2014 Branding Fiasco: UL-Lafayette or UL-L (SBC Reference Guide)

[HoustonCajun]

Statement from Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson
1/24/2014 11:23:55 AM

The Sun Belt Conference office recently issued a "University Reference Guide" that was created to clarify how the Sun Belt office refers to universities in our conference. While each university approved the list of preferred references for specific purposes, the Guide was intended only to be used as an internal document to establish consistency throughout the Conference.

We have observed unintended uses of this guide, specifically as it relates to university abbreviations. Therefore, we have elected to eliminate the reference guide from public display and distribution.

The Sun Belt Conference will continue to work with our member universities, as it is our intention that each university will be referred to as they wish. All further questions regarding this matter will be deferred to the respective Sun Belt member universities.

http://www.sunbeltsports.org/news/20...124142536.aspx

That doesn't clear up anything. Is our intention to be LOUISIANA and UL or is our 1st preference still UL Lafayette and UL-L? The world was given the latter and is now using it. How do we correct that? If our preference is indeed LOUISIANA and either UL, LA or LU, the Sun Belt Conference is not acknowledging it because their website still says UL Lafayette (our 1st preference given to them). Happy to see this is now intended for internal use, but the damage is done. How does it get corrected and get us back on track with LOUISIANA? And, the university needs to determine the abbreviation it wants to be recognized as, UL (illegal), LA, LU (like OU, CU, KU all of which are "University of" schools), or something else other than UL-L. Our Branding needs re-branding.

[lcitsh]

Good deal. I wish we could eliminate our communications/marketing department as well

Trust me, you don't want that.

[lcitsh]

That doesn't clear up anything. Is our intention to be LOUISIANA and UL or is our 1st preference still UL Lafayette and UL-L? The world was given the latter and is now using it. How do we correct that? If our preference is indeed LOUISIANA and either UL, LA or LU, the Sun Belt Conference is not acknowledging it because their website still says UL Lafayette (our 1st preference given to them). Happy to see this is now intended for internal use, but the damage is done. How does it get corrected and get us back on track with LOUISIANA? And, the university needs to determine the abbreviation it wants to be recognized as, UL (illegal), LA, LU (like OU, CU, KU all of which are "University of" schools), or something else other than UL-L. Our Branding needs re-branding.

1. Louisiana and UL
2. The world is not using it. The Sun Belt and certain Louisiana media outlets are using references we don't want, just like they always have. Everybody else, ESPN, FOX, CBS, etc. are still using the same references they have always used.
3. The reference guide was always supposed to be for internal use. The press release was not supposed to be a press release, it was supposed to be an internal memo. There has been no national damage done, and by the time these changes are supposed to be made (summertime), the national media outlets will know how they are supposed to brand us.
4. The work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue.

[basinbear]

1. Louisiana and UL
2. The world is not using it. The Sun Belt and certain Louisiana media outlets are using references we don't want, just like they always have. Everybody else, ESPN, FOX, CBS, etc. are still using the same references they have always used.
3. The reference guide was always supposed to be for internal use. The press release was not supposed to be a press release, it was supposed to be an internal memo. There has been no national damage done, and by the time these changes are supposed to be made (summertime), the national media outlets will know how they are supposed to brand us.
4. The work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue.

National damage has been done. There are many sports journalists that during the previous season used "Louisiana" to describe the football team that now use UL-L. I wish that it were different but it has damaged our branding Nationally. Now....perhaps we can change this and right soon....remains to been seen

[HoustonCajun]

1. Louisiana and UL
2. The world is not using it. The Sun Belt and certain Louisiana media outlets are using references we don't want, just like they always have. Everybody else, ESPN, FOX, CBS, etc. are still using the same references they have always used.
3. The reference guide was always supposed to be for internal use. The press release was not supposed to be a press release, it was supposed to be an internal memo. There has been no national damage done, and by the time these changes are supposed to be made (summertime), the national media outlets will know how they are supposed to brand us.
4. The work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue.

It was ALWAYS supposed to be for internal use? Is that why it took 3 press releases to finally state that? Sounds like a spin on the facts. So Louisiana and UL are our preferred references. Why did we state our academic preference as our 1st reference instead of Louisiana? Why did we use UL-L instead of UL? We had 2 opportunities to state that. Why are we wanting to use UL when we know it is illegal? ESPN immediately used UL-L the same day the press release went out. Fox and CBS called us Louisiana. CBS said they will now call us UL-L because that is what our president said we wanted to be called. This is a media mess and a branding nightmare undoing years of work to capture our name. Why did it occur?

Why won't someone explain the screwup and state what our real intent is? This was not a clerical error. We had months to respond, issued a response, then corrected it. Now we are saying that is not what we wanted to be called. If we are truly branding ourselves as Louisiana, why confuse the issue by not even using that as our 1st reference? And, why use Louisiana Ragin Cajuns as our nickname? Our nickname is Ragin Cajuns and our 1st reference is Louisiana. Why was that so difficult to state? The nickname goes with the first reference as in Arkansas State Redwolves. Now, we are the UL Lafayette Louisiana Ragin Cajuns. Makes no sense. If we want to be UL, why the UL-L reference? Why don't we pick a legal reference to the university like LA or LU? If we can use UL, we can use University of Louisiana, so why don't we just go with that? These are the questions we need answered. There should have been no reason for this to occur. To simply say our work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue does not wipe out what happened, nor does it say why we chose to severely hamper that work by doing what we did. For those of us who have supported this university for years and have to fight our name battle on a daily basis, I don't think getting answers to this is too much to ask so we can understand just what name we are fighting for.

