For those who havent lived through the branding misidentification of the last quarter century, everthing I type on branding will seem like jiberish.
Back to the title of this post. Specifically if I had been tasked with branding the new mascot.
Sometimes its obvious when an institution has been brow beaten into a mode of communication.
In this case using full official wordy terminology to announce a light-hearted event.
The news release of the new Catahoula mascot is one of those wordy moments.
Official release that all the parroting outlets repeated:
"The University of Louisiana at Lafayette introduced a Catahoula Leopard dog as its new live mascot."
Looks good at a glance, but too wordy including words that should never needlessly be used.
This is a Louisiana Athletics mascot not the whole university. However if you just say 'Louisiana Athletics' it will pull in the whole university.
Just say Catahoula dog or Catahoula canine. Leopard not needed.
No need to use its full breed nominclature. There are no laws on using full breed names on lighthearted announcments.
No responsibility to educate the rest of the world on a fun mascot full name, there is no name competition with other Catahoula breeds to worry about.
My reasoning:
There is name competition with other universities to worry about.
"The University of Louisiana at Lafayette introduced a Catahoula Leopard dog as its new live mascot." is asking for confusion.
With the history of recognition problems Louisiana has had with being confused with the Lafayette Leopard university up in Easton, Pennsylvania, to me using full names here is dumb and shows a cognitive disconnect from history.
Historically, Lafayette Leopard merchandise has already made it to the shelves of Acadiana stores.
If my constraints were to not embellish on the original release I would have simply made the news release stating:
Louisiana Athletics introduced the Catahoula dog as new live mascot."
No Leopard no Lafayette, that will come up organically, no need to manufacture confusion.
The rest of the release would be all about Louisiana connections and attributes.
That's, if I had been tasked with branding .... I was not.
Back to the title of this post. Specifically if I had been tasked with branding the new mascot.
Sometimes its obvious when an institution has been brow beaten into a mode of communication.
In this case using full official wordy terminology to announce a light-hearted event.
The news release of the new Catahoula mascot is one of those wordy moments.
Official release that all the parroting outlets repeated:
"The University of Louisiana at Lafayette introduced a Catahoula Leopard dog as its new live mascot."
Looks good at a glance, but too wordy including words that should never needlessly be used.
This is a Louisiana Athletics mascot not the whole university. However if you just say 'Louisiana Athletics' it will pull in the whole university.
Just say Catahoula dog or Catahoula canine. Leopard not needed.
No need to use its full breed nominclature. There are no laws on using full breed names on lighthearted announcments.
No responsibility to educate the rest of the world on a fun mascot full name, there is no name competition with other Catahoula breeds to worry about.
My reasoning:
There is name competition with other universities to worry about.
"The University of Louisiana at Lafayette introduced a Catahoula Leopard dog as its new live mascot." is asking for confusion.
With the history of recognition problems Louisiana has had with being confused with the Lafayette Leopard university up in Easton, Pennsylvania, to me using full names here is dumb and shows a cognitive disconnect from history.
Historically, Lafayette Leopard merchandise has already made it to the shelves of Acadiana stores.
If my constraints were to not embellish on the original release I would have simply made the news release stating:
Louisiana Athletics introduced the Catahoula dog as new live mascot."
No Leopard no Lafayette, that will come up organically, no need to manufacture confusion.
The rest of the release would be all about Louisiana connections and attributes.
That's, if I had been tasked with branding .... I was not.
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