Friday, February 9, 2007

The Brand



This is the OFFICIAL logo for DEI, Dale Earnhardt, Inc., a North Carolina motorsports company.
With all the interest surrounding NASCAR, I chose to take a look at branding and the loyalty a brand represents. Specifically, I narrowed my focus to one particular team that has become the public face of fan loyalty.
The Persuaders provided insight into the current emotional branding methodology. It's everywhere. You buy something, respond to an idea because of what the brand means to you. I searched everywhere for the history the DEI logo and found nothing. So if any of you have information, I'd love to know.
What I did learn is that the name "Earnhardt" evokes a passion akin to a religion. People make pilgrimages to the Earnhardt statue in the middle of his hometown, Kannapolis, North Carolina. In fact, Earnhardt's fans inspired the national best selling novel, St. Dale. http://store.ballowax.com/proddetail.php?prod=wbwf.stdale.
The interesting thing about the DEI Brand and THIS LOGO is that this is NOT the logo that inspires all the brand loyalty. It's the good old number 3. See the next entry.

2 comments:

Josh Meyer said...

The Earnhardt brand certainly still carries a lot of weight, today after the Daytona 500, I caught myself watching some of his Sports Century episode on ESPN Classic and the ESPN movie 3. I wonder how much worth DEI will have if Junior leaves because of a dispute over ownership with his stepmother. I think "3" will always be the brand for Earnhardt, but "DEI" belongs to Junior now...without him, there is no DEI brand.

Andria said...

Hey Amelia,
I'm having a hard time with the blue type, especially with the brown background. I've seen light blue and light brown mixed effectively in a fresh way in clothing recently, but I guess I'm rather tradition-bound when it comes to colored type. Maybe a dark brown instead of the blue? To allow contrast but to work with the background?
Loved the early Appalachia and football posts.