Branding in Pool

JAM

JAM

I am the storm
Silver Member
I'm working on a job about brand names and icons. For example, the rabbit icon is famous around the world for Playboy. Then you have the Nike swoosh, the Golden Arches of McDonald's, the red cross of the International Red Cross.

What do you think is the most recognizable icon of a pool brand? Just curious. Do you think branding is important?
 

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I think a single eight ball would do the trick. But pool doesn't really fall into the same categories as McDonald's and Nike does it? I mean, pool isn't a company owned industry. There is no one single governing body.

But if there was, I would go with one simple image like the 8-ball. Very recognizable.
 
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What do you think is the most recognizable icon of a pool brand? Just curious. Do you think branding is important?
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Absolutely. You know already that branding, among other things, identifies, differentiates, establishes recognition of quality, price, reputation, etc. All of your examples are easily identifiable by their logo and by association, we have certain expectations of what that company offers. Let's take one of your examples a little further and concentrate on Nike. Competitive brands to Nike, just to name a few: Reebok, Puma and Adidas. All have easily recognizable logos and we envision their distinct styles and perceived quality.

Same thing in pool. IMO, Predator is highly recognizable. Show the Predator logo (and related brands 314 and Z) to any enthusiast and it's undeniable.
 
A clarification

Jenny:

Are you asking someone deep in the sport or the occasional player or observer?

Deep in the sport, this comes to mind:
Meucci

The occasional player or observer:
Brunswick

However, I think one name comes to mind that anyone, on either side's of the coin would know when it came to pool and is a brand name.......
 

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this reminds me of an online fun quiz i took a long time ago that consisted of all the logos from all auto manufacturers. the trick was that you had to properly name the brand, but any wording was editted out. for example, all that existed for the Ford logo was the symbolic Blue Oval, Chevrolet Bowtie, Hyundai's crooked H, Subaru's stars, etc.

branding is extremely important for the non-pool player and pool player. i think the "casual observer/non-pool player" category would be able to identify very few things when it comes to pool: the 8 ball, 9 ball, maybe the Dufferin red maple leaf (however, they probably wouldn't be able to name Dufferin and might also just associate the leaf with Canada).

even a pool player may not recognize many of the brand names. if you were to blend out all the text in the Brunswick logo, the outline would be distinguishable to very few people. However, Ford's Blue Oval is recognized worldwide by many. i agree that Predator's cat logo stands out, so maybe they would be most recognizable.
 
The nicknames so many players have are part of their branding - and it can be effective, especially when they do well so they can, for instance, have a line like Scorpion or as another poster mentioned, Black Widow.

Branding is immensely important - they have college courses dedicated to it these days.

I can't wait to launch the Kickin' Chicken brand, object-ball-seeking cue ball, that will take away all of the tough calculating on kick shots. "Just whack it and it will come", err uhh... wait, better change that.

Okay, still working out some kinks. :o

Best,
Brian kc
 
JAM said:
I'm working on a job about brand names and icons. For example, the rabbit icon is famous around the world for Playboy. Then you have the Nike swoosh, the Golden Arches of McDonald's, the red cross of the International Red Cross.

What do you think is the most recognizable icon of a pool brand? Just curious. Do you think branding is important?
Click to expand...

At the moment there is no "most recognizable icon" in pool mainly due to a lack of advertising.
 
Aside from the Brunswick logo. here are some that would be in the top 5 of my choices. I could not get the Diamond logo to appear, otherwise I would have posted it also.
 

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JAM said:
I'm working on a job about brand names and icons. For example, the rabbit icon is famous around the world for Playboy. Then you have the Nike swoosh, the Golden Arches of McDonald's, the red cross of the International Red Cross.

What do you think is the most recognizable icon of a pool brand? Just curious. Do you think branding is important?
Click to expand...

Most recognizable by Pool Players?

Hustlin.

Absolute worst one I can think of. It's ubiquitous though, and it's pretty much the face of pool in 2011.
 

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A picture of an eight-ball. I've even seen it tatooed on the forehead of a man once!:rolleyes:

Jay P.
 
Sorry for no photo---but just a wooden rack triangle and one piece cue. Subtle, generic and recognized by all--both players, general non players and the clergy.
 
Hi Jenny :)
I think that we have a couple of logos that are highly recognized. Definately the BCA Pool League and in the past couple of years as we've rolled out the CueSports International logo, it has become more recognized. Hugs to you and Keith

www.playbca.com
www.playcsipool.com
 
Just a thought for the Brunswick supporters as a recognizable pool brand. More people see Brunswick on TV as a bowling brand, not a pool brand. I think to find a pool icon you have to go with a person, not a company. The sources of pool equipment are either to disparate on their own (no clear main supplier of pool equipment) or too distributed in their product lines (like brunswick). If 50% of the pool cues in the country were made by one company, I might see it differently.

Honestly, for the first 20 years I played pool, I didn't realize there were brand names on good cues. Most house cues just say "20 oz".
 
I always recognize this in a pool room :)
 

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