I suppose this is sort of loosely related to the "move up to I-A/stay in I-AA" argument, but is MSU ever going to be so well known nationally, that our logo will be readily recognized outside of Montana, or at least outside of the Mountain West region, no matter what it is? Unless of course we somehow actually incorporated the words "Montana State" into the logo? If a school's sports programs are not regularly featured on ESPN or other national networks, how are they going to get enough exposure, so that people automatically make that connection when they see you wearing something with any MSU logo?Bay Area Cat wrote:We care because we want MSU to be able to successfully market the program throughout the nation in order to make MSU athletics and Montana State University the strongest they can possibly be. That happens by having strong branding and successful marketing.GFCatFan wrote:Why do we care if a few idiots who don't follow Bobcat football think the M is for Michigan. Let it go people.
If a person doesn't care about the "idiots" whose first impression of our logo is that it is Michigan's logo (a statement that suggests that about 99% of American sports fans are idiots, including most of our potential out-of-state recruits and their families and potential out-of-state sponsors/contributors), that's fine. But for those people who understand the importance of effective marketing for MSU beyond the borders of Montana, it's something that is quite important.
I graduated in Marketing, and fully understand the concept of branding, and it's importance with regard to the successful marketing of MSU. I'm just saying that none of the three commonly used MSU logos are particularly unique, so I'm not sure that any of them should be favored over the others, based on that particular argument.
I travel to Boise frequently for business, and even there many people don't recognize my MSU gear if it has only a logo, no matter which one it is, if not accompanied by the words "Montana State". Sometimes even if it has "Bobcats" on it, they don't always affiliate that nickname with MSU....and that's in a state that's right next door to us!! On a loosely related note, on my last Boise trip I saw the MSU-themed Horizon Airlines plane at the airport, which was pretty cool. And by the way, it has all three logos, with the script "Cats" on the side of the engines, the "M" on the fuselage, and the Cat head on the tail.