8) Welcome to Dallas: How SMU is branding itself as Dallas' College Football Team

It’s no secret by now that SMU Football is branded as “Dallas’ college football team” with its main campus directly in the middle of the city of Dallas. It sits in an attractive area between some of the best high school football in the world. A concept of a “rebranding” is easy, but the actual workload falls heavily on the in-house creative team at SMU Football to get it done.

Lead by Head Coach Sonny Dykes, the “Born and Raised” film series highlights the best playmakers on the team and follows their stories back to their high schools, where it all began. The series highlights hard times, championships, and their recruiting journey, which resulted in them landing at SMU. Graduate transfer quarterback Shane Buechele said “For me, it’s just about having fun again” as he explains his decision to transfer from the University of Texas. “Playing in front of family in my home town means a lot to me, and SMU is the place to do that at.” Buechele was one of the five films released during the 2019 season, but the Dallas initiatives didn’t stop there.

Another idea the team had was to put up billboards, highlighting the players that had been filmed for the series, as a form of advertising with ticket sales and to further help push the brand of “Pony Up Dallas.”

The team launched these billboards right before the football season, adding “PonyUp_____” with whatever community they were posted in. Demerick Gary, defensive lineman, was amazed to see a billboard of him representing his community posted on the side of I-35, one of the busiest highways in Dallas.

In the 2019 off season, the creative department, then lead by Anthony Crespino, Chief of Staff, was hard at work designing a new uniform package to debut at SMU’s home opener against UNT later that year. A clean white package with a classic “Dallas” script on the chest and a “Triple D” on the helmet was immediately recognizable with the city of Dallas and SMU, and the uniforms have since become an incredible recruiting advantage. Though unable to specifically mention recruiting details, potential student-athletes are incredibly attracted to the option to “rep the city with Dallas on their chest” and the new uniforms enable that. The creative team lead a successful surprise launch of these uniforms just minutes before the team would run out wearing them for kickoff against UNT, which resulted in a 27-49 win for the Mustangs. Included in the social media launch, the promotional video package featured Dallas rapper Big Tuck’s song “Welcome to Dallas”, a perfect fit for the launch of this campaign.

SMU is still feeling the effects of the billboards, uniforms, and Born and Raised Series, #PonyUpDallas is becoming a part of everyday language around town, and recruits are loving being able to represent their city. Even more great things are to come in 2020, should everything go as planned.