Douglas M. Gaus
www.newproductconsultant.com

Seeing the Chicago Cubs announce today that they have a new mascot, shot me back through memory travel time to my elementary school, Happy Valley School in Lafayette, California...the year was 1973.

  

I was in fifth grade and our school had just told us we were getting a new school mascot from which we had none.  We were now going to be the Happy Valley Hornets!  Finally, we could have some school shirts or banners that had some coolness and for which we could have mean, mean pride! 

In a few short weeks to follow, the administration would show us our new school logo. In leading up to the big reveal, I imagined the coolest, mean looking hornet waspish crazy insect with an insane looking stinger poised and bent, just looking for its next kill!  And hornets didn't die, like their lame-o insect cousins the bees; word was out that hornets could sting people all day long and never die a death from injecting their victims with a combination load of venom and pain!

We had the Merriwood relays coming up, where only the finest track athletes in the area would sprint down never ending parallel lines to achieve athletic glory and attain a first place ribbon!  Our competitors from neighboring elementary schools knees would begin to wobble and sweat would pore from their hairless armpits just looking at our new mean jerseys, meant to intimidate all before us: the opposing players, their parents, their kids, even the judges!

Mr Lilley, our principal, gathered us all in the main hall outside his office, where we were all gathered around to see the new mascot.  I knew that because I went to the coolest school, that the adults running it had access to the best graphic designers and money would be no option for getting the perfect look of the mascot and its accompanying logo. There was a reason my parents toiled to live in this middle class town and I knew the property taxes they paid would have to have gone straight to the Cool Happy Valley Hornet Mascot and Logo Fund!

I just remember an art stand holding up the covered logo...a thin sheet was covering the awesomeness that was just minutes away from being viewed.  I could not stand the anticipation!  Please, pull off that dreaded sheet that separated us from the glory years to come with our new found Hornet mascot and logo!

What happened next, was stunning to my brain and almost sent me into therapy at the tender age of 11...it all was surreal and happening in Super Slow Motion...kind of like watching This Week in Pro Football, where i got to painfully revisit Franco Harris' catch, after the football rebounded off of the poor shoulder of a coiled Pittsburg Steeler receiver due to having been hit from a classic Jack Tatum stinger, but thereafter still was able to run down the sideline acting like a selfish snob with the ball cradled like a baby in his arms into the end zone to beat my beloved Raiders in the AFC Championship even with the newly annointed King Quarterback, Ken Stabler, at the helm and unduly cheat them out of winning the playoff game.  I know that was a run-on sentence, but that play was a run-on play. 

Revealed on the art board and despise to my eyes, was a cutesy font with letters spelling "Happy Valley" that were arched over the ugliest thing I have ever seen.  It was a cute Hornet!  There was no mean grimace to be found on this insect.  It was smiling at us all, almost inviting us to come over!  I looked on the next most important thing, and it was not a long mean stinger in the shape of a jagged and rusty nail.  It was short and rounded at the end, looking like the soft pedal of a flower!...and it was attached to the second ugliest thing I have ever seen...a cute insect bottom!  It had a mark above it, to show it was wiggling in the wind and saying to us all, "hey, aren't I cute!  I won't hurt you, let's play!" 

Even Mr. Rogers and the creepos in his Neighborhood had more street cred than this piece of $#@^!&...I think it was the first time I ever swore, except it was just in my head and the profanities were just the thoughts screaming inside my head and were resonating back and forth in my skull, like a brain wobbling inside the same from a concussion...

Chicago Cubs Fans:  I feel your pain!  Hey, I know your city is a tough city and you have a lot of intercity problems, including youth-aged gangs and drive-by killings, which is nothing to take lightly.  Your teams' mascot obviously doesn't have to be a proponent of guns or violence, but does it have to be marketed and cool to only people 4 years and younger? 

It says they used focus groups that wanted a family friendly mascot , but I think either 1) the focus group was not focused enough or 2) they need a focus group to come up with the correct focus group

"We test 100 products a year, shoot commercials for 10 and maybe one will be successful.  And that one we bring to retail." 

A.J. Khubani, CEO of Telebrands Corp (Electronic Retailer, Sept. 2012)

“I'm a risk taker. I get up in the morning knowing that I'm either going to have a spectacular win or loss that is going to be exciting. I prefer the former but either is more appealing than the warm death of mediocrity.”

Dean Kamen, Inventor of the  Segway human transporter (April, 2007)

“At the end of the day, we might put 32 products into our line every year. This means that only one in every 100 ideas makes it into Hasbro’s product line annually. And we don’t succeed with everything we put out there. Out of 32, maybe 10 will be successful, meaning they last for a couple, maybe three years.”

Mike Hirtle, at the time head of global inventor relations and product acquisition for giant Hasbro Inc., said his company looked at about 3,200 toy and game ideas every year. (November, 2008)

"You need to be in denial or in ignorance about the huge challenges you face.  You have to believe that it wouldn't be hard for you to succeed." "

Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple executive and now Silicon Valley venture capitalist (February 2009)

"A lot of people give up when the world seems to be against them, but that's the point when you should push a little harder. I use the analogy of running a race. It seems as though you can’t carry on, but if you just get through the pain barrier, you'll see the end and be okay. Often, just around the corner is where the solution will happen."

James Dyson, inventor of the Dyson Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner (April, 2007)