Refining UAF's marketing and branding efforts
March 21, 2011
While the UAF Marketing and Communications department oversees the university’s main institutional identity, each of our community campuses, schools and colleges and research institutes, as
well as individual programs, are often times promoting themselves with individual
advertising, branding and logo efforts. As a result we are not projecting a consistent
unified brand to our public.The university's brand is about much more than a logo or tagline. Branding has to do with reputation and relationships. It’s about a set of promises and expectations that establishes a reputation with the audience and creates expectations about what the target audience will experience in any interaction. It is, as many other universities can attest to, critically important to how well we do with student recruitment, fundraising, community outreach, employee engagement, and much more.
We’re working with the Nerland Agency out of Anchorage on a project to help identify key brand traits and create the foundation to position UAF in relation to our competitors. Implementation of this process and adherence to updated branding standards will create a clear, concise and consistent image within the university and strengthen our overall message.
Work done to date has included conducting a number of focus groups with key stakeholders to include current students, staff/faculty, alumni and community members. The purpose of the focus groups has been to get feedback about the perceived image of the institution from those various audiences.
We’ll keep the campus community informed of this project as we move forward. Be sure to check the Cornerstone regularly for new updates and more information.