It's all in your head

The president of Coca-Cola once said you could knock down all the company's bottling plants and machinery, destroy all its trucks and take away all its property, and Coca-Cola would be back on its feet in no time - as long as the brand survived. The people who measure these things say the company's brand is worth $70 billion - the most valuable one on Earth.

What is this multi-billion dollar thing, and what does "brand" have to do with a university?

Two weeks ago Office of Public Affairs Director Lee Elliott and Creative Services Director Ray Au assembled about 90 faculty and department communicators from across the university assembled to take part in a panel discussion on the subject.

"We are the people who communicate who and what the University of Alberta is," said Elliott. "We communicate that 'promise' of who we are, and so it is important to get together periodically and ask ourselves if we are communicating that promise accurately: are we communicating what that U of A experience is now, versus what it was 10 years ago and is that experience the one that people really value?"

A panel of experts, Andy Feher, a partner with Edmonton-based Margaret Kool Marketing; Wei Yew, an award-winning designer and publisher; Dave Jacox, creative director for Margaret Kool Marketing; and Bonnie Sadler Takach, a professor in the Department of Art and Design, discussed the idea of 'brand'.

Brands are the ultimate abstractions, as shown by this sample of panelists' definitions: a brand is a promise; a pledge of quality; an image; a combination of words and letters, symbols, and colours; a collection of memories of an organization, product or service; an impression of a product; what an organization wants its audience to believe about itself.

Coke's $70-billion abstraction, then, lives primarily in the minds of consumers. Its value lies in what it encourages those minds to do. In that case, it's to buy Coke. Lots of it.

Branding has become one of marketing's basic tools. The act of branding, says Feher, "is a number of specific, planned actions to give a clear, focused understanding of what the organization wants you to believe." Products can be branded relatively quickly today: consider Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike, Westjet, or Telus.

According to Feher, a brand has to be different, unique, representative, and truthful. It has to have a long life and it has to motivate action.

Wei Yew describes the process of branding this way: "first, you have to define who you are and know your position compared to all the others that offer a similar product or service; then you have to build your strength, recognizing you can't be all things to all people. You have to know your markets and target accordingly, you have to be consistent and different, you have to promote the benefits of your product, and you need to create clear messages and ensure everyone is giving the right messages."

A brand is successful when the consumer thinks 'Nike' instead of just 'running shoe', 'Starbucks' instead of 'coffee', Coke instead of 'soft drink'. University of Alberta instead of … what?

Over the past decade branding's status as a dirty word has been upgraded on campuses across the continent. In Canada, some form of branding has been embraced by UBC, York, Ottawa, Queen's, and McMaster (where its provost, former U of A Dean of Arts Ken Norrie, chairs the university's branding steering committee), among many others.

Whereas some colleges, especially in the US, turn to branding for their very survival, Canadian universities do it for that elusive advantage in the competition for top students and faculty, research dollars and government and donor support.

Phyllis Clark, the U of A's vice-president of finance and administration, was at York when it went through the process of establishing its brand. "It was a worthwhile exercise," she said. "We looked across the academy and realized we weren't just Toronto's 'other university'. It invigorated our thinking and allowed us to create solid messages that enhanced the appeal of York."

Typically, notions of branding a university as the next Harvard are quickly discarded and creating solid messages, or a "unified front" is a significant victory. Doug Olsen, a marketing expert in the university's School of Business, observes that "the University of Alberta has a vast array of departments with the potential to send out conflicting messages." Ultimately, these conflicts hurt the university, he says. A branding exercise would aid the university by getting more common messages out, he says.

Bonnie Sadler Takach captures the view of branding's many detractors. "The concept of branding makes me think of a monolithic, enforceable stamp we're all forced to use. I don't like the way it seems to restrict freedom."

The perceived threat to the individuality of specific departments is the greatest challenge for institutions that attempt to brand themselves. Olsen says this is overcome when the overall brand "sends signals to the different faculties with key themes about what's important to their stakeholders. It helps them see what they need to do to be successful." The key, he says, is the brand "is just enough of an abstraction that all faculties can see themselves contained in it."

University Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Dr. Carl Amrhein has a separate concern. He is in favour of a university looking at itself, establishing a clear vision and finding ways to make sure the community knows the true story. But he's leery of the term 'branding'. "In my experience I've seen the brand get ahead of the truth," he said, "and that can be dangerous."

He's right, and panelists like Feher insist a brand needs to be honest: you can't promise something you're unable to deliver. And no matter what name you give it, people have a perception of your firm or product and that perception is meaningful.

"The U of A has a brand, whether you articulated it or not," said Feher. "There's an impression we all have out there of the University of Alberta."

So, what is that impression? Is it the right impression? And if that impression isn't the right one, what is?

Creative director Dave Jacox is blunt when confronted with the notion that the University of Alberta is too large and too diverse to define its brand.

"I don't know what the university brand is, but if you can't define it within your own organization, you have a problem," he said. "There has to be a central essence you can boil it all down to."

What's our story?

In 250 words or less, describe the U of A experience
By Andrew Leitch

In his comments about branding during a recent panel discussion, Dave Jacox, creative director with the Edmonton firm Margaret Kool Marketing, said any organization must have a central essence, one that can be captured in a "brand."

Even though it's the "oldest trick in the book," he says it is a revealing exercise to imagine your organization as a person, and to describe that person.

The organization can also be described as an experience or in a story that conveys its values and role. Last year for example, Vancouver-based VanCity, Canada's largest credit union, asked its staff to research and write the 'story' of VanCity. The idea was to have staff and VanCity members describe the credit union in order to discover what makes it unique, to understand what the organization is about and what it aspires to, in the eyes of its members and staff.

The end result of the exercise was a story book about VanCity entitled Things Grow Here. Staff have committed to ensuring the story comes true for all its members.

As Folio's publication year nears its close, and minds recover from the various year-end activities across the university, the editors offer this challenge: Do the exercise above. In 250 words or less describe the U of A experience - tell us the U of A story. Send it to us. Our panel of judges will publish a selection of entries in the May 27 edition of Folio. E-mail your entries marked 'Folio Assignment' to: caitlin.crawshaw@exr.ualberta.ca