Do you find yourself wondering if your office’s brand is still relevant to its core audience? The Study Abroad Center (SAC) at Iowa State University found itself wondering this very question and decided to further investigate. This article will provide an introduction to the rebranding process currently underway at Iowa State’s SAC, and hopefully provider readers who are considering rebranding some ideas for how they may want to carry out the process.
The rebranding of the Iowa State SAC all started when the website committee met in spring 2017 to discuss the direction and organization of their new website. The committee had reviewed a few web content management platforms and selected one to move forward with. As the committee started to think about the design of the website using the office's existing brand identity, they found themselves asking an even bigger question: “Is our visual identity still relevant among college students?” At that time, the SAC’s visual identity was centered around travel poster graphics or illustrations from the Art Deco era (see an example below). The SAC had received positive feedback on their “look” in informal settings, but the website committee was convinced to run a focus group to see if the brand had been effective.
The rebranding of the Iowa State SAC all started when the website committee met in spring 2017 to discuss the direction and organization of their new website. The committee had reviewed a few web content management platforms and selected one to move forward with. As the committee started to think about the design of the website using the office's existing brand identity, they found themselves asking an even bigger question: “Is our visual identity still relevant among college students?” At that time, the SAC’s visual identity was centered around travel poster graphics or illustrations from the Art Deco era (see an example below). The SAC had received positive feedback on their “look” in informal settings, but the website committee was convinced to run a focus group to see if the brand had been effective.
Art Deco travel poster
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SAC brochure cover
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Just a month or so after this website committee meeting, the SAC was running a focus group in two sections of a marketing course on branding. This setup was ideal as the professor found the focus group beneficial for her course and the SAC stood to gain from the information collected. As a result of the focus group, the SAC found out that only 41% of the students could correctly identify a SAC poster when presented with two options:
That statistic was an eye opener and allowed the SAC to recognize that there wasn’t a large brand awareness on campus. In addition to not being able to identify the SAC brand, students in the focus group reported that they didn’t feel like they could see themselves in the illustrated images utilized in the existing branding (B), and that photographs (such as image A) would permit students to identify with the experience. Following the focus group, it was clear to the SAC that a change was needed.
This might be a good time to mention that the SAC has been more or less granted a pass from Iowa State University’s central marketing and communications office. Many years ago, the central marketing and communications office noted that the SAC was not following the ISU brand standards set forth by the central office. Due to the fact that the SAC had established a strong brand identity and that it does not market off campus, the central marketing and communication office permitted the SAC to maintain their own brand identity. The relationship with the central marketing and communications office is crucial and can quickly put boundaries on an office’s ability to rebrand. It is important to communicate with the central office to determine what you can and cannot do before you put too much work into a rebrand. The new brand established by the SAC is much more ISU brand compliant, using their fonts, colors, and key photograph elements. The decision to align more and more with the ISU brand was a result of the feedback from the focus group. Participants noted that it was important to them to see that the SAC was affiliated with ISU.
The SAC was concerned about losing marginal brand loyalty as a consequence of rebranding. Therefore, they thought carefully about what the new brand would be and how to connect the new brand to the old. In the end, it was decided that due to annual flow of students into and out of a university, few students would be impacted by their rebranding. The SAC primarily reaches out to freshman and sophomores, and the incoming freshman will have had minimal exposure to the old brand prior to arriving on campus. In addition, the SAC has maintained contacts of their freshman and sophomore classes, and the rebrand launch can be properly announced to these target groups in order to ease the transition to the new brand.
Relying heavily on the feedback from the focus group (96% preferred using photographs over the Art Deco style illustrations), the SAC decided to switch from using illustrations to photographs in hopes that the more realistic portrayal would permit students to see themselves in those locations. To further empower students to see themselves in the images, the SAC has taken the stance that all primary images (those on brochure covers, posters, and main webpages) will have an over the shoulder perspective. With the face not being visible in the photograph, students can more easily imagine themselves there. Lastly, another major element of the rebrand will be backpacks. The reason behind the backpack is that it is symbolic of many items central to study abroad and the SAC’s identity: being a student, academics, and going places.
This summer, the SAC is redesigning all posters and brochures in time for the start of the fall semester and study abroad fair in September. Redesigning the website is a larger project, which the SAC hopes to launch during the spring 2018 semester.
This might be a good time to mention that the SAC has been more or less granted a pass from Iowa State University’s central marketing and communications office. Many years ago, the central marketing and communications office noted that the SAC was not following the ISU brand standards set forth by the central office. Due to the fact that the SAC had established a strong brand identity and that it does not market off campus, the central marketing and communication office permitted the SAC to maintain their own brand identity. The relationship with the central marketing and communications office is crucial and can quickly put boundaries on an office’s ability to rebrand. It is important to communicate with the central office to determine what you can and cannot do before you put too much work into a rebrand. The new brand established by the SAC is much more ISU brand compliant, using their fonts, colors, and key photograph elements. The decision to align more and more with the ISU brand was a result of the feedback from the focus group. Participants noted that it was important to them to see that the SAC was affiliated with ISU.
The SAC was concerned about losing marginal brand loyalty as a consequence of rebranding. Therefore, they thought carefully about what the new brand would be and how to connect the new brand to the old. In the end, it was decided that due to annual flow of students into and out of a university, few students would be impacted by their rebranding. The SAC primarily reaches out to freshman and sophomores, and the incoming freshman will have had minimal exposure to the old brand prior to arriving on campus. In addition, the SAC has maintained contacts of their freshman and sophomore classes, and the rebrand launch can be properly announced to these target groups in order to ease the transition to the new brand.
Relying heavily on the feedback from the focus group (96% preferred using photographs over the Art Deco style illustrations), the SAC decided to switch from using illustrations to photographs in hopes that the more realistic portrayal would permit students to see themselves in those locations. To further empower students to see themselves in the images, the SAC has taken the stance that all primary images (those on brochure covers, posters, and main webpages) will have an over the shoulder perspective. With the face not being visible in the photograph, students can more easily imagine themselves there. Lastly, another major element of the rebrand will be backpacks. The reason behind the backpack is that it is symbolic of many items central to study abroad and the SAC’s identity: being a student, academics, and going places.
This summer, the SAC is redesigning all posters and brochures in time for the start of the fall semester and study abroad fair in September. Redesigning the website is a larger project, which the SAC hopes to launch during the spring 2018 semester.
Sample Posters Featuring the New Brand Identity
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