If you took a survey in the community, you would get lots of different answers.

Yellow  or  Gold?

What does that mean to you?  lemon yellow, squash gold, atheltic gold, gopher gold, sibley east yellow,   gustie gold, sunshine yellow.  And does it really matter?

I think you can understand the confusion.  Color is very subjective.  The conversation came to the table as we were meeting with the Hutchinson School Superintendent. I asked the question, what is the pms color for the Hutchinson Tigers?  In my efforts to do the marketing thing and make sure that anything we do for the school district was done in the “correct” school colors, I found that the Hutchinson Tigers were Black and Gold or Yellow or….any of the variations listed above.  But everyone has their own interpretation of what color gold or yellow looks like. 

My branding and marketing sense kicked in. I thought, “Every one should be using the same color, the same way.  That is a key component in promoting corporate branding and identity.  After all, the Jolly GREEN Giant is never red. The McDonald’s GOLDEN Arches are never orange.  They are always the same color.”  But ….then I got to thinking again, to me the arches look more like yellow, not golden.  Hence the problem.  

Major companies spend millions of dollars on branding.  It costs a lot.  School districts do not have lots to spend.

Here is what does matter.

They are building a community with diverse population of students united by the school they all attend.  And you know … you would never catch a Hutch Tiger wearing Mankato West Red at a game.  But you will catch them wearing every variation of gold or yellow  possible because they are proud of their school and their athletes and students.

GO TIGERS!

While doing some research for possible new customers, I came across a blog that talks about hot things for college bookstores. The blog noted that lap top sleeves were very popular now and showed some frilly, colorful laptop sleeves. Did you know 75.8 percent of college students own laptops.   http://bit.ly/75PercentOwnLaptops  Now here is a product that college bookstores could sell  – laptop sleeves with school colors and customized logos.   Deb, Can you get on that for pricing?  Look for pricing soon.