Institution-Wide Branding Programs

2010 Circle of Excellence Awards Program

Judges Report

Gold Award -Berry College

• Knocked it out of the park in terms of strategic delivery: They clearly understand who they are being a small population on a large campus. And they successfully converted that understanding into a benefit (firsthand experience).
  • Most importantly, this understanding was clearly communicated in every piece, especially with a consistent use of photos that show students engaging in firsthand experience.
  • Photos show doing and action; excellent job of accomplishing their message that most of their students work.
• Once the positioning was established, they created a visual identity system anchored in their differentiator, making it easy to "get" why you would want to go to school there.
• Berry used a classic academic look, including Oxford-like buildings in photos, which should help them when they compete with other strong academic schools like Emory.
• Their campaign easily lets people imagine and envision them being at this school, creating a sense of fun and belonging critical to persuading prospects to attend.
• However, there were a few areas that fell short:
  • The collection we reviewed often used a variety of typefaces, perhaps an inconsistency because of a lack of a graphic standards manual (which nearly all entries submitted), lack of adhering to the graphic standards manual, or too many different people on campus creating these pieces.

Berry has a strong sense of self but the new logo does not reflect that.  The logo is not consistent with the rest of the brand presentation but doesn't hamstring the story. The logo feels like a compromise or cop out: when you can't figure out what your logo should say, you reverse it out of a colored box.


Silver Award - Brock University

• Very strong planning and preparation; lengthy marketing plan were very detailed. The strongest component of this entry was the logistics and effort...second to none.
• Standards guide was one of the best we've ever seen. In particular, the explanation of how the positioning applies to different audiences was outstanding...and frequently missing at universities.
• Conversion of the positioning to the campaign idea (left brain/right brain) let to impactful executions that have real stopping power. And it was a new idea rather than covering territory too frequently used in higher education.
• Well-thought-out strategy, with well-rounded easily translated into both sides of the brain by readers.
• However, there were a few areas that fell short for the judges:
  • The reader might not always notice the both-sides-of-the-brain thing in some of the photos, but even when they don't work they get attention.
  • Creative technique somewhat disconnected from the key message. That is, what do the images say about these two sides of the brain? One side is normal (concrete) and the other abstract...which is not the main message in the positioning. So we felt there was a missing link between promotion of well-rounded and two parts of brain.
  • Our biggest critique was the disconnect between the positioning, the left brain/right brain campaign and the new logo with a fingerprint in logo. It was a disconnect that impeded the message. Not sure why the logo did not reinforce the two sides concept. Fingerprint was never articulated elsewhere.
  • Therefore, the unexpected is there but the relevance isn't always there
  • Publications don't give a sense of what the campus looks like, so students wanting to imagine and envision their life at Brock had to go elsewhere. Rarely does higher ed recruitment material not paint a picture of campus life.
  • The logo effort in general looked weak and generic with a simple box and the name reversed out.

Honorable Mention - Point Loma Nazarene University

• Outstanding creative solution to goal of establishing a consistent platform; best of all the entries at this. And the consistent solution is elegant and attractive.
• However, there was not enough evidence that the school achieved the rest of the goals at a level above the other entries.
• And the creative did not have as strong a positioning platform as we saw in other entries.