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RESEARCH

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Rationale

Research is one of the components of the Program Learning Outcome (PLO’s) for course Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution as part of the MFA at Full Sail University. This portion of the Thesis: will present the sources that support the decision making for Las Vegas Enforcers -LVE during the early stage of the brand development process.

   Content

 

Brand Identity

  1. Brand Communications

    1. Brand Narrative

    2. Brand Story

    3. Mission Statement

    4. Onlyness statement

    5. Target audience

      1. Demographics

      2. Psychographics​

      1. Needs

        1. Affiliation

        2. Diversion

        3. Consistency

    7. Differentiation

      1. Analysis of the Competition

        1. Las Vegas Golden Knights

        2. UNLV Runnin’ Rebels

        3. Las Vegas Legends

      2. Points of Differentiation

        1. NHL non-affiliation

        2. Spirit

        3. Personality

        4. Atmosphere

  2. Voice and Tone

    1. Tagline

    2. Theme

    3. Positioning statement

    4. Brand archetype

  3. Look and feel

    1. Brand Vision Board

    2. Typography

    3. Color palette

    4. Texture and Patterns

Brainstorming

This development process started with a brainstorming exercise that consisted of the three main elements associated with The City of Las Vegas. These elements were used as reference while combing them with the history of the city.

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1.American West

The first reference associated with this city was the American West. The wild west worked as starting point for the first ideas for this brand. Research was conducted to give direction to these decisions. The findings of the first research during brainstorming inspired the idea of using the cowboy symbol. The cowboy became the symbol for the West of the late 19th century (The Library of Congress, n.d., para. 4).

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2.Showgirls

The second reference took inspiration from the iconic Jubilee showgirls and the Elvis Presley's era on the Las Vegas Strip. The decision of including sequin as part of the textures was a referenced from the costumes of the showgirls with the intention to stand out when performing on stage, become memorable, increase brand awareness and differentiate from the competition.

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3.Casinos

The third reference was the casinos. Las Vegas is known for being a major casino resort city. The slots machines are one of the gambling alternatives in the casinos. In 1967 Howard Hughes bought The Desert Inn, as well many other properties. Purchasing those properties helped to get rid of the mobsters ruling the casinos at that time and eventually push them out of the industry. On the same year, the state of Nevada passed The Corporate Gaming Act which facilitate corporations to run casinos easily (Little, 2022).

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Brand Communications

Brand Narrative

Hockey is an exciting game full of motion, intensity and buzz showing emotions, confidence and a captivating personality. The nature of this sport evokes that intensity through the speed, precision and excitement of the players. The narrative for LVE is about empowering their fans through its spirit, words and actions. That empowerment starts with creating a level of trust, intimacy, and acquaintance to let the fans refer to the team with the acronym LVE. The communication across media should be consistent and must communicate the brand’s attributes and messaging while expressing unity it in a fearless and relentless way.

Brand Story

Las Vegas Enforcers is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. This team was formerly known as Wranglers. The East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) disbanded the team due to low attendance figures and the economic downturn. LVE's story is about resilience and reinventing themselves. LVE is committed to bring back The Spirit of the Enforcers to the local communities of Las Vegas Nevada.

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Mission Statement

To build a consistent and successful Hockey team committed with Las Vegas local communities to satisfy their needs of affiliation, diversion, and consistency while creating meaningful connections in an atmosphere where they belong making them the most important part of the rink.

Onlyness Statement

This onlyness statement is an effective tool for brand guidance and gathers all the information for the development of the brand identity with a scope of communication narrowed down to a specific target audience to communicate a specific message.

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Las Vegas Enforcers (LVE) is the only ECHL Hockey Organization Team committed to bring back The Spirit of the Enforcers to Las Vegas Nevada. The Spirit of the Enforcers is about bringing unity to the families and local communities of Las Vegas in a fearless and relentless atmosphere.

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Target Audience

The target audience consist of working-class people, young professionals, and suburban families. Fifty-five percent of that audience are male, female fanbase is growing with (45%). Sixty-eight percent of fans are between the ages of 25 and 45. A significant number of attendees bring their families, with as many as 30% of ticketing for children under 14.

