How the Pepper got its start... and was eventually sauteed

[Duggie35]

They should have auctioned off the pepper costume. It would be an interestng collectable.

Someone told me they saw it for sale at LoveWorks on Westmark Blvd. in Lafayette!!!! LOL!!!

[Crawfish]

That was probably the original pepper costume... it looked like a giant, er never mind

Someone told me they saw it for sale at LoveWorks on Westmark Blvd. in Lafayette!!!! LOL!!!

[douglas]

Outside the box idea for a spirit leader, Mardi Gras Indian?

[BabbForHeisman]

It's pretty funny, as I'm reading this thread, there is an ad for Chili's at the top of the page. Coincidence?

[barchief]

That was probably the original pepper costume... it looked like a giant, er never mind

Introducing... the "Cayenne personal massager" guaranteed to cure all back and neck pains

[CajunDreDog]

NO YOU DIDN'T......

[chauncey]

NICE!

[Turbine]

In 2000 the outside branding agency took an internal season ticket drive from 18 years earlier and made Louisiana pay for its own idea.

Ken called it figuratively "Is this going to be our penance on earth?"

[ZoomZoom]

Turb asked in another thread about the cost of our logo, that he had heard it was $25K.

That was the initial cost.

The pepper was a clusterfutz from minute one.

Someone with the administration (long-timers here can fill you in on 'someone') convinced the highers up that we needed, not a mascot, but a 'spirit leader'. As this person did repeatedly, she already knew what she wanted.

But she pretended otherwise. She met with some students and administrators to discuss possibilities, and she kept nixing ideas until somehow she steered it around to the pepper.

[Aside: Now, some years before I had convinced the CEO of McIlhenny that a ripe tabasco pepper was UL's vermilion which is a bright orange red. I knew this, because McIlhenny ships boxes of sticks painted to the exact color to Latin America, to each new picker. The CEO was very interested, he had been trying to tie Tabasco to Ragin' Cajuns for a long time. Turns out Ray wanted to get the McIlhennys behind UL. This same person who picked the pepper? She screwed the whole deal, from what we could tell, intentionally. A few years ago I started getting Tulane alumni stuff with Tabasco on it. So the irony is palpable.]

So when the pepper comes up, and she's enthusiastic, one of the students says, "You knew what you wanted all along. Why are you wasting our time?"

So we go for the pepper. We hire a former Disney artist. SGA puts up $5K for the designer to come talk to the students.

The costume maker finally gets the design, called us and said it couldn't be made. Obviously, our people were shocked, we had been told the designer was working closely with the costumer maker. Costume guy says, "This is the first I've seen it."

So it has to be redesigned.

They redesign it, deliver it.

A mascot typically costs $5-8K. That one cost $25K, but it was the FIRST expense.

Because the first one looks like a cross between a dinosaur and marital aid on fire. Don't take my word for it, scroll down, judge for yourself.

So they redesign and remake it. It frightens the kids.

They do it all over again. That one scares the kids, too. My then 4 year-old got one eyeful of it, spent the rest of the basketball game craning his neck around, terrified, asking me if the 'evil mushroom head' was anywhere near. Couldn't get him back to another basketball game.

Anyhoo, then SGA says, "We paid $5K for the designer to come here. What happened?"

They were told, "Oh, we'll get him here."

They say, "It's already finished. We want our money back."

Never found out what happened with that one.

Some of you wonder why I hate our current logos so. Forget the fact that the logos are ugly; it was the same song, second verse.

How many of you remember the fiasco with the flaming uniform numbers, we had to keep buying new jerseys, with new number redesigns, until we had some that were legible?

How many of you know that after we paid a lot of money for those flaming letters, all we got were R,A,G,I,N,C,J,U and S? Athletics wanted to do more words with them, couldn't.

The group that designed that ugliness does great work for the pros and other colleges, clean, neat stuff. Our person micromanaged it so much they were disgusted with us, or that's what they told one of our people after. Their website certainly shows little respect for us, where they call us 'Southwestern Louisiana University.' http://www.smebranding.com/full-client-list

Now, I had originally approached this same person with the triple fleur de lis. The design goes back to the 14th century Kings of France, it was on the flag that the Acadians arrived under in 1604 (16 years before the Mayflower sailed), it was on the flag La Salle planted in 1682 claiming Louisiana (making it the first flag for 1/3 of the USA), it's on the UL seal, and it's on the Acadiana flag.

Oh, and it also appears the triple fleurs were the basis for the Saints logo.

Which is, yet again, heavily ironic. Because our mystery guest told the logo people that she wanted something like the Saints logo.

Tell a consultant what you want, guess what you get? Check it out: http://ultoday.com/node/116

She had told me the triple fleur de lis is "too busy." What, our hotwheels logo is a model of understated elegance?

Not long after she was here, someone who worked with her commented, "That woman is more interested in promoting herself than promoting UL." Everything she got hold of she put her sticky fingerprints all over. She changed every tradition she could, made us derivatives of other teams and schools.

But not long ago, she bragged to someone about the logo, "I did that." Which was the point of all the wasted time and money: so she could say "I did that."

I like to think of it as executive-level vandalism.

If you're interested, you can read the fuller account here: http://ultoday.com/node/195

My goodness, that first one looks like a drag queen crawfish.

[RedTails]

Sometimes it takes a look back to know the context as to decisions (or indecisions) being made today.

I can easily see today's administration so scared about introducing a new mascot/spirit leader after our former Communications/Marketing VP fumbled it (pepper) so incredibly badly.