Brands Can Be Fun

“We needed to raise $30,000 to buy a jaws-of-life for the town and I told my brother that I’d lead the fund raising. We decided to inaugurate the University of Okoboji and use it as our theme.” Herman Ritter was talking about how the brand for the Lake Okoboji area in northern Iowa began.

The chain of three natural lakes surround the towns of Okoboji, Spirit Lake (one of my agurbs®), Milford, Orleans, Arnolds Park, West Okoboji and Wahpeton. The combined population of seven towns is under 10,000 with Spirit Lake the largest at 4,261.

Herman went on, “We wanted to be able to celebrate something memorable, and so we decided to start the university in 1878 so that we could celebrate its centennial that year at our homecoming. We billed it as University of Okoboji, 1878 to 1978, seven years of progress.”

“We are a real university. We’ve got housing, professors, students, sports and even fraternities. The only thing that we’re missing is classes, but who cares.” They’ve even started a foundation that has an endowment in the millions. You can buy University of Okoboji shirts, hats and other items all over town.

When I gave my talk, I mentioned that the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurship Centers, which are helping to put Iowa on the cutting edge of entrepreneurism, are located at five of the state’s top universities. I was shocked however that the Fighting Phantoms of the University of Okoboji had been excluded as a center until I tried to take the entrance exam. I quickly realized that Okoboji’s entrance exam was way too difficult, geared toward A-students, whereas entrepreneurs tend to be C-students.

Okoboji has demonstrated that you can have fun with a brand. It doesn’t have to be something stuffy. They’ve done a great job of promoting it out in a 300 mile radius.