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Demographics

Although the (Las Vegas Enforcers, 2021, Target Audience section) does not mention the audience’s pride for their hometown explicitly, it does mention their interest of hanging out with other likeminded people within their communities to enrich their own lives which can be translated and interpreted as a sense of pride. This audience consist of people with an active casual lifestyle interested in outdoor hobbies, sports and activities with families and friends. These activities are an opportunity for this audience to engage with other like-minded people within their communities to enrich their own lives and share their passionate sense of affiliation. 

Psychographics
Needs

Team affiliations are often more important to these people than professional affiliations. These fans get a sense of belonging by being part of a team’s fanbase, often drawing their identities from their teams. The analysis of the psychographics determined that the audience has three needs. The shopping list of needs in which three of them are relevant to the needs of this audience (Settle & Alreck, 1986).

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The brand can leverage from the target audience’s needs of affiliation and diversion to provide a unique experience to the fans. However, one of the biggest threats of this brand relied on a problem of steadiness when dealing with game attendance and commitment from the fan base. The need for consistency, expecting certain level of excitement and engagement to avoid ambiguity. This lack of consistency resulted on the getting the team disbanded in the past. Having unsuccessful franchise history was identified as a weakness which supports the decision of consistency to be listed as a need.

1.Affiliation

The need to be closely associated with others, the need for relationships.

2.Diversion

The need to relax, have fun, escape from routines, be entertained.

3.Consistency

The need for order and cleanliness, to control uncertainty and avoid ambiguity, to make accurate predictions.

Differentiation

Analysis of the Competition

Las Vegas Enforcers not only has the threat of The City of Las Vegas highly visible and rich alternatives for entertainment, it also has their competitors. Although some of these competitors might be from a different sport, those brands represent rivals to contend with. Las Vegas Enforcers can focus on maintaining the essence and speed of this sport without the limitations of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Las Vegas Enforcers - LVE

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Las Vegas Golden Knights (NHL Hockey)

Hockey team part of the NHL.

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UNLV Runnin’ Rebels (Men Basketball)

The Running Rebels is a Men’s basketball team from the University of Nevada.

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Las Vegas Legends (Youth Men Soccer)

Las Vegas Legends which is a soccer team also based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The points of differentiation

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1. Not affiliated to the NHL

The first point of differentiation is that this brand is part of the Hockey Organization Team (ECHL) (Las Vegas Enforcers, 2021, Competitive Review section). This brand is not affiliated with the NHL, and they are not required to follow their restrictions. According to Senior Managing Editor and General Manager, Shawn P. Roarke, these restrictions include the modification of portion of the rules of the NHL regarding concussions on their team players to keep speed and add safety (New Concussion Protocol Goes into Effect Tonight, 2011).

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The interpretation of those restrictions and a review of the competition provided an opportunity for this brand to gain reputation without being affiliated with the NHL and to get differentiated from Las Vegas Golden Knights.  Those restrictions can be used as a reference to implement safety standards to ensure athletes’ wellbeing. Hockey has the second-highest rate of concussions according to medical and neuropsychological researchers (No Fights. No Checking. Can This Be Hockey?, 2011) .

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2.Spirit

This is focused on bring unity to the Las Vegas local communities. The true essence of this team should be expressed through The Spirit of the Enforcers. This point of differentiation is an opportunity for this brand to offer the audience a unique value proposition. The value proposition establishes that the audience would not find the spirit of the enforcers anywhere else.

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3.Personality

The energy and excitement expressed through the brand personality is another point of differentiation and is supported by the audience’s need for diversion. Personality traits such as fearless and relentless are another distinctive way of stand out from the competitors while embracing audience’s psychographics. LVE is Resilient - LVE is not Complacent. LVE is Relentless - LVE is not Reckless. LVE is Fearlessness - LVE is not Laid-back.

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4.Atmosphere

As established before, these fans get a sense of belonging by being part of a team’s fanbase. Atmosphere is another point of differentiation while focusing on user experience. As established before, fans often drawing their identities from their teams. When experiencing a live game, fans will know that family is the most important part of the rink and family means community. This experience pretends to satisfy audience’s needs of belonging by understanding their behaviors.

