Presented by University Relations: Laura Johnson and Katie
Eissinger
Communications within
the University of Minnesota must be kept on brand, but how do you be creative
while still complying?
Laura and Katie started off the presentation by defining what they think of the brand: It’s the space that you occupy in your audience’s mind.
Elements of the brand
are positioning, tone and voice, and visual identity. These help our audience
cut through the clutter.
Driven to Discover is
the brand position and it showcases who we are, how we’re set apart. The brand
position is broken down further. Driven is our passion to understand our world.
Discover is our focus and passion to change our world. It empowers the students
and the community. The brand position was established in 2006 and was all about
connecting to the mission of the University of Minnesota.
The voice of the brand
is leaders and being imaginative and daring. The tone is engaging, intriguing,
and motivating.
Why is it important to
connect to the brand? It helps with recruitment of students and faculty. It
engages alumni pride. The brand helps secure research proposals and grants.
It’s an umbrella under which we can communicate our messages.
By connecting to the
brand, departments can capitalize on what’s already working as the brand is
held in high regard nationwide. Departments can leverage the university’s
investments and it helps to amplify the departments’ stories too.
Staying on brand means
the primary colors used on all communications should be maroon and gold. To be
creative, there are accent colors that can be used to help differentiate
departments, and different graphic elements may be employed.
Panel: Monica Wittstock, Assistant Director of Communications, Law School Amy Leyden, Director of Marketing & Sales, McNamara Alumni Center Lisa Gruszka, Director of Orientation Programs, Orientation & Transition Experiences
The panel of University communicators shared
their experiences planning and executing highly successful marketing and communications
campaigns at the University. Between the panel members and the moderator, all
have years of service with the University ranging from 14-20 years.
Shawn
opened the conversation with asking, “What excites you about being a U
Communicator?
Monica: She has a love for
communications and for advancing missions and goals for the organization. She
also continues to learn through the new and emerging technologies.
Lisa: She works with new
students and families, and she gets to watch how they interact with the
communications that are put out. She mentioned how great it is to see all of
the students together at convocation because she knows her team had a part in
bringing them all together.
Amy: She never imagined she
would be at the same job for 20 years. She loves the product she sells and
believes the team she hired has excellent customer service. The evolution of
communications keeps her interested with the development of digital print and
social media. She continues to be energized and challenged by the ways we can
communicate.
Shawn noted
how there’s motivation and pride for the U and how at Printing Services they
often remind themselves of the academic mission.
Shawn asked,
“What’s been the most challenging project or part of communication?”
Lisa: She stated because
they’re a central unit they often contend with competing interest, such as
other colleges or departments. Everyone has a different angle.
A key challenge is communicating the messages
that are important at that specific time.
They often help identify what the best strategy
for communicating is because there’s 50-70 departments communicating to
students.
Another challenge is working with the new
generation of students and understanding them, learning how they may not be
reading the communications being sent out.
Amy: A big challenge is
convincing people who aren’t familiar with the U to come to the U for events.
Non-U clients often assume there’s difficulties finding location and parking,
and they worry about students interfering. They have a lot of messaging to
assure people that this is all managed. Images have also been super important
in messaging in order to sell the venue.
Monica: They’re a top 20 law
school and so they’re in competition with others. Their challenge is making
sure their messaging says that Minneapolis is the place to come. Print
materials and social media are used to get messaging out and to help make
events look more fun.
Budget is another challenge because they want
to do more than is affordable.
Faculty can be a challenge because they have
ideas on how they want things to look that isn’t in line with how the
department communicates.
They
have to make sure they stay on brand.
They
have to help faculty understand why.
Shawn
asked, “How did you overcome a challenge and what made it successful?”
Monica: Their annual impact of
giving report is a big project. The challenge is getting people to donate. It
was proven successful because the report delivers the message that state
funding is getting less each year and that donations are very important. They
received many donations after the report.
