Brands Win Championships Essay PDF

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Essay for the book Brands Win Championships...

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Joshua Patiño EDPE 500 Dr. Smith Brands Win Championships Essay January 23, 2022

2 Introduction In Brands Win Championships, Darlow concisely discusses how teams like Duke Basketball, Oregon Football, and Alabama Football have all built brands. He shares how topnotch programs have differentiated themselves in only three chapters: 1) Managing Your Perception, 2) Writing Your Story, and 3) Telling Your Story. The sports organization scenario I chose to write about, is one that I lived. In 2017 I joined the Gonzaga University Women’s Soccer as an assistant coach. I can say definitively say that the women’s soccer program at that time did not have any kind of brand. If anything, it was associated with the bottom of the table and prospective student-athletes were more interested in attending Gonzaga University for its rigorous academics, not the women’s soccer program. This essay will take the lessons learned from Darlow’s, Brands Win Championships, and see how Gonzaga Women’s soccer has built a brand. Looking back, although we hadn’t read the book then, I see where a lot of the concepts and principles were put in place and came to life. Perception Darlow discusses that perception is the foundation, it’s what people think about the athletic program or university. What people think, their perception, will determine success. When it comes to women’s soccer, Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina come immediately to mind as the Tarheels have won 21 national championships. In the West Coast Conference (WCC), young players are drawn to Santa Clara University or the University of Portland because both programs have won national titles. Their pedigree of players is rich and the perception is that they’re still national contenders, whether true or not. The book introduces us to the Athletic Program Life Cycle which has four stages: perception, recruiting, winning, and money. Again, perception is the foundation and leads to

3 subsequent stages. For example, having a losing record that all can see plays into perception. Young student-athletes, generally, aren’t drawn to losing programs. They tend to be intrigued and interested in the winningest programs. In 2017, Gonzaga’s record was dismal only winning eight games the previous two years combined. One might say, the program had no brand equity. There was no awareness of the program, and if there was, people didn’t think too much of it. With more than 50 wins in five years, the caliber of recruit, opponents, winning percentage, and money have all increased and improved dramatically. Brand Differentiation To compete with the likes of Santa Clara and Portland, Gonzaga needed to differentiate the programs’ brand. Academically, all the schools are relatively similar. Small, private religious institutions. Women’s soccer attracts an upper-middle-class student-athlete. Gonzaga branded itself as the blue-collar program of the WCC. We started recruiting a different type of player altogether. We branded ourselves using three terms: Energy, Effort, and Commitment. We were looking for players with good, positive energy emotionally and physically. Effort became the staple of our program. Commitment was seen through consistent higher national and conference rankings. All of our social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) started pushing out clips of each of these core values. We celebrated any moment that showed them. We asked the team to “like” and “share” each kind of these posts. The results were incredible. When we spoke with players they all spoke about these highlights they had seen on social media and how they fit their style of play. Hard work became fun, and fun led to winning. A lot. Consistency + Frequency = Success

4 Our staff worked hard to make sure everything we did was centered around those three pillars of energy, effort, and commitment. We had several team meetings multiple times throughout the year centered around each of these topics. We made videos, we had the players write out what it meant to them, we had more veteran players teach younger players, and when we ran camps we had the captains speak about them. “Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything a company does” (Darlow, 2014, p. 76). This quote emulates how Gonzaga’s brand grew to what it is today. When the pandemic hit, the staff put together training videos for our players to do on their own. These videos were made public and published on social media platforms to tell our story. The frequency and consistency of our internal and outbound communication were how we activated our brand story. It didn’t happen overnight or even after a season or two. The consistent efforts by all involved and supporting the program have helped tell our story.

Conclusion There are three main conclusions I drew from the book. First, there is an order to build a brand. Have a story and strategy in place before thinking about activation. Second, first impressions are everything and you only have 8 seconds to make the right impression. Third, it’s about quantity over quality. As your brand story grows, so do your followers. However, you want the right people, your target audience, to be there.

5 References

Darlow, J. (2014). Brands win championships: The secret to winning a national title in the 21st Century. Jack and June Publishing....