The Milwaukee Brand

[PantherU]

I said on tonight's PantherU Live Chat that I had a presentation set for pitching the name Milwaukee as the only brand that our athletics program should pursue, instead of the current Milwaukee/UWM and recent Milwaukee/UWM/UW-Milwaukee.

This powerpoint presentation was originally put together for George Koonce, who was put on leave shortly after I finished it. For most of our posters, my stance on the issue should not be news; myself, ghostofdylan, SRT4Driver and others have crusaded to the point of annoying many. I hope that this short presentation, read thoroughly in 5-10 minutes, will be engaging and touch on many of the points we've discussed over the years without seeming too repetitive.

www.pantheru.com/notes/Milwaukee's_Brand

Thanks for reading,
Jimmy Lemke

[uwmfutbol]

A few things:

1. I actually prefer UWM, but you raise some issues. I also happen to like Milwaukee Panthers.
2. I agree 100% about the need for an M logo. I hate our Panther logo. It looks like it should be used for a 13 year old little league team. It's so bush league.
3. While I would love to see this happen, I can't help but wonder how much it would cost to completely change everything to reflect this new name.

[PantherU]

I go over this briefly, and the fact is that most stuff does NOT need to be changed. The courts, the uniforms, the facilities already reflect this Milwaukee name; letterhead will need to be changed, because it remains on the "Belt Buckle" logo that we should have circulated out by now. In any case, stationary makes the rounds, and we just replace the stuff going out with new stuff, which we would be doing anyways.

I think that the $ will not even equal the cost that Charlotte paid, considering we'd be doing it ourselves.

[pantherdon]

My thoughts-

The M logo in the slide show was used on Basketball & Baseball uniforms at times and probably others.
It wasn't really supposed to be a "club logo".
It was supposed to be the M in the "Belt Buckle" logo, which as a professional designer, I still think is way cooler than the wave logo.

A big generic M is not going to help identify us. We'll be mixed up with Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Manhattan, Marist, etc.
Probably the reason Marquette went with a big MU instead.

I love the "panther" logo, but the multitude of different versions I see everywhere makes me want to vomit.
The school colors are Black & Gold. Not Purple, Blue, Pink, etc.

[uwmfutbol]

I suppose the Panther logo isn't bad by itself, but it's really ugly with the Milwaukee Panthers words surrounding it.

[PantherU]

The head, by itself, works. But just a Panther head as a logo doesn't do us anything.

The main issue of the powerpoint is to present the brand as Milwaukee.

[buppie05]

It takes money to make money. Better branding = more money.

I was also a supporter of UWM being an acceptable reference, as some of my best memories are chanting "uwm 'clap' uwm' clap". However, Jimmy's point is 100% correct. By chanting the initials of the name of our school instead of the name of our athletics brand, it opens up the door for people (mistaking or not) to refer to us by the name of our school instead of our athletic name.

[Pounce Needs Pals]

I like the Panther with the word Milwaukee under it. I don't like the Panther logo with Milwaukee on top and Panthers below.

I like saying to people in the city of Milwaukee, that I'm going to the UWM game, not the Milwaukee game. Everyone would think I'm going to see the Bucks.

Let's have it as Milwaukee and you can say UWM.

Get rid of UW-M, UW-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Mil.

[parkerj]

Jun 6, 2010 10:29:29 GMT -6 Pounce Needs Pals said:

Let's have it as Milwaukee and you can say UWM.

Get rid of UW-M, UW-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Mil.

that's what jimmy's getting at...that's how it is now...clearly, that doesn't work very well

[uwmfutbol]

It doesn't help when our own sites, along with the JS, call us different names. We need to be consistent; either it's UWM and the UWM Panthers or it's UWM and the Milwaukee Panthers.

[Deleted]

Jun 6, 2010 10:29:29 GMT -6 Pounce Needs Pals said:

I like the Panther with the word Milwaukee under it. I don't like the Panther logo with Milwaukee on top and Panthers below.

I like saying to people in the city of Milwaukee, that I'm going to the UWM game, not the Milwaukee game. Everyone would think I'm going to see the Bucks.

Let's have it as Milwaukee and you can say UWM.

Get rid of UW-M, UW-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Mil.

I used to bite on these kinds of threads all the time, but I've all but given up with the hope that the AD marketing team (if one exists) will get it together eventually.

I will say I agree with MU Panther- I like UWM and I like Milwaukee as references. UW/Wisconsin and MU/Marquette have no problem using these acronym and spelled out "dual" references.

I have definately considered all arguments but I still do not see why we can't also use both- UWM is pretty ingrained in a lot of Milwaukeeans heads- I'm willing to bet whoever is reading this right now will hear "UWM" in the next 24-48 hours.

I understand the recruiting aspect too ("Milwaukee" is absolutely recognizable to non-Wisconsin kids.. UWM not so much). The fact of the matter is the university name is not changing- ever. We are technically UWM, and whether UW-Milwaukee sounds like a 2nd rate moniker or not...

JSOnline will continue to call us that until we insist that they follow some sort of naming stanard. Problem is- no standard exists. I was told (rather condescendingly, but that is beside the point) by Brad Stratton (assistent to Santiago), that "we try to use a healthy mix of [UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, UWM, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee]".

