Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
When our club was founded three years ago, the students at that time named it "The Combine" after some video game (Half-Life?). Last year, the students renamed the team "Exothermic Robotics" with the slogan "It was on fire when we got there." We had three robots last year, and all did well. This year, we have seven robots (in FTC and VRC), and have gotten known in our area as the Exothermic Robotics program. I like the name well enough, and there is marketing value in keeping the name. If you change your brand every year, I think, you lose the value of the brand name.
I've been pretty adamant about NOT letting this years' students change the name of the club, but they keep grumbling. Does anyone want to share stories about changing team names? Mentors, is it a good idea to let students change the team name whenever they feel like it? Students, would you trust or respect adult leaders who won't let you change the name when you want to? Any one want to share their experiences?
Based on how our team actually behaves, I think the name of our team should be "stopSTOPSTOP!!!."
|
We have this debate each year and we usually come to the conclusion that it important to have something that people know you by in addition to your team number. We have however tried changes over the years. In 2001-2003 we were just West Albany Robotics with a mascot of a bulldog and logo of a running man named WATSON. In 2003 we decided to adopt WATSON as our team name with a new logo. The name stuck well through 2004-2006 and we changed the robot to create a partnership for example WATSON and Sherlock and WATSON and Crick. We changed the theme each of those years to reflect the partnership that someone had with someone named WATSON. In 2006 our team name was WATSON Volts (Watts and Volts) but it didn't catch on. In 2007 we were just WATSON with no real theme and then last year we rebranded ourselves at the Pokebots (with a Pokemon theme)...
However we decided not to continue with the pokebots even though we could have been well known by it because people wondered why we changed from WATSON. So this year we are WATSON with a robot and logo Spike (no real theme.) So we might run into the same issues you are looking at.
I think it is important (from a business student standpoint) to stick with the brand because you are constantly trying to make a name for yourself. You will see often in start up businesses that they will go through a few names and sometimes that makes it hard to identify but they change the name due to legal or other reasons. There are ways to change themes, robot names and the like without having to reinvent who you are. The well known teams would have the same struggles if they completely identified themselves differently. Like if Team MOE changed to Orange instead of Green or The Thunder Chickens became the flying Squirrels or there are numerous other examples that we can all think of.
The main point is that once teams get a good identifier for you then you have to stick with it to be associated with the success you have had in the past.