Tech's identity crisis

[SCADjacket]

Tech\'s identity crisis

I noticed the post “How can Tech capture the imaginations of Atlanta?” awhile back and by the time I had gotten around to responding the point had somehow been lost.

So, here are a few basic points that I’d like to make and see if how everyone else feels.


Overall it seems that Tech has a major problem with its marketing. I’m constantly amazed how many people in the State of Georgia I run into who think our mascot is a BEE, or colors are BLACK and YELLOW and we are called THE GEORGIA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY.

I’d expect this from someone from Seattle, but I get this in our own backyard.

There seems to be no uniformity to the marketing and no standards to what can carry the GT name. Honestly it’s difficult to buy a GT t-shirt that is gold and not yellow, blue and not black. What are we, the Pittsburgh Steelers? Only recently have I noticed a push towards the OLD GOLD that is Georgia Tech. And it’s really only around campus and with the items sold at the bookstore. Even ESPN can’t figure out what our colors are. How difficult is it for the Buzz logo to be gold, white and blue just like on the cap I were all the time. I tell someone our colors are gold, white and blue and the first question I get is, “why is the logo yellow and black?”

Like I said, there seems to have been a few changes lately, the new signs are starting to use the entire school name, and the old gold is coming back around. But we are far from being where we need to be.

We are at a HUGE disadvantage to UGA from the start. We are half the size in students and geography, and we have even fewer alumni. This means there are fewer friends, neighbors and family members that have a connection to our school through someone they know. And there are fewer “family traditions” of Tech fans. Besides that we have a smaller list of majors to study. I’ve often said that UGA fans are usually fans because they just don’t know any better, and it is surprisingly true. UGA is such marketing machine that these people, their friends and family grow up not knowing much about Tech.

Our inherit disadvantages should mean we have a much more aggressive marketing plan just to make up the difference, but for some reason we seem to sit by and do nothing.

It has been said many times that the best way to “capture the imaginations of Atlanta” or the rest of the country for that matter is to WIN and WIN OFTEN. I noticed a slight jump in people wearing Tech after the Final Four. So this idea is true, but is it so hard for everyone to wear the same color to a home game?

Can’t we fix this identity crisis?

 

[GTCrew]

Easy

#1 Win and win often.
#2 Win and win often.

...

#124234 Win and win often.
#124235 Stop criticizing people calling us GTU or whatever. It is NOT important. Everybody knows exactly who they are referring to.
#124236 Stop criticizing people wearing the wrong colors. It is NOT important. Georgia picked up silver/grey along the way and NOBODY makes a big deal about it.
#124237 Get over the size of the cesspool. We have one of the biggest and best fan bases in the country. Take some solace that we are rapidly gaining on the TSFKAUGA.

 

[interchange]

Re: Easy

The thing that got me was CCG calling us "Georgia Tech University" when he was first hired. But he has more of an excuse than the local boys .

We can't expect to compete with UGAg for fans unless our teams win, win, win. They have the mainstream academics.

Honestly, the only marketing advantage we have is that we're in Atlanta. We need to exploit this for all it's worth. But to the suburbian kids...what difference is there between Atlanta and Athens?

P.S. I saw a store in a mall once called "It's Atlanta!" that sold about 50% UGAg items.

 

[AlaGold]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

We need to be Atlanta's college team so can pick up disenfranchised folks from all over the country that are in Atlanta.It is much easier to get tix to Tech games than UGa and more convenient.Also as the Falcons flounder we need to pick up some of those hard-core fball fans.
It is hard to fight the GREAT disparity in numbers of students at UGa and therefore alumni that cover the state.But we can have rabid pockets in every region to rally around.
Oh,yeah WIN and win often.

 

[ETBee]

I\'ll take a guess at the color situation...

Sure, our official colors are white, gold, and blue, but a yellow jacket (the actual insect) is yellow and black. Unless we drop the color scheme Buzz wears and change the official logos that depict Buzz as being yellow and black, those two colors will continue to be associated with us.

I have no idea how to eliminate the association of yellow with a team that calls itself the Yellow Jackets. The Georgia Tech Gold Jackets just doesn't sound right.

 

[SCADjacket]

Re: I\'ll take a guess at the color situation...

[ QUOTE ]
Unless we drop the color scheme Buzz wears and change the official logos that depict Buzz as being yellow and black, those two colors will continue to be associated with us.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually think that is what we should do. I have a few items that use gold, white and blue in depicting buzz and it looks great. Honestly gold is a difficult color to pull off since it doesn't shine in most printed items or fabrics. So the "old gold" color looks Dark Yellow. We just seem to have a huge contrast in the use of the color yellow.

