Seems like a common theme on this board is "Program X just did this. 18-year-old recruits are going to LOVE this s***. Why can't we be like that?". I just saw this article (LINK) and my first thought was, "I'll bet there will be much shaking of heads on BearInsider".

So my question is......how are we doing on this front? Are we really doing a crap job and is our program stuck in the past, or are there any encouraging signs of hope? What should we do besides the obvious? ("win the Rose Bowl")

I think even though we're not exactly the hottest "brand" in college FB, there are a lot of programs that would trade places with us. We have some solid upside potential.

Model T factory and Michael Jordan is stuck in the past- that's old school stuff

The boards name is growls. When we doing something trendy, the old schoolers complain. If we don't do something that another school does that is trendy, peeps complain. A perfect example of complaining is the Lynch giveaway. Cal did such a great job with the bobble-head design that people are pissed that they aren't selling it to make money and/or it will be too hard to get.

Cal Marketing and Merchandising is definitely behind other programs. Case in point = getting rid of game day shirts. every other school in the nation has some form of game day shirt or football schedule shirt, and I can't find any on our site

I think there is a lot of "woe is me" with Cal fandom, and I'm a major critic of how our AD executes marketing etc But to be honest, we're actually pretty good these days. There's always stuff to work on, absolutely, but our content has improved tremendously. Our vids, decks, images etc are generally very crisp, cohesive well done. We're incredibly active on social media. We ARE putting out good stuff. We're just conditioned to hate on everything.

What we're lacking is swag. Even last year, on a clear upswing, we didn't have swag. Our general aesthetic is well done, but the face of our program that past few years, Goff, was not a particularly swaggy individual. He was the clean cut, generally quiet, kid next door. His most notable social media moment was catching a ground rule double at a Giants game. Not that he should shoulder all of that responsibility, I couldn't tell you a damn thing about Michigan football, but I know Harbaugh is his own meme. He's the face of their program right now, and he's viral. If we can find some swag, whether through major wins, or big personality types, we'll see our same marketing in a different light.

Michigan will always be Michigan, but did anyone here think their marketing was killing it during Hoke years? Suddenly they hire Harbaugh, he tweets about literally anything, and everything they do turns to gold.

If we win then it won't matter. Alabama was a graveyard after they got slammed with sanctions in the early 2000s before Saban came. Once upon a time, Nebraska was a juggernaut and are now an afterthought in college football. Same with The U at the moment. Florida State went through a lull in the later years of Bowden compared to the 90s when college football was all about them. The whole internet went bananas recently after the Marshawn bobblehead news came out. So I don't think we are somehow lagging behind everyone else, it's about wins.

The content that Cal puts out via social media is excellent stuff -- it's amazing that we get daily post practice video updates.

While "swag" is great to have, I kind of like the low-key tight-knit family based culture that Dykes + his staff have built -- I've had a chance to spend time w/ a bunch of different programs, and being the trendy program is not always all that its chalked up to be. Programs like Oregon/Clemson are considered "swag" AF in the modern sense that Miami, or FSU were back in the 90's early 00's -- the bandwagon hype is strong w/ those programs, but I wouldn't trade the experience of Memorial Stadium for those ever (funny how most of us complain about the piped in music + crap at Memorial in recent years). I think as a fan-base we are a mix of idealism / nostalgia / pessimism which would not exactly mesh well w/ the glitz and glamor of flashier / swaggier programs -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't strive for improvement. I think as a fan base what we want to see is innovative + efficient utilization of resources/schemes by the administration/coaching staff to better the program.

socaliganbear;842711491 said:

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I think there is a lot of "woe is me" with Cal fandom, and I'm a major critic of how our AD executes marketing etc But to be honest, we're actually pretty good these days. There's always stuff to work on, absolutely, but our content has improved tremendously. Our vids, decks, images etc are generally very crisp, cohesive well done. We're incredibly active on social media. We ARE putting out good stuff. We're just conditioned to hate on everything.

