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New Billiken to be revealed


DoctorB

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SLU could have saved a lot of money by just letting us handle this.  We're the focus group they needed.  LongLiveLisch should get some free merch from SLU for his design work.  I don't think the mascot that was rolled out was all that bad, but LLL's touch ups did the trick.  Get it done May and Pestello.  Everyone will be happy.

I think part of the problem is that I keep hearing that students were involved in the design process.  I don't know about you, but my college years were not the best decision making years of my life.  I'm not sure that any sane person would say that college kids are the best for making decisions.  Why is some pimple faced Humanities major allowed to offer opinions that are shaping my mascot!  There are people that know how to do this kind of thing (i.e. high paid consultants and LongLiveLisch and us MBMs) that should be making the calls.

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3 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

SLU could have saved a lot of money by just letting us handle this.  We're the focus group they needed.  LongLiveLisch should get some free merch from SLU for his design work.  I don't think the mascot that was rolled out was all that bad, but LLL's touch ups did the trick.  Get it done May and Pestello.  Everyone will be happy.

I think part of the problem is that I keep hearing that students were involved in the design process.  I don't know about you, but my college years were not the best decision making years of my life.  I'm not sure that any sane person would say that college kids are the best for making decisions.  Why is some pimple faced Humanities major allowed to offer opinions that are shaping my mascot!  There are people that know how to do this kind of thing (i.e. high paid consultants and LongLiveLisch and us MBMs) that should be making the calls.

As long as the merchandise does not contain the new Billiken. 

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Yeah the students they get to provide input to these types of things are a bunch of more celibate 05s with way less tolerance for appletinis.  If that's possible

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2 hours ago, bonwich said:

Depends. I've seen it done where a very select group of people (yeah, sure, a committee, but a tiny one) did it for a billion-dollar corporation, and the ultimate decision was made by one person. Plus, um, Apple until a few years ago.

At universities, the presidents should just sign off. Best case, they have good, competent marketing departments that shepherd but also keep a tight rein on the process and provide the ultimate recommendation. 

As for focus groups, I can't find a really great article I just saw within the past few days, but here's a weaker version of the same concept.

http://www.austin-williams.com/blog/why-focus-groups-dont-work/ 

OK, so you agree that the occasions where a single person is responsible for the new logo and image of a large enterprise (SLU qualifies as a large enterprise) are rare, and that there are committees of some kind passing judgement.  Dr. Pestello was aware of the work that was being done and most likely signed his approval as well. Of course a portion of the approval was due to the presentation made by the design firm in regards to the new logo and mascot. 

I also fully agree with the negative effects of focus groups. They bring nothing new into the equation, what they do is to emphasize commonality of experience and taste patterns. In other words focus groups make decisions that accommodate consensus opinion in taste and eliminate the outlier factors. This is, in an unofficial way, what we are doing in this forum right now, presenting our opinions as a focus group of sorts. 

Looked at it from that perspective we are eliminating out of our "common think" commonly disliked features representing extremes that clash with our ideas. I think the gray portion of the new billiken face is the factor that most frequently clashes with our combined view of what a "Billiken" should look like. Would you agree?

 

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3 hours ago, Old guy said:

Looked at it from that perspective we are eliminating out of our "common think" commonly disliked features representing extremes that clash with our ideas. I think the gray portion of the new billiken face is the factor that most frequently clashes with our combined view of what a "Billiken" should look like. Would you agree?

 

Yup.

I'll speculate that what happened is that the final design(s) were put to a vote, which almost guarantees a least common denominator.

 

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Bonwich, I think it guarantees the consensus opinion which is not necessarily the lowest common denominator. If what you mean to say is that such an activity strips out most potential avenues for innovation and change, then you are probably right. From my point of view, you do not have to like it (I do not like it either) but it may still be a new and fresh approach as to what a "Billiken" mascot of a sports team is or could be. Design firms live out of creative talent, something I am not well endowed with. Time will tell.

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First of all the new mascot is not going to hurt recruiting.  Any recruit who is so turned off by it was not seriously considering SLU.  I personally am not crazy about the mascot but honestly I have more important things to vent my frustration at than the school mascot which after another couple of months the "outrage" will be long forgotten.  What I can not quite grasp is why some people have taken this change so personally.  Was the mascot so much a part of who you  are/were that you feel so attacked?  I can remember all the fun that was poked at our mascot whenever we appear in a nationally televised big game so don't make out that the old mascot was so perfect.  As I said, this is a not really important so lets stay focused on what is - getting this program righted and winning.  Ultimately, the market place will have the final say.  If nobody buys the new apparel then it will be changed but if people buy it then it will stay for awhile.

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8 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

First of all the new mascot is not going to hurt recruiting.  Any recruit who is so turned off by it was not seriously considering SLU.  I personally am not crazy about the mascot but honestly I have more important things to vent my frustration at than the school mascot which after another couple of months the "outrage" will be long forgotten.  What I can not quite grasp is why some people have taken this change so personally.  Was the mascot so much a part of who you  are/were that you feel so attacked?  I can remember all the fun that was poked at our mascot whenever we appear in a nationally televised big game so don't make out that the old mascot was so perfect.  As I said, this is a not really important so lets stay focused on what is - getting this program righted and winning.  Ultimately, the market place will have the final say.  If nobody buys the new apparel then it will be changed but if people buy it then it will stay for awhile.

Agree-Do Not Buy New Stuff

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The billiken is not going to hurt recruiting, that's ridiculous. Also, no one is saying that the focus should be on addressing this monstrosity over focusing on winning basketball games, that's an equally ridiculous statement.

However, different than other schools/programs, our mascot has a direct correlation to the perception of what the hell a billiken is. If you didn't know what Mizzous mascot looked like, you could take a pretty good guess based on knowing that it's a tiger. If you don't know what a Billiken is supposed to look like, you now have this dumpster fire to guide you along. A school has every right to change the image of their mascot, but the legacy of what it is should not be modified. 

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