THESIS PROJECT
THE PROBLEM
THE CLIENTS' PROBLEM TO RESOLVE IS TO RAISE THE BRAND AWARENESS OF THE ECHL LAS VEGAS ROADRUNNERS.
THE SOLUTION
THE PROVIDED BRAND IDENTITY PACKAGE WITH MARKETING MATERIALS WILL SOLVE THE LACK OF BRAND AWARENESS ISSUE.
The intent of the solution is to offer the client brand differentiation with fulfilling the target audience need of affiliation. This team gives the community a place for positive youthful engagements in the stereotypical adult centered city of Las Vegas. The branding includes tangible memorabilia that differs from competitors and a Kids Club to promote brand loyalty by using playful and friendly brand media.
ONLYNESS STATEMENT
FIRST DRAFT
The first draft onlyness statement has the same brand attributes of revised statement. The core messaging focus is community and affiliation. The brand attributes were not as well-defined in the first draft for the previous chosen team name 'Las Vegas Dragons'.
THE LAS VEGAS DRAGONS IS THE ONLY ECHL HOCKEY TEAM IN THE LAS VEGAS AREA THAT PROVIDES COMMUNITY FOCUSED AFFILIATION TO THE LAS VEGAS AREA AND THRIVES TO MOTIVATE AMBITIOUS YOUTH THROUGH TEAM MEET AND GREETS AND PLAYER MENTORSHIP EXPERIENCES.
REVISED
The revised statement is also used to structure the brand story that is shown on the first page of the Las Vegas Roadrunners Brand Guide. The onlyness statement helped to structure the design concepts for brand cohesiveness. The brand attributes are stated; strength, energy, speed, and courage. The core messaging of community is also reflected.
THE LAS VEGAS ROADRUNNERS IS THE ONLY ECHL HOCKEY TEAM THAT PRIDES ITSELF IN IT'S LOVE FOR COMMUNITY WHILE BEING POSITIVE EXAMPLES OF STRENGTH, ENERGY, SPEED, AND COURAGE.
Onlyness Statement: Brief Rationale
When developing the brand’s strategy, consider the area to focus efforts on after thorough research. “If the brand is a circle, aim for the bullseye to target what the brand stands for” (2012, Sullivan). The core messaging focus of the Las Vegas Roadrunners is community; and centered with a goal to help the youth.
A veteran copywriter, Mark Fenske, suggests first writing down the truest thing about the product, service, and/or category. A way to develop a concept could be bringing a fresh outlook onto old truths about the brand, such as crafting the Onlyness statement to be the guide for concepts. You can also display the negative truth, such as the tagline “We’re Avis. We’re only number two. So, we try harder” (2012, Sullivan).
VOICE & TONE
TARGET AUDIENCE & BRAND PERSONALITY
FEATURES: AFFILIATION NEED FULFILMENT
The features that provide the benefit of affiliation with the team includes a Kids Club and team support membership packages. Affiliation is the need to be closely associated with others and/or the need for relationships (Felton, 2013). Joining groups fulfills this need. This target audience enjoys receiving the benefits of membership packages and participating in and joining team sports or school clubs.
The features fulfill the target audience need for a team in Las Vegas that is proactive in the community and that is a youth focused example of role models. The Kids Club offers professional hockey lessons from the Las Vegas Roadrunners. The Team Support Membership includes Meet and Greet passes, Youth Birthday Packages, Community Partner Sponsored Giveaways, and Calendar of Community Charity Events. The example photo shows the Las Vegas Roadrunners advertising of Youth Birthday Packages that shows the fandom of the target audience. “Producing relevant marketing content focused on the psychographic helps convert leads” (Meredith, 2025). For example, a nutritional wellness program will give customer testimonials to show skeptical viewers that the program will be there every step of the way. Thus, valuing and empowering consumers instead of only using traditional advertising will result in lasting impacts for the brand in the marketplace via customer loyalty.
CONSUMER-BASED REASONING
Consumer-oriented strategies are focused on the brand personality, such as what is evoked in the product or service advertising. When brands are similar, the added value shown in the advertising differentiates it from competitors (Felton, 2013). In many categories the brand personality of clothing and cars connect with consumers unlike invisible products such as canned goods. The Las Vegas Roadrunners event/promotion flyers shows consumer-based reasoning of affiliation need to satisfy the want and need of team memorabilia.
Message Focus: “Producing strong-minded youth who teaches peers the morale of perseverance and endurance through life’s adversities.”
Is: Courageous, Giving, Loving
Isn’t: Not Fearful, Not Stifling, Not Hateful
THEME: "MOUNTAINOUS"
TAGLINE: #DREAM, DRIVE, STRIVE
LOOK & FEEL BOARD
BEFORE
REVISED
The Color choice of this first Look and Feel Board is reflective of the Tahoe Knight Monsters ECHL team logo that resembled elements of Lake Tahoe.
The original concept theme was 'Blue Flame' and 'Mountainous'
core messaging. That is shown in the snow capped mountain Pattern and 'icey' blue color hues for brand recognition of being an ice hockey team.
