{"id":895,"date":"2014-04-08T13:15:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T13:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/?p=895"},"modified":"2016-11-16T03:33:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T03:33:16","slug":"uconn-product-design-beats-kentucky-branding-in-ncaa-championship-basketball-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/uconn-product-design-beats-kentucky-branding-in-ncaa-championship-basketball-game\/","title":{"rendered":"UCONN Product Design Beats Kentucky Branding in NCAA Championship Basketball Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s NCAA Basketball Championship game wasn\u2019t just a battle between UCONN and Kentucky, it was a battle between branding and product design.<\/p>\n

To explain what I mean by that, we need some context:<\/p>\n

In recent years, high school basketball has attracted more and more media attention.\u00a0As early as middle school, young basketball players around the country are becoming branded as the next big thing \u2013 earning massive online followings via websites like Ballislife.com, and finding themselves on the covers of major magazines.<\/p>\n

\"andrew-wiggins-si-cover-1\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pictured above is 2012\/2013\u2019s big attention winner \u2013 Andrew Wiggins, the number 1 ranked player going into his freshman season at Kansas. Right behind him at number 2 was Duke-bound Jabari Parker.<\/p>\n

While Wiggins was receiving the vast majority of attention going into the season, Parker quickly stole his thunder, and is now considered by many to be better than Wiggins (see \u201cThe Ultimate Andrew Wiggins-Jabari Parker Comparison\u201d on Bleecher Report: http:\/\/bit.ly\/1hzBCtY).<\/p>\n

If Parker is in fact better (in my opinion, far better), how did such a superior basketball product in Parker take such a clear backseat to Wiggins?<\/p>\n

In short, because it\u2019s easier to sell a great brand \u2013 at least at the beginning \u2013 than a great product.<\/p>\n

Exactly why Wiggins was a more attractive brand isn\u2019t easy to say.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s because Wiggins plays a high-flying game compared Parker \u2013 who relies more on his skill than his athleticism. Maybe it\u2019s for reasons even more primitive \u2013 that Wiggins has the ripped muscles that one expects from the top basketball player, while Parker wasn\u2019t a chiseled guy.<\/p>\n

\"13399197-1394645067-640x360\"<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason was, the early media attention Wiggins received created and perpetuated a brand identity that was universally accepted, until the the brand\u2019s product actually had to perform.<\/p>\n

A similar story played out last night in the NCAA Championship game between Kentucky and UCONN. Each year John Calipari \u2013 UK\u2019s head coach \u2013 manages to secure a disproportionate amount of the country\u2019s most sought-after freshman brands.<\/p>\n

\"dakari-johnson-james-young-aaron-harrison-ncaa-basketball-ncaa-tournament-midwest-regional-kentucky-vs-michigan\"<\/p>\n

Last night he started five of them, and they lost to UCONN, which was led by their point guard Sabazz Napier \u2013 an incredible player who is the product of four years of college testing and development.<\/p>\n

Will this victory put an end to premature athletic branding? Of course not, but it might make people think twice about what they put their money on next year \u2013 the brand or the product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s NCAA Basketball Championship game wasn\u2019t just a battle between UCONN and Kentucky, it was a battle between branding and product design. To explain what I mean by that,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-branding","category-marketing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821.jpg",1024,682,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821-1024x682.jpg",1024,682,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821.jpg",1024,682,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/483303443-1024x6821.jpg",1024,682,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":415,"uagb_excerpt":"This year\u2019s NCAA Basketball Championship game wasn\u2019t just a battle between UCONN and Kentucky, it was a battle between branding and product design. To explain what I mean by that,...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}