Communications & advertising and marketing vice chancellor outlines new Pitt brand name project | College Moments
By SHANNON O. WELLS
In its 237-calendar year historical past, Pitt has taken on a branding undertaking exactly the moment, in 2019 and 2020, when the COVID pandemic and its ensuing fallout place the brakes on it, alongside with quite a few other tasks and initiatives.
Rachel Richelieu, vice chancellor of communications & marketing considering that May well 2023, is as a result keen to decide up exactly where the earlier effort and hard work left off and go forward with a brand campaign that emphasizes telling Pitt’s stories, but without having transforming its hues and logos. She shared the newest brand-enhancing concepts at the March 6 Faculty Assembly assembly held in Posvar Corridor.
“Relatively talking, (Pitt) is new at this, but it’s really vital to develop on this work, significantly offered the impactful work that we’re executing,” she stated, but it is also significant “that we be differentiated in how we are improved recognized (alongside with) the operate and the analysis and the effect of our team and students.”
Richelieu claimed the brand name platform is “really heading to assistance to placement our constant activation across the University” with an emphasis on strengthening Pitt’s brand name positioning “which seriously suggests how we communicate about ourselves … and how we demonstrate up visually (by way of) digital storytelling and so on. That’s genuinely essential.”
The venture will entail constructing out an annual integrated promoting system.
“A ton of this will be displaying up at the commencing of the academic yr,” she explained. “So we’re actually wanting at how to meaningfully hook up the dots with all of the distinct communities that we contact … so that people today have a increased comprehending and an psychological relationship with the University.”
Following a ask for for proposals in December, which captivated close to 25 advertising organizations, the world-wide business 160in excess of90 was chosen. Richelieu explained that the agency’s identify is “meant to depict an elevated blood stress, with the idea being that the perform they do and help to build is actually meant to be memorable and also hugely engaging.”
The agency, she explained, has a “healthy mix” of knowledge involving increased ed and non-educational institutional branding.In addition to work with professional sporting activities, amusement and style marketing and advertising, 160around90 has been the “agency of record” for the University of Virginia for 10 decades, like operating with numerous of its unique universities. “So there was certainly a large amount of similarities … in terms of the chances in some of our get the job done and some of the complexity in our natural environment,” she claimed.
“They have a significant capability around exploration and analytics, which is what we’ll be performing some work on below soon.”
To additional the manufacturer effort from 2019-20, which concerned engagement with far more than 1,000 stakeholders, Richelieu claimed she desires to make absolutely sure “we’re calibrating the qualitative and quantitative insights,” by means of updating brand name positioning, building a differentiated messaging and storytelling framework and participating in “standout daring, inventive, visible storytelling.”
Together with refinements to model identities, the task will take a look at usage of the Pitt script emblem on things like enterprise card templates, “especially when we have tons of complexity and career titles and other varieties of dimensions,” she reported. “Really building certain that we can create some overall flexibility but also regularity there.”
The job is now in the “discovery” period in which 160about90 gained a “data dump” of Pitt information and research results, “but we also labored incredibly closely with the enrollment group and with alumni relations to actually make certain that our company will get a greater comprehending of us and a large amount of our get the job done.” Company associates visited campus in late February, interviewing university student concentration groups and assembly with Chancellor Joan Gabel.
A quantitative study will consist of prospective learners and their parents, along with alumni, Pitt peers and partners.
The most obvious set of activities will come about close to Welcome 7 days in last August, such as large-effects movie, digital and social media written content, as properly as “some immersive points on campus.”
Two virtual aim teams are prepared to find input and comments from faculty. “It’s definitely intended as aspect of this exertion to have an understanding of and listen to from you instantly,” she reported to College Assembly. “What will make you very pleased, what differentiates Pitt in your encounter here? What are some of the factors that you believe are robust about how we converse about our tale? What are ways that we really should be contemplating differently?
“It’s genuinely meant to be a way to get a really varied set of factors of see,” she stated.
Shannon O. Wells is a author for the University Moments. Reach him at [email protected].
Have a story plan or information to share? Share it with the University Occasions.
