Cow4Mascot

Creative Director | February 2022 - June 2023

Overview

Cow4Mascot is a student-led GRASS-roots MOO-vement aimed at changing the UC Davis mascot to a cow! 

Starting as a side table chat, the campaign grew and received considerable local media coverage. As the Creative Director, I lead the branding direction and campaign plan. I collaborated with designers, marketers, and advocates, who championed this change through the help of social media, partnerships, and genuine passion to reclaim their campus identity. Our team collected over 1400+ signatures on a change.org petition, over 11.5k likes, and 25.2k accounts reached on Instagram in less than 100 days. You could say that Cow4Mascot took UC Davis by storm.

The referendum then went on to win a majority vote from the student body through an ASUCD student election vote in May of 2022.

Pre-Planning

By the time we started the campaign, the ASUCD student elections were only 4 months away and we had to work quickly. Thus, the central question became:

How can I scale up a campus-wide campaign and organize a team, taking into account its fast-moving nature?

To do this, I set a campaign plan:

1. Create a recognizable campaign brand
   
2. Spread the message through social media and student ambassadors
   
3. Leverage student support to work with the UC Davis student government to get our measure on the Spring Ballot
   
4. Pitch the idea to the administration and alumni and urge them to honor the student vote

With our first viral post in January getting over 1k likes in less than 3 days, we set forth with our campaign.

Branding

Despite this first viral post, we did encounter obstacles in our outreach. Our team came to realize we had no iconic design system that people could recognize. In response to this, I initiated a rebranding campaign to centralize the team's vision. 

When this initial rebrand was released, the cow illustration I had designed to use in our design system was getting confused for being what we envisioned the end-goal cow mascot to look like, costing us momentum and support. 

I decided to reevaluate and begin a second rebrand which happened very shortly after. This time, I recruited some of my design peers to provide me with new ideas and feedback. We designed with our audience and main campaign goal at the forefront of our design decisions and user-tested our new designs on friends. 

This new branding allowed versatility in our design across social media and merchandise. It eliminated confusion on what the cow actually would look like by using real live cow photos in combination with vibrant graphics as seen below. Despite the inital misstep on my part, my willingness to reevaluate led to a more successful campaign down the line.  

Conceptualized by Cheryl Cai, Mei Yin Chin, & Reece Kuramoto. Compiled by Cheryl Cai.

Expanding Our Team

Our next step in the campaign was to expand our team and recruit student ambassadors to spread the word on the ground. I knew having a positive team culture would be important to keep everyone motivated and create a welcoming environment for new ideas. 

As a first step, I had the idea of creating t-shirts to unify our team. I also initiated plans for team socials to get to know each other on a more personal level. 

Additionally, I sought team solidarity by streamlining communication channels to a Slack workspace and providing ambassadors guidebooks on the goals and expectations of our campaign to keep our large team on the same page. 

Because we wanted to maximize visibility across our campus, we had our newly recruited ambassadors be scheduled to table and flyer students. Here is a spreadsheet that I facilitated for Picnic Day, UC Davis’ open campus day, to maintain transparency and organization.

A lot of the difficulty came with people having sudden schedule conflicts. However, because I already had established a team culture prior, it was easy to accommodate and cover for each other.

Election Outcomes

The result of this viral social media, marketing, and student ambassadors, we overwhelmingly won the student vote in May 2022 with 73.01% of the students voting in favor to change the mascot.

Pitching to Administration

Our final step to propose the idea to the administration and alumni to get approval. To do this, we first had to research the grand scope of such a huge change. I met with the branding team of the school, athletics, the chancellor, and alumni board to see how the change could be implemented. As a whole, my team and I spent over 2 months on this research.

We synthesized our research into a final presentation to the administration and alumni, advocating for them to honor the student vote. 

Ultimately, even attempting to compromise by having dual mascots, we received a letter in late August from the Chancellor and Alumni president officially deciding the change would not happen at the school-wide level.

However, because the ballot measure passed at the current student body level, we negotiated with the student government to officially name the Cow the Official Student Choice Mascot.

Cow4Mascot in the News

• The California Aggie - The cow becomes official ASUCD mascot
  
• Davis Enterprise - UCD students vote to change mascot to a cow
  
• Davis Enterprise - Bob Dunning: Don’t have a cow on the vote
  
• The Davis Vanguard - Student Opinion: A Bittersweet End to a Horse-y Era
  
• FOX40 - What has to happen in order for the UC Davis mascot to change?
  
• CBS Sacramento - Team Cow Declares Victory In Vote To Change UC Davis Mascot
  
• ABC10 - 'Moo-ve' over Gunrock, UC Davis students push for changing mascot to cow
• The Sacramento Bee - 'Should've been a cow in the first place.' UC Davis students say moo-ve over, mustang
• The Sacramento Bee - Holy Cow: Here's why a UC Davis student group is pushing for a new mascot
• The Sacramento Bee - UC Davis should replace Gunrock mustang mascot with a cow
• SFGate - ‘Elite’ UC Davis mascot voted out, to be replaced with cow
  
• The Mercury News - UC Davis students voting on whether to change mascot to a cow