Branding in Higher Ed – observations during #uwlogogate
A pretty interesting social media incident has occurred here at the University of Waterloo, one that I am sure is causing some people a lot of stress and others entertainment. Short version: UW branding effort had its logo work leaked, students rise up on Facebook!
As someone that started working at UW at the tender age of 25 having my work out in full public view for public stoning I can certainly emphasize with those behind the new UW branding effort. The Facebook group that is acting as the hub of criticism has certainly grown fast and the comments are emotive and colourful (image above left is an example of their ‘protest’ versions and they show UW students are creative!). What has happened thus far? This is my best guess order of events:
- a long time ago the previous VP of External Relations identified problems with U of Waterloo’s brand outside of Ontario. Our Alumni are everywhere in senior positions of very fashionable organizations yet our name isn’t. The school, city, and region all suffer from the “Toronto is the centre of the Canadian Universe” syndrome I think.
- Committees were formed, talented staff were rallied and a very long process began.
- A turnover at the VP level brought some fresh vision and motivation, process moves faster.
- Lots of work, emotion, and discussions later there appears to be some visual identity pieces that started going up on campus this week.
- Students got a hold of some ‘still in progress’ logo work, Facebook group created, the freak out gathers steam.
If you were to describe the process in generic Academic you get:
- an idea is generated
- committees are formed
- they meet
- and meet
- they meet with other committees and things are changed to please certain people
- a careful strategy of ‘getting use to change’ is deployed
Everything went according to the way things do in academia and then a step 5a happened—a digital media problem. Files are leaked and social media rallies the ‘no’ camp before step 6 really gets going. What happens next will be very interesting. Currently the students behind the group have a meeting with the VP of External Relations and I hope from that comes some more factual information to the Facebook group on what is happening and why. A missed opportunity, I think, is having the VP post that information herself to the Facebook group.
In higher education it is about being open to criticism and debate. Social media just compliments what is a long standing tradition. Don’t shy away or worse be dismissal of branding or your position because you will get some lumps from the vocal stake holders… engage them. Although I don’t think a closed door meeting is truly open at least a VP takes the student concerns serious enough to spend time talking to them. It is part of who we are in higher ed.
It isn’t all bad even though I will freely admit I expected more out of a logo for UW. There is more to branding than a jpeg. The banners going up speak of ‘taking risks’ and being ‘courageous.’ Since being an undergrad here I can honestly say I have only seen that in spits or spurts (with VeloCity being an example). However, to me the secondary and maybe more important part of branding is putting out there the values and aspirations of the institution so everyone has a common point of reference. If we say we are risk takers we need to be risk takers. Having it as part of the branding empowers the risk takers vs the risk adverse people. The whole language on the banners thing is a risk… like ‘intelligent community’ the institution will be called out when it does things that seem risk adverse.
As the Facebook group grows it will be interesting to see if #uwlogogate will have legs into the fall. My guess is that this will be a good example of why you need to have a social media strategy as part of your step 6. Assume what you are working on will get leaked and you can’t control the message anymore. It is a real risk and one that needs to be managed.
Note: I have not nor likely will be involved in UW’s branding effort. I left External Relations before it started but I can say that the need to work on UW’s brand has been known for a very long time. Nor am I an expert in marketing.
