[Brandon Holley]

Branding is huge, especially for rookie teams. As team numbers become larger and larger, it becomes much harder to identify teams simply by team number.

The older teams are obviously at an advantage because:
A. They've had years to build their brand and
B. They have a nice low team number which is also easily identifiable.

As Tom said, I definitely think theres a bit of a chicken and an egg type conundrum when looking at the "big brand" teams of FIRST. All of them are successful on the field in some fashion, so did the winning come after the branding, or was the branding easily done after winning?

I think it's important as a rookie team going in to come up with your identity now, and try to stick with it. I see many young teams who change their identity on a yearly basis. While this may be fun in the short term for the team, it is very difficult to track for other FRC teams.

When creating your brand try to stick into the minds of fellow FIRSTers by any means necessary. Coming up with a creative team name, cool looking uniforms, an interesting color scheme or nice team giveaways are all ways to help stick out.

Good luck!

-Brando