How to Brand your FTC Team

About Me

Danielle Boyer, FRC Team 4384

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Benzene Bots

This Year

Engineering Inspiration Award

Imagery Award

Entrepreneurship Award

FiM District Gibraltar Event

FiM District East Kentwood Event

Michigan State Championship

First Year Business Team

Follow Along

This presentation is online, so keep that in mind while taking notes.

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Feel free to open the presentation on your phone to follow along with what I’m saying, or to look ahead.

Branding Is Important!

But what is it?

Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

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AKA: Branding is what makes you unique and memorable to judges, other FTC teams, and students.

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Why Care About Branding?

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• Funding
• Respect
• Support
• Recognition
• Memorability
• Delivers your message

Brand

• Name
• Character (logo) � - Benzene
• Color � - Red & Black
• Trait(s)� - Consistent Resource, Student Led

“Our Mission is not only to inspire students interest in STEM, but to prepare students for the workworld and equip them with the skills necessary to be successful, being a consistent resource every stage of the learning process.”

Application

• Documentation� - Engineering Notebook, Safety Manual, etc.
• Social Media
• Team Appearance � - Board, Pits, Apparel, etc.
• Activities� - Fundraisers, Outreach, etc.
• Team Attitude� - How your team acts towards other people and with each other�

Documentation

Social Media

Team Appearance

Our LED Name Tags

Our Pits

Team Hoodies

Outreach

Team Attitude

• How your team acts and treats other affects how you’re perceived
• Gracious Professionalism > competition

Forming Your Identity As A Brand

Branding identity exercise

Bucket Handout

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• Everyone who is in a pre-existing team together, pair up into a group. Those by themselves will work individually
• Write down everything that either your team already does, or what you’d like to do� -If you don’t do much outreach, think of what defines your team, such as� your mission statement
• Compile everything, from training, to fundraising, to outreach. What does your team do? (Or what do you feel passionate about doing?)

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I Wrote Down...

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• EKGAR (Every Kid Gets A Robot)
• Mentoring
• International Fair
• Benzene Buddies
• Future Leader Skills Camp
• Social Media
• OCCRA Training Program
• Safety Training Program
• 3.5 GPA Requirement
• Starting Jr. FLL, FLL, and FTC Teams
• Community Newsletter

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Bucket Handout

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Fit all of the things you wrote down into 3 broad categories that fits everything without overlap.

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Name these categories.

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Benzene Buckets

Bucket Handout

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Having these 3 categories will help you plan events in the future. Those events that are hard to fit into a category might not be something worthwhile of spending team effort on. This can help you shape your identity as your team progresses.

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Break

See you in 5 minutes

How Can You Brand Your Team?

The Specifics

Theme

Pick a theme, and stick with it. This should represent the students’ interest, and have the longevity to be relevant for awhile.

Documentation

• Make a list of what documentation you want to show the judges or sponsors (Safety manual, Engineering Notebook, etc.)
• Brainstorm which visuals you’re going to use, and how you’re going to brand your documentation to be original to your team
• Delegate responsibilities (don’t let it get placed on one student)
• Schedule what should be done when, and when you’re going to print/have your documentation finalized
• Designate people to proofread

6 Aspects...

Canva

• Easy to use�website
• Free
• Accessible to �everyone

Adobe

• Adobe Illustrator - Used for graphic design
• Adobe Photoshop - Used to alter photographs
• Adobe InDesign - Used to make brochures, flyers, and handouts

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Photography

• Document everything you do� -Outreach, training, workshop, building
• A camera phone works just as well as a professional one, and is often easier to work with
• Upload pictures to a Google Drive folder so everyone can work with them

Social Media

• Have a cohesive and updated logo on all platforms
• Consider which platforms best reach your intended audience, and will help your branding show through the best

�Instagram: pictures of what your team does�Youtube: share helpful content with other teams/students �Twitter: perfect for quick team updates to other teams/your students�Facebook: best for reaching potential sponsors/mentors�Snapchat: update team members on competition progress�

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Audience

Why Instagram?