It's not that different from Notre Dame being the Fighting Irish, and having gold and blue......doesn't everyone think GREEN when they hear IRISH?

Plus I don't see that it matters what color the actual insect is. Michigan is blue and yellow, how many blue and yellow wolverines have you seen. How many orange and blue alligators have you seen in Florida?

I agree with everyone, WIN and WIN OFTEN is best. But these are small things that breed confusion. We can be in the Final Four but doesn't it seem odd that the team wears different colors on the court than ESPN displays in our logos?

Some can say many of these things don't matter, but those are the same people that complain when Tech fans show up to a home game dressed in Yellow, Cheddar or Black.

Yes, at the end of the day this may seem like small items, but this is easy to fix with simple Marketing 101.

 

[MUTT_H8ER]

Re: I\'ll take a guess at the color situation...

[ QUOTE ]
I have no idea how to eliminate the association of yellow with a team that calls itself the Yellow Jackets. The Georgia Tech Gold Jackets just doesn't sound right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kinda like the old nickname we had back in 1917,when John Heisman led TECH to their 1st NC. It was the Golden Tornado. We haven't used that since the late 1920's.

As far as our team name goes. We didn't name it after our mascot's insect name. GT sports fans were called YellowJackets in the early 1900's because they wore yellow coats and jackets to the games. The mascot, "Buzz", came later. And nobody knows for sure exactly when.

I don't mind the association with YELLOW JACKETS. It's part of our history just as much as the Ramblin Wreck and George P. Burdell.

If anything we just need to win the games we're supposed to win and then win as many of the ones we "should lose". And then we can begin to market ourselves a little better. You can sink millions of dollars into marketing, but if you don't win and win against UGA it doesn't mean $chitt,IMHO!

 

[Bunger Henry]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

I had to fly into Greensboro, NC, a few weeks ago on business. I was impressed that in the airport store, they had the sports gifts evenly divided in 4 sections, with the same items for UNC, Duke, NC State, and WF. You would never see the Atlanta airport gift store evenly divided between Tech and UGA. Just too much hatred for us smug, intelligent, and wealthy Techies, by the ignorant, stupid, and redneck masses.

 

[JJacket]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

[ QUOTE ]
I had to fly into Greensboro, NC, a few weeks ago on business. I was impressed that in the airport store, they had the sports gifts evenly divided in 4 sections, with the same items for UNC, Duke, NC State, and WF. You would never see the Atlanta airport gift store evenly divided between Tech and UGA. Just too much hatred for us smug, intelligent, and wealthy Techies, by the ignorant, stupid, and redneck masses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Went into Gaylan's (sp?) sporting goods the other day. They have an entire wall of UGAg stuff - you immediately see it entering the store. There is a few Tech things hanging on the racks. I hate those SOB's.

 

[Buzzed]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

Obviously the stores are only going to offer for the sale items that are in demand. Clearly being associated with us, as well as our logo, is not. No doubt the fact that, by and large, we have been a mediocre atheltic program for as long as most consumers have been alive is a major factor here. We've had our random spots of glory, but on balance, we've been well below the radar screen for most Georgians. Unless there is some sort of seachange in the overall structure of our school, I think we'll all have a long wait before we see equal footing in the retail market for GT items.

 

[TechSBP]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

Maybe our sports apparell doesn't sell, but when I go into a situation and the subject of where one went to school goes up, GT gets as much respect as any school and far more respect than the school formerly known as U[sic]GA

 

[Buzzed]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

That's very true, TechSBP. In terms of our statewide support, it's just unfortunate that in almost every market there is not even enough support by our area alums to make sure our sports broadscasts are supported by advertisements. In almost every case GT has to pay the stations to broadscast our games. From a a recruiting standpoint, I gusss this is worth it, especially in some of the smaller markets, but you would think there would be enough listeners to attract businesses into buying ads to cover the costs. For the most part, however, that still is not the case.

 

[SCADjacket]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

Let me just throw this out there and see what your guys think.

Could a portion of the lack of support from our Alum base be based on the idea that many "Science People" are not huge sports fans?

I mean I know it sounds slightly stereotypical but I know in high school the guys who won the science fair were not usually at the friday night football games.

Could our popularity grow the more science and technology grow in the job market? And the more students come out of HS and pick S&T as a major?

 

[texstinger]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

It is hard not to notice that too many of the responses cover a lot of aspects besides WINNING BIG GAMES. Not surprising. Maybe the scientific types are too smart for their own good. It is simple. Win the big games and beat your rival. Simple.

