Context is King

This essay was written for the Makers of Sport® newsletter in November 2015. Monday Musings and Weekend Reads were the written editions of the newsletter that accompanied the podcast; the archived email is on Mailchimp. The newsletter's links and announcements are trimmed here.

You've heard content is king. It been stated so much, it has almost become cliché. In this day of social media, brands are constantly trying to fill the 24 hour news consumption cycle with interesting or at least clickable content for users. It's very tough to find original ideas. Most great things have already been done and inspiration can be found anywhere. Sometimes, ideas are purposely ripped off. Other times, ideas might be borrowed or inspired innocently through subconscious means.

So when it comes to the business of branding, context is king. Recently the University of Kentucky did some renovations on their football stadium. In doing so, UK worked with Nike to create a brand refresh of the old interlocking UK and integrate a new typeface (potentially custom although I have not found out for sure yet as there have been no official press releases and the rollout has been a soft one). As expected with any brand refresh or rebranding, fans have not been too happy with the change.

[](http://secretariat.com)Eight years ago, Nike created some Kentucky basketball uniforms that integrated a checkerboard pattern based on the jockey silks of famed racehorse, Secretariat. Personally, I thought those uniforms were great. It was one of the first times I remember Nike really pushing the envelope visually in the modern era for basketball uniforms. From a brand perspective, I felt that tying in Kentucky's most famous race horse with the state's basketball team was a great move and the uniforms really helped bring contribute some extra visuals for telling the story of the importance of both basketball and thoroughbred racing in Kentucky.

In the context of basketball, that blue and white checkerboard pattern was a great move. But, as with any college athletics brand, visuals began to be extended across sports. Over the last few years, we've seen the Secretariat pattern be applied to Kentucky football uniforms as well. As you can see in the photo below,

the pattern has been applied to the side of the pants and the sleeves. Again, a nice touch in regards to extending additional visuals from the athletics brand across other sports.

From the architects and athletic staff's perspective, I'm sure it only made sense to extend the Secretariat pattern to the end zones of Commonwealth Stadium. It was only a matter of time. There is major problem here though in regards to branding and uniqueness — in the context of college football, the Tennessee Volunteers own the checkerboard pattern in end zones. And Tennessee is a hated boarder rival of Kentucky.

It would be one thing if a college football program across the country that never played Kentucky had a checkerboard end zone; but to place a checkerboard pattern in an SEC end zone that isn't Tennessee is an unfortunate circumstance. The checkerboard end zone is synonymous with Rocky Top and it has a great story behind it as noted from the ESPN link above. Just like the cowbells at Mississippi State, the checkerboard end zone has become an incidental part of Tennessee's brand — not created by the athletics staff, but employee/fan created and fan owned. The rival school up north incorporating a similar pattern makes little sense when put into the football end zone context. When schools in such close proximity have similar recruiting territories, it is absolutely vital to stand out. Everything from style of play to the things you wear on the field are important in the competitive recruiting landscape today. It's a shame Kentucky didn't take more of this into account when considering the Secretariat pattern for their end zones. Or at the very least, pushed back on Nike (if it were their idea). Perhaps even now, Kentucky could reconsider their pattern after American Pharoah's Breeder's Cup and Triple Crown wins.

Either way, be sure to keep context in mind when pursuing your own branding projects. Do extensive research, dig into your past and traditions to see if there is anything visually that can represent a specific time or relic in your history. And for the love of all that is sacred in tradition in sports, please do not borrow ideas from your rival's brand. Stand out from them.

For more on this topic, be sure to check out the Halftime episode on branding and be on the lookout tomorrow for Episode 57 with Ashley Strauss, Mississippi State's director of creative services.

Cheers,

Adam