How Universities could profit from a simpler Brand Architecture

I’ve been working with major Dutch universities recently. In three of my projects discussion about sub-brands flared. Corporate Communication wants a strong international brand. But faculties and departments say they need their own logo. Do they have a point? Or will every part profit from the whole?

Brand architecture doesn’t equal organisational structure

Universities and governments have a natural tendency to communicate inside-out. It’s easy to assume the whole world knows how you are organised. And if the world doesn’t know, they should be educated. Preferably with a lot of logo’s. So research groups, partnerships, faculties, institutes etc. all launch their own logo’s.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a business looking to partner for research. Or a student looking for an interesting master education. How do they find that in the plethora of websites and logo’s?

Cities sometimes do something similar. They set up a city marketing department. And of course it’s not the same organisation as the city municipality. It’s commercial. So they get separate logos. Take Amsterdam: the municipality has three X-es but city marketing refers to the city as I Amsterdam. Switch from the Dutch to the English version of their website and the logo changes!

The arguments

A brand structure by organisational structure is often rationalised. I collected some of the arguments I hear most. What’s your opinion about these arguments? How valid are they when you think of brand awareness and loyalty?

A separate Business Unit. “We are responsible for our own profit. That’s why we need a logo.”

Team building or subculture. “We need a logo, because we are a new team and we’re really going to do things differently.”

New proposition or product. “We are going to offer a new service within our organization for a specific audience, so we need a logo.”

Historically grown. “We used to have our own logo, and we want should keep it, even after the organizational merger.”

Petrified brand campaign. “Our campaign logo has become well known among the target audience, so we should keep it.”

International use. “The name of the main brand is too long and too Dutch. We need an extra brand.”

Others do it too. “At that university all faculties have logos!”

Most of these arguments show inside-out thinking. Not seeing the whole from the outside, or in a competitive context. Some arguments are built on the assumption that your audience instantly knows what you know.

More arguments, better ones

In a limited number of projects I’ve heard solid arguments. I’ll mention three.

Sub-brands have separate value propositions

Take, for instance, the Sint Lucas Art School in Antwerp. It is part of ‘Karel de Grote Hogescholen’. KdG has practical professional schooling from automotive technology to working in a nursery. A flamboyant art training does not fit in that line of courses. It deserves its own brand. The Art School doesn’t even show it’s relation to KdG on their website.

Different business values

Consider InShared Achmea. It’s an insurance product where both profit and damage is shared among all participants. So it has to be very transparent. This is so different from the parent brand — a classic insurance company — that they are well off with a separate brand.

Joint venture with partners outside the organisation

Sometimes the collaboration will produce results that the parent university can’t claim or won’t back. In this situation it may be useful to something separate. A simple project name could suffice. You can also consider an endorsement brand. If you opt for a real separate brand, remember that a new brand is a large investment. You have to build it.

A sub-brand does not always need a logo

Do you have a good reason to create a sub-brand? Have you considered going without a logo? Often it’s not necessary. Or even detrimental. Apple’s iPad or the A3 from Audi are brands but they don’t need a logo. Likewise, you can also say that prof. Dr. Ir. Louise Fresco of WageningenUR is a (personal) brand. Or you could say that the faculty Bioengineering at the University of Ghent is a sub-brand. A wordmark is a strong choice in these cases.

And remember: the more consistent you spell the sub-brand the stronger it gets. If a Dutch faculty wants international appeal, it might me a good idea for them to always use their English name. In Delft for instance, Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) is called ‘Industrieel Ontwerpen’ (IO). The leads to inconsistent name and acronym use.

Why monolithic?

No reason to opt for sub-brands? Great! A monolithic brand has many advantages.

Visibility. If there is only one brand you will see it more often and feel more familiar with it.

Claim position. If you repeatedly make the news with your single brand, it will get more authority.

Word of mouth. The one brand will be cited more in informal talks.
One monolithic brand uses less resources. It reduces the complexity and thus the cost.

Cross-pollination. Parts of the organisation will enhance the brand brand position and vice versa. For example: Wageningen University is all about healthy food and living environment. Still, they have a chair group Marketing and Consumer Behaviour. Interesting! This makes both stronger. First, the main brand gets stronger because you learn that healthy food is about more than biology. Second, the sub-brand gets stronger. You discover that Marketing can improve healthy food habits and living environment.

Less marketing required. Developing and launching a new brand is not finished with strategy and design. You need continuous marketing efforts to build it. A knowledge driven organisation like a University usually has little focus in that area.

International use. Ambitious Universities want a broader, more international audience. There’s a large pool of students and researchers to attract. But the pool of competitors is also much larger. And when the airtime with your new audience is short you want to be crystal clear: one logo, one name, one message.

Long live the web!

The implementation of a monolithic brand is sometimes met with resistance inside the organisation.

Brands and logos disappear and people feel this as a loss.

The internet and Google come to our aid for explaining the need of single brand. At WageningenUR.nl we set out to build a single demand driven website for the entire organisation. No longer do you have to know the organisational structure to find an answer to your question. We organised all content by topic. This one website has one logo and one address. As long as you are on the same site you should see the same logo on the left top of the page — everyone knows that.

The power of simplicity

I’ve shown many reasons why universities profit from a monolithic brand architecture. In short it costs less and it is better for the brand awareness.

But above all, your audience will thank you for keeping it simple.

This article was published before in a slightly different version and in Dutch on Marketing Facts.