 

[SCADjacket]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

I agree texstinger, sadly winning football games is the only thing many of the people in this state respond to.

I consider myself a complete fan of Ga Tech, school and athletic teams. I get just as excited when an alumni designs the World Trade Center Memorial as when our team wins a big game.

I don't believe that most UGA fans see themselves that way. I've noticed that when you ask someone WHY they are a UGA fan they respond with something like "Go Dawgs!" Truth is I don't think they have an answer; they've never given it much thought. And anything UGA has to be proud of from an academic perspective is lost on them.

There is a reason the word University is in the school title, there is a reason they are called "STUDENT-athletes" and all those reasons are lost on UGA fans. Athens could change to the State of Georgia’s Minor League NFL team and never teach another class and most UGA fans would be just as happy.

In fact…sometimes it seems that way now.

 

[gmoney32]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

I have to ask, exactly what fans are you tying to win over? The reason I ask this is because many of the posters here slam UGA fans, call them rednecks, and comment that most of have never even stepped foot on campus. So the attitude is that if you didn't go to the school, you cannot be a fan. There is also a lot of complaining about the bandwagon fans. If winning is how you plan on attracting more fans, then aren't you simply trying to get that bandwagon fan? (who also never stepped foot on GT campus). Based on attitudes expressed here, the way to get more "acceptable" fans would be to drastically increase enrollment, and possible increase majors offered, in order to attract a large number of high school students, and thus have more alumni. That just seems to be the attitude that I observe from many of the posts here.

 

[Buzzed]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

"many "Science People" are not huge sports fans"

Whether we accept that perspective or not, there's little doubt that's the image the Ugag fans have of us.

 

[cincytechie]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

It's a matter of our student population. We are a tech school. There's little difference between our student population and that of MIT or CalTech. Until our academics gradually change (which they undeniably will have to), we will remain a tech school. The lack of diversity in our academics is amazing at a school of our size. The average student who comes here does not care about sports. Very few are die-hard sports fans. Two seasons ago, we basically had the same exact bball team and Bosh. The students didn't care about us because we weren't ranked. I went to every game, but very few others did. Last season, it actually was a sad sight to see the AMC in full capacity knowing that most of these people will not be here once we have another mediocre year. We have many disloyal "fans," and that is not gonna change anytime in the near future. Even though we have a decent athletic program, no one outside of Georgia Tech will care. Why care about a school who educates people the public cannot relate to? We do not and will not appeal to others. For people in Georgia, they will never feel any type of association to Georgia Tech unless they are alumni or they were raised as a Georgia Tech fan. We are seen as nerds and rightfully so. Our student population is incredibly nerdy on average. Of course, many of us live and breathe sports, but most don't. And we cannot castigate those who don't. Who are we to say that there's something wrong with not loving sports? We will always be held back by the fact that we are an engineering school. Fortunately, we'll start moving in the direction of offering many more majors. But it will take quite a while before we can attract non-science people.

 

[Thunder]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/withstupid.gif

Well, to some extent, anyway. I agree with the gist of it, but disagree on the finer points.

My view of Tech is a bit different. Having not been born in GA, I always considered Tech to be the science and engineering school that "didn't suck" (meaning that this place had a decent Division I athletics program and the campus environment wasn't as devoid of fun as places like Carnegie Mellon or MIT). Despite my strong math and science background in high school, back then I most closely associated Georgia Tech with Stephon Marbury.

That said, I have known Tech students who were more interested in playing Magic card games than watching the football game against TSFKAUGAy at home in 2001. They were all stereotypical CS students (who are also stereotypically currently unemployed). All the engineering students I knew were definitely into football though. In my experience, the CS and the LCC departments had the greatest amount of pretentious "sports are beneath me" snobs.

 

[RamblinPeck]

Re: Tech\'s identity crisis

[ QUOTE ]

That said, I have known Tech students who were more interested in playing Magic card games than watching the football game against TSFKAUGAy at home in 2001. They were all stereotypical CS students (who are also stereotypically currently unemployed). All the engineering students I knew were definitely into football though. In my experience, the CS and the LCC departments had the greatest amount of pretentious "sports are beneath me" snobs.


[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty true, its sad to see the kids (mostly internationals though) in the College of Computer on a Saturday night when everyone else is celbrating the victory /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/drink1.gif. I gotta say though, for all the CS people who think sports are beneath them, those of us who are sports fans are generally pretty fanatical about it so I guess it all evens out.