• A large percentage of our 1,000+ followers are younger than 24, so we connect to the people we want to inspire
• We are able to connect with teams from around the world and show them with pictures what makes us special, and how we can help them
• We have been able to help over 40 teams with business and technical through this app

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We post:

• Us connecting with the community
• About our students
• Our special projects
• Competitions�

How we are different:

• Showcasing unique outreach
• Member spotlight (uplift team members)
• Frequent posting

Activities

There isn’t a formula that can be applied to every team, you need to be creative and come up with things that help you stand out to judges and the community. ��Think about problems you’ve seen as a community. For example, our team didn’t like how many teams focus on demos and one-time outreach. We pledged to be a consistent resource to our community through our weekly outreach, newsletters, and more. It was a way we’ve branded and made our outreach cohesive and original to our team.

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Activities

• Using your team traits to help you come up with outreach/activities is a great way to stand out (ex: consistent outreach)
• What you name your activities matter… try to keep it short, simple, and on brand (ex: Benzene Buddies)
• Think outside the box, and try to do outreach that’ll interest the judges. For example, so many teams pursue just robotics focused outreach, and neglect Science
• You can’t do everything… so don’t try to. Do what fits you

Appearance

Pits:

• Find something that will pull people and judges to your team. Scout other teams and see what you like that is unique about them, and consider what you can implement

Unique:

• Just as my team has LED name tags to stand out, think of what you can do to make your team different in adherence to your brand (hats, tutus, etc)

Appearance - Apparel

• Be unique… think outside of the box (tye-dye, pattern, color blocking, etc.)
• Be cohesive with your team colors and logo, don’t deviate so your team is unrecognizable
• If your team isn’t recognized just by its name, emphasize your number (ex: the back of 4384 apparel)
• If the students create their apparel, they’re going to want to wear it more
• While still being unique, make your apparel as clear and simple as possible

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Team Attitude

• How you act as a mentor/coach affects how your students act
• If you talk about other teams/students poorly, you’re creating an atmosphere that is neither encouraging nor uplifting
• How your students act reflects on your team heavily
• Make sure your students know how to speak well about the team to represent it best
• It only takes one student with a bad attitude to make the others follow
• Always emphasize Gracious Professionalism

Fitting it into your Schedule

More than just the robot

Before the Season Starts

• Designate one mentor to be in charge of business (this may be seperate from logistics, organization) just for outreach and awards
• Form a brainstorming group, work on the buckets with the students, and define your goals
• Schedule out your season for the next year, and form spaces where you could do outreach
• Figure out your scope of possibilities: figure out your branding budget

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Brainstorming

• Make sure everyone who wants to be included, is (having the business mentor act as a mediator can help everyone stay on track and involved)
• Have an agenda (straying off topic will waste time)
• Make time for brainstorming, don’t neglect it as the pressure of the season increases
• Have sign ups for responsibilities (social media, outreach, etc.)
• Keep your ideas where everyone can access them (Google docs, Github, etc.)

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During the Season

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• Stick to the schedule, and don’t procrastinate
• Take time to reflect back on your goals, and adjust them as needed
• Document highlights in your season
• Script your presentation and PRACTICE, it will make your cohesive brand even stronger

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Tips

• All students should be aware of what's going on (nothing is worse than judges asking students questions they can’t answer)
• Everyone should be involved in fundraising (increases team appreciation)
• Spread out responsibilities (you have under 15 students, you have enough to delegate)
• Order documentation at least a week and a half before you need it, it will save hundreds of dollars in shipping

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Funding

• Think smart, not expensive (the best outreach isn’t always the most expensive)
• If you do outreach in schools, see if the schools can give you some support for the efforts you do
• Charge team members (within their means) for apparel, etc.
• Don’t be afraid to charge for outreach
• Come up with a budget prior, and stick with it

Documentation Funding

• Documentation is expensive� - I order from PrintingCenterUSA. They are cheap, fast,� and produce amazing work (Within U.S.)
• Reduce poster cost by ordering online� - Poster Print Shop is a great company for fast and� inexpensive work (Within U.S.)���*non sponsored

Examples

Your turn

For a link to this presentation, your handouts, and more materials, scan this QR code: (or use the link on your handout)

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Thank You!

Contact me: akkouq@gmail.com for any questions, or if you’d like to schedule a Skype conference with me or someone on my team.