“Brand” is one of today’s buzzwords.
One reason: It can have many meanings, depending on how it’s used and who’s using it.
Matt Tarver, ’92, ’95, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s branding manager, says definitions of “brand” range from simple to complex.
“A brand can just be a catchphrase, or a logo or a repeatedly used color combination. But it should be so much more. A strong brand connects with people in a way that evokes an emotional reaction.
“And, although a brand can mean many things to various people, an effective brand still carries certain universal associations. Most corporations, for example, want consumers to associate terms such as ‘quality,’ ‘safety’ and ‘value’ with their products.”
In higher education, branding is usually intended to set a university apart from its competitors. An effective brand communicates a university’s core principles.
“Our brand expresses who we are. It’s shaped by how we talk about our work, how we treat students and faculty, the impact we have and our history,” Tarver said.
Although corporations and universities may use the word a little differently, both want their brands to evoke the same emotion: loyalty.
In late 2008, the University hired Lipman Hearne,
a Chicago-based consulting firm that specializes in higher education branding, to help articulate its brand. Lipman Hearne worked with top UL Lafayette administrators, academic deans, and a 35-member Branding Project Task Force.
It conducted online surveys and face-to-face interviews, tapping into a variety of audiences, such as high school guidance counselors and teachers, prospective students, higher education leaders and the general public. It also analyzed the higher education market in Louisiana.
Lipman Hearne’s research findings provided insight needed to develop an effective brand positioning strategy.
The next phase of the firm’s work focused on expressing the essence of the University. It began with this question: What does UL Lafayette offer that is distinctive, valuable and worthy of a personal investment? The answers, along with the research findings, would form a brand platform, or foundation, for all University marketing communication.
Lipman Hearne then crafted, tested and refined specific messages that it recommended the University should use to convey its brand.
By December 2009, Lipman Hearne had crystallized the brand platform to: “We are smart, spirited and seeking solutions.”
It then drafted six key messages to support that position.
- This is our time and we’re determined to make the most of it.
- We’re eager to share what we’re learning.
- We teach the real meaning of joie de vivre.
- We have a gift for bringing people together.
- We conduct research for a reason.
- Our Ragin’ Cajun® spirit goes beyond athletics.
(See related story, pages 30 - 31)
The Office of Communications and Marketing prepared a digital “branding toolkit” that includes an overview of branding, a graphic standards manual and UL Lafayette’s branding messages. Its staff began talking with groups of University personnel and giving them the toolkit on jump drives shaped like the University’s fleur-de-lis.
“For a University’s branding campaign to be successful, it must first be embraced on campus by administrators, faculty, staff and students. We must speak with one voice,” said Aaron Martin, ’91, ’95, director of Communications and Marketing. “Our brand has evolved gradually. We have embraced it and are living our brand.”
One challenge is that the University has had four names in its almost 115-year history:
Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, Southwestern Louisiana Institute, the University of Southwestern Louisiana and, since 1999, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
For almost 20 years, former University of Louisiana at Lafayette president Dr. Ray Authement and other University leaders had steadfastly championed changing USL’s name. They contended that “Southwestern” gave the impression that the University was a regional, rather than statewide, institution. “Double-directional” names, such as Southwestern Louisiana, are more commonly used to identify two-year community colleges than four-year universities in the United States.
And, Authement often noted that the University’s name changes were never arbitrary.
“Every name change has reflected the growth and progression of this institution. The switch to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is no different,” he said in an interview with La Louisiane in 1995. “Our new name, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, will better reflect what USL has become – a nationally competitive university.”
Branding has captured higher education’s interest primarily in the past 20 years.
But Dr. Edwin Stephens began branding Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute soon after he was hired as its first president on Jan. 3, 1900. He was charged with literally establishing a postsecondary institution to serve south Louisiana.
The 27-year-old former high school chemistry and physics teacher from New Orleans was responsible for almost every aspect of SLII’s development.
Although he might not have described it as branding, his decisions shaped the school’s identity.
Over the years, Stephens cultivated an environment conducive to the mission of an institution of higher learning.
So, as SLII grew, its campus reflected a classic architectural style often associated with colleges and universities. A Quadrangle was formed by buildings and connected by an arcade, for example.
One of the most meaningful ways that Stephens contributed to SLII’s brand was by planting oak seedlings on campus on New Year’s Day in 1901. Of course, he knew that it would take decades for them to become majestic trees.
The gesture showed that he was shaping SLII’s campus strategically. When grown, the oak trees became symbols of the school’s strength, stability and foresight.
Stephens also influenced the school’s brand when he helped design Southwestern Louisiana Institute’s seal.
Adopted in 1926, the crest commemorated SLII’s accreditation as a four-year college and dropping “Industrial” from its name.
A traditional higher education symbol, the seal features a wreath of oak leaves and incorporates three fleurs-de-lis to symbolize Louisiana’s historical ties to France.
A less obvious, but nonetheless significant, branding element was Stephens’ personal attention to students’ welfare. Almost 10 years after his death in 1938, The Vermilion, SLI’s student newspaper, noted that his correspondence “is filled with letters to anxious parents informing them of the progress of Marie’s cold, or John’s Measles, of Henry’s lack of attention in class or Elizabeth’s weakness in Arithmetic.”