Lisa: The biggest project
undertaken is the Gold Book. They used to take about six weeks to stuff about
14,000 folders with papers and it became overwhelming for students and
families. After researching what other colleges and universities were doing,
they worked with Shawn and Lisa at Printing Services to create the Gold Book.
It’s written from the student’s perspective rather than from the department’s.
The publication is theme-based, meaning there’s a section on safety that
encompasses more than policing, as an example.
It took a lot of coaching with departments to
get them to change how they communicate.
They used an external editor to ensure there’s
one voice rather than many throughout the publication.
Amy: The website is one of
the most important marketing pieces. They figured out it wasn’t beneficial to
brand as belonging to the U because it doesn’t capture non-U clients. Since
they’re privately owned, they can do things differently. When redesigning the
website, they radically suggested moving away from the U of M branding.
Instead, they played on the architecture of the building and used rich colors
like gold and copper. Moving off brand has been really effective has it’s
bringing in outside business. They have won two national awards: TheKnot.com
and UniqueVenues.com.
Shawn: “What
does your planning process look like? What details are important?”
Lisa: They figure out what
challenge they want to solve, such as having students read their newsletter.
Branding heavily with maroon and gold and using special cut-out tabs were
elements they wanted to include. There’s a lot of negotiating back and forth
what the end product should look like. Her process is to always come with an
idea, ask if it’s possible, and work through the steps to make it happen.
Monica: A lot of print is used
at the law school. They have to figure out what their goal is and how to fit it
into the overall message. Many of their donors are not digital savvy and that
affects their focus. She primarily has worked with Julie Longo, meeting with
her and talking over the vision. They often go over what has been done in the
past. It’s iterative. The trust that people can have with the printing and
design team helps make for an excellent product as well.
Amy: She loves that
printing will meet her where she’s at. She often sketches out the ideas on
paper and gives it to Shawn. They’ll have a dialogue of what’s recommended or
what should be tweaked. She always asks for a sample before deciding on mass
production. Open communication has been key and it needs to be clear.
Shawn:
“Can
you share about what’s comping up or what’s currently being worked on?”
Amy: In February 2020, it
will be McNamara’s 20th anniversary. They’ll probably have a
commemorative logo and an ice rink out on the plaza. They want to do things
that will integrate with the U community. They’re also thinking of events
they’ll host themselves that are more mission driven, such as a blood drive.
Lisa: They’re looking at
what they’re doing with the web and video. She also is looking at the challenge
of getting ahead of SnapChat as one of the communication channels that students
are using.
Monica: They’re converting to
Drupal8. Redesigning the website is one of their big projects. They’re also
working with the digital version of the alumni magazine.
Questions
from the audience
For Amy: What
advice do you have on giving your users a platform to share about their
experiences at McNamara?
Amy: Clients
are their great ambassadors and help sell the venue. Tagging and general social
media is in their favor as well. They also ask to share posts and they receive
a lot of testimonials from clients.
For Lisa: How
can other departments be more strategic in their communications? How do you
open up those conversations so that they’re not in silos?
Lisa: They
do an audit where they take all of the communication that’s shared by
departments at orientation. A content map is created and they figure out how often
information is being shared. They look for redundancies, which to eliminate and
which that need to be emphasized such as academic expectations. Departments get
coached on what their message is so it’s not being continuously repeated.
Moving to SalesForce will help them track messages being communicated easier.
For everyone: Can
you talk about some different measures to evaluate whether your communication
is successful or not?
Amy: They
have a form that asks “how did you hear about us.” They also have a promo code
sometimes and, if it’s used, that tells them of success as well.
Monica:
Anything that gets sent to donors has special tracking. They’re able to compare
how many people have donated versus how many received letters. They also check
their mentions and social media.
University of Minnesota Printing Services
2818 Como Avenue S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55414
P: 612-625-9500 | F: 612-626-9500 Contact Printing Services