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Voice and Tone

Tagline

Relentlessly Ignited

 

The expected outcome with this tagline was inspired by the mission statement of offering a unique and fearless experience in a relentless atmosphere. Taglines also can convey the essentials of brand character, revealing your core values and the consistent qualities expected from your brand (Swartz, 2006, p. 37). The source validates the ability of this tagline to convey the brand mission and attributes effectively. It also proves that this tagline conveys the brand’s character and personality while fulfilling the need of diversion and desire of being entertained.

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Theme

The Spirit of the Enforcers

 

This brand needed to find a way to communicate the brand theme in every different medium. Using multiple applications on this brand identity development process helped to communicate the same message in a versatile and successful way including sequin as a texture to potentially use it on the players’ uniforms and to add another element of uniqueness and differentiation while referring to the Las Vegas Showgirls.

 

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Positioning Statement

Big part of the positioning statement is to guarantee acceptance and a sense of belonging to the fans and the local communities. The focus as an organization is to enforce the idea of making family the most important part of the rink. The meaningful connection starts with the players but when they say family, they mean The City of Las Vegas local communities.

The spirit of LVE is Relentlessly Ignited focused in bringing unity to the Las Vegas local communities. Family is the most important part of our rink, and by family we mean community.

 

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Brand Archetype

The Caregiver  

 

This archetype fits this brand and works as an inspiration not only for its personality traits but also to the imperative necessity to improve the lack of reputation for being a brand-new team. The implementation of this archetype is presented as the solution to reassure brand’s trustworthiness. The aspect of the caregiver that relates to this brand is the parent figure as inspiration, model, and framework to follow and achieve brand’s mission (Brand Master Academy, 2020, 9:38 Time).

 

This archetype fits the personality of this brand based on the target audience’s needs of affiliation, diversion, and consistency. Unity is the most important thing to this brand. This starts with the athletes taking care of their teammates to reach a common goal which is to win the game but also having in mind that the community is the most important part of the rink.

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Look and Feel

Brand Vision Board

The brand vision board is another piece of identity that contains elements developed exclusively for this brand such as brand attributes, onlyness statement, typography, and color palette. The Brand Vision Board refers to the creation of visual and purposeful arrangements to help a brand to guide its future implementations.

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This brand has opportunities to build real loyalty and make strong ties to Las Vegas locals. This information led to the decision of the typeface chosen for this brand. Research revealed how companies who do not want to compete on price alone need to find factors that are important to consumers. Discovering these factors will enable companies to create true innovations that fulfill needs and desires before they are expressed by customers (Kumar & Whitney, 2007).

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Those factors were considered in these various modifications of the brand vision board to ensure it reflects and supports the brand’s fearless personality, differentiates it from competitors by the strategically usage of colors that resonates with audiences while using imagery to help communicate the brand’s message.

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Typography

The famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign is so iconic that a similar typeface Changeling Neo was selected to communicate that sense of pride of the team’s hometown and the interest of hanging out with other like-minded people within their communities to enrich their lives. The synthesized information supports the decision of designing a consumer-oriented strategy to effectively solve the client’s lack of reputation selecting this typeface and using this landmark as a reference to add recognition (Kumar & Whitney, 2007).

Tachyon Regular

Is a thin and delicate, referencing the lines on the ice and will be used for Headings.

Changeling Neo Inline

Is visually vibrant, like the experience of a live game and how the fans feel when interacting with the experience. It represents the Welcome to Las Vegas iconic sign and the decision was effect-based oriented and will be used for Sub-Headings.

Azote Light

This is a versatile font family that can have many other uses. However, this will be used for body copy.

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Color Palette

The color palette for the Las Vegas Enforcers – LVE is a combination of some visuals elements that are related to Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is known for being a major casino resort city and gambling and slots machines are one of the alternatives for entertainment in the casinos. When selecting the colors palette, hierarchy and contrast played a crucial role in this decision. Blue is a popular color in this industry, it represents the temperature of the rink and is also a way to use color to generate meaning through psychology as suggested by (Baldowski, 2022b). 