What we're lacking is swag. Even last year, on a clear upswing, we didn't have swag. Our general aesthetic is well done, but the face of our program that past few years, Goff, was not a particularly swaggy individual. He was the clean cut, generally quiet, kid next door. His most notable social media moment was catching a ground rule double at a Giants game. Not that he should shoulder all of that responsibility, I couldn't tell you a damn thing about Michigan football, but I know Harbaugh is his own meme. He's the face of their program right now, and he's viral. If we can find some swag, whether through major wins, or big personality types, we'll see our same marketing in a different light.

Michigan will always be Michigan, but did anyone here think their marketing was killing it during Hoke years? Suddenly they hire Harbaugh, he tweets about literally anything, and everything they do turns to gold.

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i agree that our media has gotten exponentially better. psst, we put in a small amount of dollars, relatively, for this significant improvement. but it used to be pretty low-rent stuff so the only direction we could go was up.

it's not necessarily that we don't try to be innovative. we just have a lot of room for improvement in execution. like, creating gameday shirts with 0 appeal. or..deciding to "stripe" CMS for Ohio State weekend a week in advance. or having only 10k in marshawn bobbles.

our support system and department are like little fish in a big pond. we had to fight this long just to get a full-time Director of Recruiting, and that directly impacts our program. it's not surprising many of our ancillary operations suck.

I think I'm more concerned with stuff that is consumed by a mass audience. Or rather, that is what I believe our marketing efforts should prioritize. This is the stuff large groups of people who aren't already committed fans are more casually exposed to.

Shirts and stuff like failed stripe outs are very problematic, but I file those under game day experience. And absolutely, that area is still lagging big time.

socaliganbear;842711522 said:

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I think I'm more concerned with stuff that is consumed by a mass audience. Or rather, that is what I believe our marketing efforts should prioritize. This is the stuff that people who aren't already committed fans are more casually exposed to.

Shirts and stuff like failed stripe outs are very problematic, but I file those under game day experience. And absolutely, that area is still lagging big time.

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true. good differentiation.

and i'll offer this: with Mallette taking this long to get our staff and players caught up on how to use social media, with Lovett still publicly tweeting out private messages intended for recruits' inboxes, i don't have much faith we'll get our "mass consumption" material up to par. [hiring that DoR was solid though]

Cal FB actually recently picked up snapchatting events, found that interesting. don't know that this helps build up our image in the eyes of the public, though. with our unique challenges, i think the only thing that'll help is winning on the field.

http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=How-the-nations-top-recruiters-reacted-or-didnt-to-NCAA-rule-allowing-retweets

socaliganbear;842711522 said:

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I think I'm more concerned with stuff that is consumed by a mass audience. Or rather, that is what I believe our marketing efforts should prioritize. This is the stuff large groups of people who aren't already committed fans are more casually exposed to.

Shirts and stuff like failed stripe outs are very problematic, but I file those under game day experience. And absolutely, that area is still lagging big time.

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agree, you make a good point. In terms of marketing, I find the videos to be pretty entertaining (way better after they got rid of the "dunnnnnn" in the beginning).

The game day experience is pretty bad, and it showed last year. They totally botched the stripe outs and didn't convey it well to fans in the beginning. I hope they moved out whoever was in charge last year and found someone competent

CalBearinLA;842711533 said:

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agree, you make a good point. In terms of marketing, I find the videos to be pretty entertaining (way better after they got rid of the "dunnnnnn" in the beginning).

The game day experience is pretty bad, and it showed last year. They totally botched the stripe outs and didn't convey it well to fans in the beginning. I hope they moved out whoever was in charge last year and found someone competent

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Lol that opening sound was so off putting, I was thrilled when they dropped it. Game Day experience is worthy of its own thread. Too much wrong or not good enough. I could go on for hours.

MoragaBear;842711535 said:

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Sophie Luoto was essentially serving in that capacity prior to the recent Michael Lagrasta hiring.

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right. and now we finally have someone doing that full-time.

MoragaBear;842711546 said:

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If she wasn't full time, she was close to it

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We need someone working overtime in that position.

That should help

well i saw cal is hiring a sports marketing intern

oh, and i thought jumpman was only for old people