Kennesaw State’s Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing recently moved forward with the brand strategy and positioning phase of its ongoing rebranding project.
According to the KSU website’s branding page, this phase of the process involves developing target audience personas, presenting a competitive audit and evaluating the university’s current logos.
The current phase’s evaluation of logos ties in with KSU’s Visual Identity Program which aims to make the school’s communication materials more uniform, identifiable and memorable, according to the program’s website.
Alice Wheelwright said that the associate vice president of strategic communications and marketing, KSU has the issue of “the mountain and KS logos being very different and not building [its] brand equity holistically in the marketplace.” By switching to a single, uniform logo, the university can more easily establish an instantly-recognizable brand.
With this project, KSU’s marketing team aims to entirely change the way that the school presents its brand, from being a “House of Brands” to a “Branded House.”
“When you think of a ‘House of Brands,’ you think of Procter and Gamble with its many brand logos not tied to the P&G umbrella,” Wheelwright continued. “When you think of a ‘Branded House,’ you think of FedEx where all brands use the FedEx name across their offerings.”
When the project is completed, the marketing team hopes to have all of the university’s services, accomplishments and offerings under a single name and logo that “clearly define and articulate our brand’s essence.”
While the brand strategy phase is still progressing, the project is also entering the early stages of its creative concept development phase, which will include the development of a concise mission, vision and value statement for the university. These two phases, as well as a brand guidelines phase, a document phase and finally an initial campaign creative phase, are all slated to be complete by early summer.
Despite a busy schedule with several phases remaining and a limited amount of time to complete them, Wheelwright said that she is confident about the project’s advancement.
“No milestones have been missed,” Wheelwright said. “We are diligently moving through the process and aim to have the process completed by summer. We will have a phased approach to the new brand rollout, starting in February or March through August.”
In addition to the university’s marketing team, the rebranding project is also being worked on by Tailfin Marketing, an Atlanta-based marketing company that has worked with other Georgia schools such as the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, as well as large companies including Chick-Fil-A and Lyft.
According to Tailfin’s website, the company aims to “help brands find their stories — and tell them far and wide.”
Wheelwright said that Tailfin Marketing is “integral to all of the milestones in this project and [is] working hand-in-glove with Strategic Communications and Marketing to deliver this brand refresh.”
With many of the project’s milestones coming close to their deadlines and nearing completion, KSU students and faculty will likely be seeing more visible changes in the school’s communications and marketing strategies in the months to come.