The Line, Shape, and Imagery of the new Look and Feel Board is reflective of the Roadrunner's natural desert landscape. The imagery uses photo and illustrative rock formations and cactuses. The desert sand has the roadrunners' well-known 'X' imprint from its' feet that means good luck within the indigenous community.
The colored line arrows signify forward motion, speed, and energy to be consistent with brand attributes and core messaging of positive forward thinking. The roadrunner illustrations shows its' courageous personality with the rattlesnake. It is known to smash the snake's head against a rock and eat it as prey.
VISION BOARD
PROGRESSION & REVISIONS
TYPOGRAPHY: The use of hierarchy, font weight, and stylization contributes to audience retention of the message. For example, when using a font, that is used sparingly in the media, it's unusual enough to encourage the viewer to read and retain the message (Ambrose, 2023).
COLOR PALETTE: Color concepts of advertisements range from primary to secondary options of icons, lines, and typography. The designer decides to assign certain colors to large or small areas (Jirousek, n.d).
PATTERNS: Various amounts of typefaces and visual patterns can add texture to designs and create areas of difference. For example, an invitation that uses drinking straws for the ascenders adds humor in the typeface design, which can be persuasive, informative, and entertaining in advertising (Ambrose, pg 170).
LOGO DEVELOPMENT
(concept, selection, refinement, finalization)
This final full color major logo is used for brand recognition for social media profiles and small less prominent representation. It can also be used in solid neutral color needs. This choice offers the most legibility regarding scale and simplicity.
To the left shows the imagery used that inspired the media concept designs that include the logo sketches. ECHL and NHL team logos were also studied to design a distinguished Roadrunner's team logo.
The two above photos are from the concept refinement process of choosing color palette renderings for the potential major logo. The reasoning was to use colors to coincide with the brand attributes. Light blue and dark blue reflect the roadrunners' wings colors, as well as dependability and optimism in color psychology. Orange symbolizes youthful energy.
Using the 'Frankenstein' A/B Testing method, the top six logo concepts shown in the photo above were combined in some way to develop the final logo rendering. The concepts all used Las Vegas known elements such as gambling cards, roadrunner profile features, hockey elements, and implied speed/motion.
The full color logo mascot to the right allows for larger applications and greater detail than the primary logo. This logo is used in the center ice hockey rink and the team/fan jerseys. It is also reflective of the real life game mascot 'Dream' and the uniform it will wear.
BRAND MEDIA ASSETS
MARKETING PACKAGE EXAMPLES TO REFERENCE
GUIDELINES FOR MEDIA, LOGO, COLOR PALETTE, AND TYPOGRAPHY ARE LOCATED IN LAS VEGAS ROADRUNNERS BRAND GUIDE BOOK
AUDIO LOGO
Sound is capable of connecting with emotional memory and creates an impact for an audience. The creative brief from the client is first utilized to analyze aspects to develop the soundscape (Mongeau, 2017). Additive sound helps change the mood, increase energy, and/or add a sense of calm. The tagline is also shown in the beginning for brand recognition and cohesiveness to the brand attributes of speed and energy with the tagline's swift forward motion.
ANIMATED LOGO
The Logo Animation does not have the sound added to this video but will be added for portfolio purposes. It has the brand personalities represented as colors symbolic from color psychology; blue (DREAM)(dependability), orange (DRIVE) (youthful energy), and black (STRIVE) (strength). The mascot 'Dream' personalities align with the tagline #DREAM, DRIVE, STRIVE to encourage brand recognition and memorability, and distinguish from competitors.
ECHL HOME WEB PAGE
SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK PACKAGE: POST, BANNER, AND PROFILE HEADER
LETTERHEAD PACKAGE
REFERENCES
Ambrose, G., Harris, P., & Theodosiou, S. (2023b). Chapter 5: Using Type. In The Fundamentals of Typography (Third, pp. 127–171). essay, Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Felton, G. (2013). Defining Strategic Approaches. In Advertising: Concept and Copy (pp. 52–53). essay, W.W Norton. Retrieved May 9, 2025, from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/reader/books/9780393733921/pageid/53.
Felton, G. (2013b). Chapter 3: Understanding Consumer Behavior. In Advertising: Concept and Copy (pp. 26–27). essay, W.W Norton. Retrieved 2025, from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/reader/books/9780393733921/pageid/2
Jirousek, C. (n.d.). Art, design, and visual thinking. Art, Design, and Visual Thinking. http://char.txa.cornell.edu/
Meredith, A. (2025, February 20). How to use Psychographics in your marketing: A beginner’s guide. HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/marketing-psychographics
Mongeau, A.-S. (2017, August). How to create sound for commercials - insights from an award-winning sound team: | A sound effect. A Sound Effect. https://www.asoundeffect.com/sound-for-commercials/
Sullivan, L. (2012). Chapter 3: A clean sheet of paper: Coming up with an idea. In Hey Whipple Squeeze This! (4th ed.). essay, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Retrieved February 19, 2025, from https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/hey-whipple-squeeze/9781118101339/xhtml/Chapter03.html.