"Healthy" is not a word I would use to describe this problem. You see though? That is what we are dealing with- the people at the top who can make a standard- do NOT care for a standard.

Tom Enlund would be the first to subscribe to a standard (and seeing as how the AP wire gets most of it's Milwaukee Panther basketball news from JS artciles- the national media would (likely) naturaully follow suit).

I thought the PowerPoint was good- and it would have been nice for our AD to see. It is kind of a bummer to think that fans like us (-er Jimmy) have to bring this kind of obvious issue to the attention of the AD... but at least it's being discussed (remember talking about the court? That sure worked out pretty nice...).

Keep up the hard work and keep applying the pressure- seems thats the best way to get things done around here. It'll happen.... Give it 5 more years- and "UW-" references will be a thing of the past.

[PantherU]

I don't want to give it 5 years. I want to stamp it out now. There's no reason to "let things run their course" because nothing will get done that way.

[mooner]

I'm a former Milwaukee student and longtime lurker who usually checks in every couple months or so. I do some graphic design on the side... mostly band flyers... but I've always had an interest in sports logos/branding, so this thread naturally caught my attention. I've had a few thoughts of my own when it comes to the Milwaukee Panthers brand. This may get a bit long-winded, but please hear me out.

If you ask me, the main problem with the Milwaukee Panthers brand is that it's completely generic. Why are we the Panthers? Why are we black and gold? There's absolutely no reason behind either. Everything about the school's athletic identity is completely random. Not only is the Panther is the fourth most used mascot in college sports, but there's there's nothing particularly distinctive about the colors either. Even worse, we share them with two other schools (Oshkosh and Superior) in our own university system and there's already a small handful of Division 1 schools in the Midwest that are more visible than us which also use black with some shade of gold (Iowa, Purdue and Missouri immediately come to mind).

IMO, the easiest solution to this would be to adopt more unique colors. There's a certain pride people take in wearing Texas Orange, Carolina Blue or Michigan Maize and Milwaukee students deserve to feel a smiliar pride while rockin' our colors. My suggestion would be to add cream (we are the "Cream City," right?), either in addition to the current black and gold, or as a replacement for gold altogether. The latter would give us a set of colors that's unique to the entire NCAA (not just Division 1), but could also be implemented more gradually (and therefore, more cost effectively) than most would think. But either option would give us something that actually has significance behind why its there.

I could also get behind a push to change the mascot because even though it would be controversial at first, I think it would pay off in the long run (something the administrators at UWM seem to have a hard time grasping in general). No one grows up wishing to be a Panther the way they do a Badger, or a Gopher, or a Tar Heel, etc. Even students at schools that don't have such an entrenched athletic reputation are more naturally inclined to take pride in being, say, a Saluki or a Shocker because they know they're one of the few (if only) schools that use those mascots.

Also, notice that all of the examples from the previous paragraph were chosen because they're specifically relevant to their respective regions. A few names I had in mind were Gulls, Muskies and Fighting Squirrels:

-Gulls because the campus is located near Lake Michigan and seagulls tend to visit the campus in the warmer months. It also alludes to "Green Gulls," which is what the schools teams were known as in the pre-UWM days.

-Muskies are the official Wisconsin state fish and the largest freshwater predator, which makes it even more appropriate since our school is now a worldwide leader in freshwater research.

-Fighting Squirrels came from an article in the UWM Post when I was a freshman. It was written as something of a joke, but made the point that the squirrels on campus were not intimidated by people despite being many times their size. To me, that sounds like a perfectly unique quirk about our campus to base a solid identity on.

But there's still ways to carve out a unique identity while still keeping the Panthers name and mascot. Take LSU for example... their official nickname is the relatively bland Tigers, yet call them the Bayou Bengals and everyone immediately knows who you're talking about. Maybe we can unofficially be the Lakefront Leopards (since a panther is actually an "all black" leopard) or the Cream City Cats. We could also do a more abstract unofficial name similar to Gonzaga (Bulldogs/Zags) or North Texas (Eagles/Mean Green) and go with "Sconnies" since UWM has the most Wisconsin-born students and it would be a nice subtle jab at UW-Madison. Maybe we have gold shirts with a black "SCONNIES" in huge block letters printed up and change Pounce's name to Sconny to drive the point home?

The school's reluctance to change its name can also be dealt with in a similar manner. Much like how Missouri refers to itself as "Mizzou" and Washington State is "Wazzu," why can't we call ourselves "Waukee"? "Mil U" could also work. Technically incorrect? Sure... but no more than the University of Kansas, University of Nebraska and University of Oklahoma referring to themselves as KU, NU and OU respectively. And what's not to love about a subtle jab at Marquette? (i.e. MU vs Mil U)

Anyway, this is my first time sharing any of these ideas, so I have no idea which, if any, are actually good. If/when I have time I could possibly post some t-shirt/logo mock ups for some of these examples so let me know what you think.

[mwu]

I like your thoughts about adding a cream color to the mix as an accent. could be really cool.

I'm fine with panthers as the nickname and would be more inclined to follow your LSU example of essentially a nickname-of-the-nickname idea. I would be against changing the nickname altogether, unless it is beer related

[parkerj]

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