Stores' Rivalries Rev Up School Spirit

School spirit is the glue that often binds students, alumni, and supporters to their institution of choice. Some campus stores helped stoke school spirit by engaging in friendly competition with other stores—at rival institutions.

Last fall the VolShop at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University Co-op at the University of Texas-Austin saw an opportunity to have a little fun with fans in the weeks leading up to their head-to-head game in men’s basketball on Jan. 29.

Since both universities go by “UT” with a similar entwined-letter graphic, and both use different shades of orange in their school colors, the stores planned out a “contest” to determine which university was the “real UT” with the “right orange.” The winner would be decided by the sale of specially designed tee shirts sold by each store.

The stores’ marketing teams got together to create the shirt designs and promotional campaign. They also planned on a special pin that would acknowledge “losing the bet,” which would be worn by the employees at the store selling fewer shirts.

Everything was on track until the Co-op ran into some licensing hurdles with its version of the shirt. The battle of the tee shirts ultimately had to be abandoned.

However, the two campus stores did not give up on the chance to build school spirit. In November, they turned to Twitter to ask followers to vote on which orange was better, Tennessee Orange or Texas’ Burnt Orange. There was also a bit of humorous smack-talk between the two stores, all in fun.

Tennessee won. As a result, the Co-op had to wear its rival’s shirt. The store posted photos on social media but may have gotten the last laugh: in one photo the shirt is surrounded by University of Texas gear.

And the fun has continued as the big game approaches tomorrow. Tommi Grubbs, marketing manager for the VolShop, said fans are still engaged in the online banter between the schools.

MSU Bookstore, Montana State University, Bozeman, and the North Dakota State University Bookstore, Fargo, had better luck coordinating a tee shirt contest to mark their schools’ FCS National Championship football game on Jan. 8. And they raised money for textbook scholarships in the process.

The two stores developed a championship game tee shirt and then vied to see which could sell the most shirts before the game. They also competed on overall sales of their respective logo gear. In each case, the losing store would provide a $250 textbook scholarship to the winning store.

The competition added a fun aspect to the stores’ overall promotions for the championship game. MSU Bookstore, possibly aided by local news coverage of the contest, sold out of the special game-day shirts quickly, but the two stores continued to duke it out on social media for total logo sales right up to kickoff.