By SHANNON O. WELLS
In its 237-12 months heritage, Pitt has taken on a branding job particularly the moment, in 2019 and 2020, when the COVID pandemic and its resulting fallout put the brakes on it, along with quite a few other assignments and initiatives.
Rachel Richelieu, vice chancellor of communications & advertising given that May well 2023, is therefore eager to decide up where by the former hard work left off and shift forward with a brand name marketing campaign that emphasizes telling Pitt’s stories, but without transforming its shades and logos. She shared the most recent model-improving ideas at the March 6 College Assembly conference held in Posvar Hall.
“Relatively speaking, (Pitt) is new at this, but it’s actually crucial to construct on this perform, specifically presented the impactful do the job that we’re performing,” she claimed, but it is also vital “that we be differentiated in how we are superior understood (together with) the work and the study and the impact of our workers and students.”
Richelieu claimed the brand name platform is “really likely to help to posture our steady activation throughout the University” with an emphasis on strengthening Pitt’s model positioning “which really means how we speak about ourselves … and how we show up visually (by) digital storytelling and so on. That is genuinely important.”
The venture will include constructing out an yearly integrated advertising and marketing program.
“A good deal of this will be showing up at the starting of the educational year,” she claimed. “So we’re seriously searching at how to meaningfully hook up the dots with all of the distinct communities that we touch … so that persons have a greater being familiar with and an psychological connection with the College.”
Adhering to a ask for for proposals in December, which captivated close to 25 promoting organizations, the world wide firm 160over90 was selected. Richelieu described that the agency’s name is “meant to signify an elevated blood tension, with the idea becoming that the work they do and support to develop is truly meant to be memorable and also hugely engaging.”
The agency, she said, has a “healthy mix” of knowledge in between increased ed and non-educational institutional branding.In addition to get the job done with experienced sports activities, enjoyment and fashion advertising and marketing, 160above90 has been the “agency of record” for the University of Virginia for 10 decades, like working with lots of of its unique schools. “So there was certainly a ton of similarities … in phrases of the alternatives in some of our do the job and some of the complexity in our natural environment,” she explained.
“They have a significant capability all over investigation and analytics, which is what we’ll be performing some do the job on in this article shortly.”
To additional the brand name energy from 2019-20, which associated engagement with extra than 1,000 stakeholders, Richelieu stated she wishes to make certain “we’re calibrating the qualitative and quantitative insights,” by way of updating manufacturer positioning, building a differentiated messaging and storytelling framework and engaging in “standout bold, resourceful, visual storytelling.”
Along with refinements to brand identities, the project will analyze usage of the Pitt script symbol on merchandise like small business card templates, “especially when we have plenty of complexity and task titles and other types of proportions,” she said. “Really building guaranteed that we can make some flexibility but also consistency there.”
The undertaking is now in the “discovery” stage in which 160around90 acquired a “data dump” of Pitt information and study results, “but we also labored quite closely with the enrollment crew and with alumni relations to really make absolutely sure that our agency will get a superior comprehending of us and a great deal of our do the job.” Company associates frequented campus in late February, interviewing university student concentrate teams and conference with Chancellor Joan Gabel.
A quantitative survey will involve future students and their moms and dads, alongside with alumni, Pitt peers and associates.
The most obvious established of activities will transpire close to Welcome 7 days in very last August, including superior-effect movie, digital and social media written content, as nicely as “some immersive points on campus.”
Two digital concentrate teams are prepared to seek enter and feed-back from faculty. “It’s definitely meant as element of this effort and hard work to fully grasp and listen to from you instantly,” she stated to School Assembly. “What helps make you very pleased, what differentiates Pitt in your encounter here? What are some of the matters that you consider are strong about how we discuss about our tale? What are techniques that we ought to be imagining in another way?
“It’s truly meant to be a way to get a quite numerous set of points of view,” she claimed.
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the College Periods. Arrive at him at [email protected].
Have a story idea or information to share? Share it with the University Instances.
