For the next few episodes, Ken Steele returns to the Brand Chemistry™ Lab to analyze recent trends in higher ed brand identities and marketing campaigns. This week, we look at some notable brand mis-steps that have become cautionary tales for campus marketers, and the inevitable result: some very cautious, gradual rebrandings that don’t risk passionate opposition from traditional-minded stakeholders like students, faculty, and alumni.
Particularly for smaller, remote institutions experiencing the early effects of declining demographics, it’s critical to develop the visibility a strong brand can support. In recent years, many higher ed institutions have hired top-notch ad agencies to develop their visual identities and marketing campaigns, but there are definite risks to that approach. Branding an academic community is significantly more political a process than branding a consumer product like beer or fast food. Presidents don’t have the authority of corporate CEOs, faculty aren’t as compliant as typical employees, and students are a complete wild card. Not only does the process demand patience and plenty of consultation, but it also demands a marketer’s “A” game; a campus full of brilliant critical thinkers will quickly find any fault possible.
Cautionary Tales:
St Thomas University’s student union discovered what happens when a design for your orientation week program is actually plagiarized from a broadway musical.
The University of Dayton, in Ohio, launched a new brand for its Flyers athletics, which was promptly criticized by students for appearing to promote venereal disease instead.
The University of California system attempted to launch a new, modern icon to unite the ten campuses in the UC system. But stakeholders objected to the ugly graphic, which suggested nothing so much as a flushing toilet.
And the University of Waterloo undertook an extensive strategic rebranding process in 2008, only to be sideswiped at the last moment when the proposed logo was leaked online.
Cautious Rebrandings:
In part because of these prominent brand debacles, many college and university rebrandings in recent years have been extraordinarily cautious and traditional.
Brandon University launched a new visual identity based on their traditional coat of arms in late 2014.
The Université du Québec en Outaouais redesigned its visual identity last year.
The University of Ottawa launched a new brand identity in late 2014 that also followed a university marketing convention, in urging students to “Defy the Conventional.”
Finally, a different sort of caution is evident in the gradual “unbranding” of Cape Breton University.
Next week, we’ll look at some examples of intentionally provocative brands and campaigns, deliberately courting controversy. It happens more often than you might think, and the results can be striking.
