programs out there that can use it to there advantage. And the one's that can--they have to, because that's such a differentiator. Everything comes down to recruiting. Anytime I speak to any athletic director, any coach, even any team, it's all about recruiting. Those two cities alone can bring top talent to a program.
Mike: Yeah one team for me that needs to embrace their location a little more is Colorado. Colorado comes out every year in the most traditional uniforms. They'e not winning a whole lot of games. I think they could really sell their location a lot more than they are doing.
Brett: Yeah, speaking of traditional looks--you look at Nebraska: they might tinker with a new helmet here and there, but they have that block 'N' and the most traditional uniforms you can find. But you look at them now, they are trying to grab someone else's location and use it as their own. They started a movement called the "Calibraska" movement. I'm not sure if you're familiar. Mike Riley has ties on the West Coast and he's really targeting California heavy. He's already pulled in Keyshawn Johnson's son and a bunch of other four star recruits. How effective do you think that is--grab someone else's location and make it your own almost and try and grow from there? It's gotta be unique.
Jeremy: Well I think what's happening in some of these cases is that schools offer something different that the athlete's not choosing. One huge opportunity for a lot of schools out there, quite honestly, is the opportunity to sell the college town atmosphere. When I went to school, I loved being part of a college town. I went to Oregon State University; it was very much a college town in Corvallis, Oregon. Nobody really knows about it until you get there. When you get there, it's beautiful and you don't want to leave, but it's not nationally known. I think that some of these kids that come out of big cities, they're looking for sort of a slower, more peaceful environment that they can just focus on football or basketball or whatever sport it is, and the books and their education. And I think that's a benefit. It's not going to work for everybody. Not everybody is going to be into that. For me, right now as an adult, I couldn't live in a small town. I want to live in big cities now. I've changed. But it's the same sort of situation for a kid--what are you looking for? Are you looking for the hustle and bustle or are you looking for focus and quiet and college and the college experience. A lot of these programs can really provide that and that's something that becomes a part of who you are and what your town can provide.
Mike: This might be a little bit of a tricky question, but how difficult is it to build a brand when one of the greatest factors to a brand can sometimes be winning. As I mentioned Miami back in the '90s and early 2000s--they didn't have the greatest uniforms, but because of their winning and their style of play, they had such a tremendous brand. How difficult is it for you to do your job when you have no control over one of the greatest factors to a successful brand?
Jeremy: Well if you look at one of the things that I put into the book--if you look at the athletic program life cycle--that, to me, is the answer to your question. There are four pillars. The first is perception. Anybody can change the perception of their brand. Is it going to go from 0 to 60 in year one? Absolutely not. It's the same with any product, any service, any personal brand. You always have the opportunity to change brand perception. And that to me makes perception so much more important than anything else in that stage. Perception leads to recruiting. We all know recruiting leads to winning. The facts suggest that the teams with the best recruiting classes are typically the ones that have the most wins. The wins from there lead to money, attendance, booster support, all of those things that come with winning. And then that money is fed back into the program, which only elevates perception. So, if you think about it, I might start as a 1/10 on the perception scale, but every year I might pick up another point, and another point. It's not always about winning on the field. Winning is absolutely going to help build equity into who you are, but it doesn't have to start there. There are a lot of programs, who, as I said, 15-20 years ago were not even sniffing the top 25. Yet, they are regularly in the conversation around the Playoff and around March Madness and potential national championships. Those programs have used perception to their advantage and they've changed the trajectory of the program through marketing elements and marketing strategies. I think that's the thing that people need to recognize is that you don't always have to go find the silver bullet coach. You can start right now. It's not about, again, that silver bullet. It's about building for the long term. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was a successful brand. Brands are built over the long haul, over years. To me, it's definitely related, but you can start with perception today.
Julian: Alright Jeremy, we have one last question for you. You mentioned you're an Oregon State alum. We've got to ask: how are the Beavers going to do this season?
Jeremy: Man, I would like to say that they are going to do well, but it's the early part of a long road to building that program back up to where it was 5 or 10 years ago. I think that they are just short of a bowl game, but they are absolutely on the right path. I love everything I hear coming out of the school, and, quite honestly, as an alum and a marketer, I love what they are doing to build the brand. Like I said, in the short term I look at this year--maybe we are not talking about a bowl game, but I think in the next 3-4 years you're looking at a successful brand.
Julian: Awesome, I like the optimistic outlook. Well again, Jeremy's book is Brands Win Championships. You can buy it on Amazon (link). Jeremy, how can our listeners get in contact with you via social media or online?
Jeremy: I'm honestly a big Twitter guy so if you want to get a hold of me it would definitely be on Twitter. @JeremyDarlow is my Twitter handle.
Julian: Awesome, well again--thank you very much. We appreciate having you on.
Jeremy: Thanks guys, I appreciate it.
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