Stephens’ successors maintained, in their own ways, the campus culture he had carefully crafted. For example, Dr. Lether Frazar, SLI’s second president, supervised a construction boom during his two-year term. He maintained the traditional, timeless architectural style of campus. Dr. Joel Lafayette Fletcher Jr., the school’s third leader, earned a reputation for remembering students’ names and for keeping in touch with students who were serving in the armed forces during World War II.
Dr. Clyde Rougeou and Dr. Ray P. Authement continued to position the school as a place where students received personal attention, even after SLI had become the University of Southwestern Louisiana, the second-largest public, four-year university in the state.
In 1992, Joseph Savoie, ’76, ’81, was the first to fill a new seat in Authement’s administration: vice president of Advancement.
In higher education circles, “advancement” refers to programs and activities that are intended to help people understand and support a school’s educational goals. At UL Lafayette, advancement is the umbrella for fundraising; communications and marketing; and alumni affairs.
When he became vice president of Advancement, Savoie was director of USL’s Alumni Association for 10 years. Under his leadership, the Association grew from about 350 members to roughly 8,000 members; the number of alumni chapters more than doubled.
With Savoie’s guidance, the Alumni Association introduced a licensing program in 1988 to manage and protect the use of USL’s name and logos.
In his first year as vice president of Advancement, the University expanded the Office of News Services to include public relations. Julie Simon-Dronet, ’81,was hired as the first director of Public Relations and News Services. She already had a successful career in the health care industry.
Dronet had not been working for USL long when Savoie handed her a cardboard box with some file folders in it. “Now that we have a PR department, it makes sense for you guys to manage our logos and use of our logos,” he told her.
One of Dronet’s first goals was to protect Ragin’ Cajuns, which national media have frequently called the best nickname in collegiate athletics.
The University began by using the initials TM with Ragin’ Cajuns. By common law, the TM told the public that anyone who wanted to use the name for a commercial purpose would need the University’s permission.
Dronet later contracted Dean Domingue, ’80, a patent attorney who is now special counsel in the Jones Walker law firm. He was aware of the growing popularity of the nickname and urged the University to register it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Registration defines ownership, so it would assure protection of the nickname.
“Only two months after the University began to pursue registration, we learned that an out-of-state company was attempting to register ‘Ragin’ Cajuns’ for itself,” she recalled later. That challenge slowed registration a bit. But in 1996, the University was granted federal registration for Ragin’ Cajuns, which made ownership official and granted legal rights to its use.
In the meantime, Dronet gathered as many samples of printed material as she could find across campus that used the University’s name or related graphics or “marks.” She demonstrated that, collectively, it was a visual train wreck.
No representation was consistent. There was no distinction between academics and athletics. Vermilion, one of the official school colors, ran a gamut of shades of red. Typefaces were varied and random.
So Dronet formed a University committee to brainstorm about an official University logo. Ultimately, the group settled on a fleur-de-lis icon. She also hired Nancy Pontiff Marcotte, ’83, then a freelance graphic designer, to develop an academic logo. It was the first logo in the school’s history to combine an image and words.
Critics complained that the New Orleans Saints professional football team had already claimed a fleur-de-lis for its logo. But the University’s seal, with its three stylized fleurs-de-lis, had been in use for 41 years before the Saints team was created.
Once the new University logo was tweaked and approved, Marcotte designed official letterhead, envelopes and business cards that incorporated it. Authement made its use mandatory and Public Relations and News Services produced a graphic standards manual to ensure conformity.
By requiring a uniform “look” for the most basic official documents, the University announced that it was taking control of its graphic identity and expressing pride in its heritage.
With registration of Ragin’ Cajuns and creation of an academic logo checked off its to do list, the University turned its attention to developing a brand identity for Ragin’ Cajuns.
The University had established a strong relationship with Collegiate Licensing Company, which works with about 200 of the nation’s top universities to protect, promote and expand their brands.
Savoie recommended that Dronet contact Sean Michael Edwards Design in New York City. That firm had created logos for the NFL, NBA, NHL and many major universities, such as the University of Florida, Penn State, the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She formed a 13-member Visual Identity Committee to work with Sean Michael Edwards. Members represented key University personnel, alumni and student-athletes.
That committee determined that Ragin’ Cajun is not an animal or person. Instead, it describes a culture and feeling. “It means hot and spicy food. It means zydeco and Cajun French music. It’s festivals. It’s people who work hard, play hard and spend Sundays with their families,” Dronet said in a 1998 interview. “When you add ‘Ragin’ ’ in front of ‘Cajun,’ you get athletic teams that are hot, exciting and on the move.”
Timing was key. When USL introduced its athletics mark in 1998, it was preparing to change its name to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. It had launched a fundraising campaign in conjunction with the University’s Centennial Celebration that culminated in 2000.
“Everybody wanted the new Ragin’ Cajun marks. When USL’s name changed to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1999, fans wanted the new marks with the new name. That really helped to grow our program and got people more excited about wearing our merchandise,” Dronet said.
In 2000, the Ragin’ Cajuns’ athletics marks got national media exposure when the University’s baseball team competed in the College World Series for the first time in school history.
The sale of baseball caps with the Ragin’ Cajuns’ logo is one anecdotal indication of the success of the athletics marks. In 2008, Lids was one of the largest collegiate retailers of caps in the United States. It sold 38 styles of UL Lafayette caps in markets as far away as Montana, Arizona and Colorado.