[Bandwagon King]

1. Louisiana and UL
2. The world is not using it. The Sun Belt and certain Louisiana media outlets are using references we don't want, just like they always have. Everybody else, ESPN, FOX, CBS, etc. are still using the same references they have always used.
3. The reference guide was always supposed to be for internal use. The press release was not supposed to be a press release, it was supposed to be an internal memo. There has been no national damage done, and by the time these changes are supposed to be made (summertime), the national media outlets will know how they are supposed to brand us.
4. The work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue.

Has the university ever considered drug testing it's employees? I think it would vet out some of the paranoia and delusional thinking.

[Crowley Cajun]

It was ALWAYS supposed to be for internal use? Is that why it took 3 press releases to finally state that? Sounds like a spin on the facts. So Louisiana and UL are our preferred references. Why did we state our academic preference as our 1st reference instead of Louisiana? Why did we use UL-L instead of UL? We had 2 opportunities to state that. Why are we wanting to use UL when we know it is illegal? ESPN immediately used UL-L the same day the press release went out. Fox and CBS called us Louisiana. CBS said they will now call us UL-L because that is what our president said we wanted to be called. This is a media mess and a branding nightmare undoing years of work to capture our name. Why did it occur?

Why won't someone explain the screwup and state what our real intent is? This was not a clerical error. We had months to respond, issued a response, then corrected it. Now we are saying that is not what we wanted to be called. If we are truly branding ourselves as Louisiana, why confuse the issue by not even using that as our 1st reference? And, why use Louisiana Ragin Cajuns as our nickname? Our nickname is Ragin Cajuns and our 1st reference is Louisiana. Why was that so difficult to state? The nickname goes with the first reference as in Arkansas State Redwolves. Now, we are the UL Lafayette Louisiana Ragin Cajuns. Makes no sense. If we want to be UL, why the UL-L reference? Why don't we pick a legal reference to the university like LA or LU? If we can use UL, we can use University of Louisiana, so why don't we just go with that? These are the questions we need answered. There should have been no reason for this to occur. To simply say our work on the name acceptance has not changed and will continue does not wipe out what happened, nor does it say why we chose to severely hamper that work by doing what we did. For those of us who have supported this university for years and have to fight our name battle on a daily basis, I don't think getting answers to this is too much to ask so we can understand just what name we are fighting for.

If Tabby is correct in her blog, it seems that Bruno just plain outsmarted Savoie for the abbreviation that we got. All Dr. Savoie had to do was write "LA" and in my opinion, it would have forced Bruno's and SBC's hand. Here's a link to the article, if it hadn't been posted already.

Link:
http://blogs.thenewsstar.com/tabbyso...-up-confusion/

[MelRock]

Once again she does not check her fact "The former Southwest Louisiana University changed its name to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette" We have never been called "Southwest Louisiana University". For those that want to go back to some form of USL this should be living proof the no one would ever get our name correct, they didn't do it in the 70's, 80's or 90's why do you think they will get it correct now.

[lcitsh]

If Tabby is correct in her blog, it seems that Bruno just plain outsmarted Savoie for the abbreviation that we got. All Dr. Savoie had to do was write "LA" and in my opinion, it would have forced Bruno's and SBC's hand. Here's a link to the article, if it hadn't been posted already.

Link:
http://blogs.thenewsstar.com/tabbyso...-up-confusion/

The only accurate statement in her blog was the fact that Bruno used UL on the survey. NOTHING else was correct, not the reason for Bruno doing so (remember, she said it was a secondhand story to her), not the credit she is taking for "the hammer being brought down by the conference," NOTHING. Since it's her blog, she can make up any lies she wants, which she did, and for which her editors have blasted her for not checking her facts (a couple of Gannett reporters told me about that). Let's try not to frequent her too often. Her paper is trying to survive and with each hit she gets, it lives a little bit longer.

[USL1970]

If Tabby is correct in her blog, it seems that Bruno just plain outsmarted Savoie for the abbreviation that we got. All Dr. Savoie had to do was write "LA" and in my opinion, it would have forced Bruno's and SBC's hand. Here's a link to the article, if it hadn't been posted already.

Link:
http://blogs.thenewsstar.com/tabbyso...-up-confusion/

Tabby uses her influence to enable results for her positions, and that is something we don't seem to have yet - an influential person that gets results.

[Just1More]

Once again she does not check her fact "The former Southwest Louisiana University changed its name to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette" We have never been called "Southwest Louisiana University". For those that want to go back to some form of USL this should be living proof the no one would ever get our name correct, they didn't do it in the 70's, 80's or 90's why do you think they will get it correct now.

Let's face it... she's a hack. Jay Walker may like her as a person... but she's a hack. Many older males wouldn't dare be brutal to a female doing her job, like they would a male. I respect women enough to bust their skulls in half (figuratively) just like I would a male. Tabby's a second rate hack.

I believe that the higher perch you attempt to voice your opinion, the harder your fall should be when you make mistakes. High perches, that lead, gather, or shape thought are very very dangerous places, and should be. These people are ad hoc leaders of thought and general opinion. They are too often careless and manipulative. You better be made of steel when you have a big opinion AND you seek a high perch to share it.

Free speech is a right the state cannot take from you. The public can eviscerate you for poor choices of the spoken word. You have a right to an opinion. The opinion given back is also a right. But giving it is a risk we all have to weigh.

[ULGrad@HOU]

I can't help but laughing out loud at this whole mess, I could care less about what some lame Monroe writer says. What I do care about is what our Leadership (right J1M?) is saying.................crickets chirping........