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This color refers to the number 7 that is shown in almost every slot machine when winning a jackpot. Red is an energetic color, and it is associated with the heat (Lundberg, 2019). It also represents the warm and welcoming characteristics of this brand to continue its messaging which is all about unity and being fearless. Red can trigger positive emotions and the personality traits associated with this color are power, energy, fearlessness and excitement (Brand Master Academy, 2022).

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The design decision of using oranges pretend to use some characteristics of this color to be effective on this design. Orange attracts attention without being as daring as red. It’s a youthful color as well, bringing an element of vibrancy and fun (Brand Master Academy, 2022). The vibrant aspect of orange will help to bring the fun to the fans when experiencing a live game.

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Another reason for using these variations was to stand out in the mainstream and differentiate from the competition. The selection of these color pretend to use the youthful aspect to focus on a specific demographic within the target audience. A significant number of attendees bring their families, with as many as 30% of ticketing for children under 14.

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The Spirit of the Enforcers could not be represented by only using fire. This blue was chosen to emulate the State of Nevada’s seal color. That can be translated and interpreted as a sense of pride and to give back to the communities who support this team. Research also supported this decision, blue being the official color of Nevada (State of Nevada, n.d.) This decision represents that commitment with the community.  

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 Color psychology has a big impact on the decision of using blue to communicate dependability, trustworthiness, and professionalism. Blue is a serene and calming color that represents intelligence and responsibility (Brand Master Academy, 2022). Blue also represents intelligence in terms of color meaning, but also is indicative of temperature and since hockey is played on ice. This decision was inspired by referring to the temperature of the rink 

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Textures and Patterns

Sequin was selected to communicate the same spirit through the uniforms, add differentiation and add some of the Las Vegas flair and essence to this brand so the local communities and fans could relate positively. Sequin adds a touch of uniqueness, and it is very representative of the Las Vegas nightlife scene referencing the costumes of the Showgirls. Using sequin as a texture and potentially on the players’ uniforms can be another element of uniqueness and differentiation. Those decisions helped on finding a way to communicate The Spirit of the Enforcers in every different medium. The strategy here was to use multiple applications on this brand identity development process to communicate the same message across media.

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The modifications on this look and feel document and the final brand vision board presents the latest decisions on texture and patterns. The glitter was used to represent the spirit on the swag since fire cannot be applied to the merchandise, while the hockey vectors used as a pattern was meant to be target a specific demographic within the target audience which are children under 14.

References:

 

  1. Baldowski, A. (2022, June 13). 3:2 Lecture. FSO. https://online.fullsail.edu/class_sections/144174/modules/480601/activities/2831613

  2. Brand Master Academy. (2020, May 6). Brand Archetypes [The Brand Personality Framework] [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ubG1XNO1pE0

  3. Brand Master Academy. (2022, June 21). How To Use Color Psychology In Marketing And Branding [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4L50dvXvLg

  4. Kumar, V., & Whitney, P. (2007). Daily life, not markets: Customer-centered design. Journal of Business Strategy, 28(4), 46–58. https://doi.org/10.1108/02756660710760944

  5. Las Vegas Enforcers [PDF]. (2021, May 30). Brand Profile.

  6. Lundberg, A. (2019, August 21). Color meanings and the art of using color symbolism. 99designs. https://99designs.com/blog/tips/color-meanings/

  7. New concussion protocol goes into effect tonight. (2011, March 16). NHL.com. https://www.nhl.com/news/new-concussion-protocol-goes-into-effect-tonight/c-556289

  8. No fights. no checking. can this be hockey? (2011, March 5). https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/weekinreview/06hockey.html

  9. Settle, R., & Alreck, P. (1986). Why They Buy: American Consumers Inside and Out. Wiley.

  10. State of nevada. (n.d.). https://nv.gov/identity

  11. Swartz, E. (2006, June). Wag the Tagline - The rhetoric of brand messaging [PDF]. NHFA’S HOME FURNISHINGS RETAILER. https://www.taglineguru.com/articles_folder/Wag_the_Tagline.pdf

  12. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). The American West, 1865-1900. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/rise-of-industrial-america-1876-1900/american-west-1865-1900/

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