Hello.

First they dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet. Then they delivered medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner. And now in the midst of a severe financial crisis, they undertook an expensive and time consuming re-positioning and branding initiative. So, who are they? Well the fizzies and the cadavers were the work of our friends at Delta Tau Chi also known as Animal House. As for the branding initiative? That was spearheaded (or manhandled) by Bruce Shepard, the new president at Western Washington University possibly with the assistance of Dean Wormer and Niedermeyer given its boneheadedness.

So, what’s the big deal here anyway? Well, we may argue about merits (or lack of) of the most visible outcome of this initiative – the new brand identity, but more importantly this initiative appears to be misguided on many levels. And, from my perspective, a poor process and outcome reflects badly on the business I’m in – brand strategy and design. Re-positioning and branding is a complex, time-consuming and expensive endeavor, especially at a large academic institution. It requires commitment from a diverse set of stakeholders, a clear and focused path to success and, finally well-organized implementation. There are numerous recent success stories, such as the University of Phoenix, Macquarie University and even the nearby Vancouver Island University; unfortunately this one appears to be more of a cautionary tale. Well, to quote Dean Wormer, “The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.”

The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.

A lot of questions have been raised by this branding initiative, but the most obvious is, why? Why undertake this now with many academic institutions, including Western, in deep financial trouble? Why divert the time and energy especially “during these times of severe budget cutbacks”? Why create confusion and uncertainty when, now more than ever, focus and clarity is needed? However, in spite of this, according to the university, the goal is to “increase the overlap between how Western’s campus community perceives itself and how others see the university.” Noble goals, for sure, but right now? Really?

Re-positioning and new branding is undertaken for a number of reasons. It may be purely functional in the case of a merger or name change.

Goodbye cute NBC Universal peacock. Hello tepid type on purple.

It may be undertaken when reputation is in trouble. Look for a new BP identity coming to a gas station near you soon. Or it may be to signal a wider scope of services such as in the case of UPS who eliminated the cute little package in favor of positioning that reflects its strength in logistics.

Paul Rand is weeping in his grave.

In most cases, these changes are positive and provide an opportunity to build further brand equity. However, in the case of Western, to re-position and introduce a new brand identity merely to improve perceptions has, in fact, created a perception of frivolous spending and an inappropriate use of resources. This negative perception is furthered especially when the process and the final outcome of the brand identity is so questionable.

Okay, another question? How much did this initiative cost?  Well, according to Paul Cocke, Director of University Communications, the university spent $112,000. The funding was from “earnings from service-delivery functions by the university,” which apparently means not from the state taxpayers or tuition. Well, no matter where the money comes from, we all know that it’s in short supply and needs to be spent appropriately. If we’re talking about improving perceptions or raising the visibility of Western, then I think there are other areas that address this more directly. In fact, according the Seattle Times, fewer students have applied to WWU this year, because the school scaled back recruitment efforts to save money. Hey, how about we spend it on recruiting? Jes’ sayin’.

So, where did they spend it? Well, apparently they hired “top Seattle commercial branding firm,” Lyric to help research and re-imagine Western’s identity. Good luck if you can find much info on the firm (well, actually, it’s one person) or what the criterion is for being ranked at the top. They, in turn, hired Epiphany Research (well again, it’s actually one person) to collaborate on the research portion. Now, I’m sure the university went through some sort of RFP process and did their due diligence, but I’m having a lot of trouble understanding or seeing any background or expertise in institutional or academic branding – one of the more challenging areas of branding.

Now Western has a lot of bright and talented people – it’s a university, fer chrissakes! It has a superb College of Business and Economics in addition to an outstanding Fine Art department that includes a nationally recognized design program. I know. I’ve hired several of their graduates. But unfortunately, no one was included on the project leadership team from the design program and apparently no one in business school raised their hand along the way.

It’s often said that design is a bit like sausage, it is better not to see them being made. That being said, the outcome still should be tasty and appealing. However, in this case it seems like the university essentially undertook a long in-depth and time consuming research study. So what did they learn? From what I can tell in reading the quantitative reports from the alumni and student survey, there wasn’t anything really pressing or wrong! In fact, the first key point states, “a love fest”. The big problem? A bit more diversity would be nice and, oh, some more school spirit. However, 51% chose Western due to the academics and its reputation. Other more practical or objective considerations were affordability, class/campus size, curriculum and proximity to home. Many of these considerations are ones that will be directly affected by budget shortfalls. The survey results for faculty and staff stated that they chose Western because of the location, the academics and the size – all very positive images. The stated misperceptions? The feeling that they are over-compensated, elitist and too liberal. I think that you’d find that misperception at most colleges and universities in the United States. Many of these issues are ones that a new identity or position is ever going to directly address. So where is this research that points to a need to “increase the overlap between how Western’s campus community perceives itself and how others see the university.”

So, at the end of this “sausage making” process we have the visual touchstone – the new brand identity. Now this is also where it gets weird. After spending a great deal of time and money on the research and re-imagining phase with a “top Seattle commercial branding firm”, the identity portion was handed over to a student at Western. Now I commend them for engaging in one of their own and, no matter how talented or skilled, isn’t that like having one the accounting students do the books for the university?

Introducing a new brand identity is a tricky and delicate dance. Starbucks recently revised their brand identity only slightly (for the better I might add) and still received a bit of flak.

The retailer, Gap, committed identity hari-kari recently indicating where the gap truly lies. What this means is that people need to be educated, perceptions have to be managed and the reasons or the stories behind the identity need to make sense. Unfortunately, in this case, they weren’t and they don’t.

Apparently, the “concept” (I use that term loosely here) of the mountain and the bay was developed by Lyric despite the fact that these are not unique to the institution nor due they clearly convey the academic excellence of Western. In fact, just on purely visual evidence we can find numerous cases of the mountain and water motif most notably from a little college up the road called Skagit Valley College. I don’t think it was intentional, I just think that the designer inherited a weak “concept” that fell more into the civic/community design approach. But perhaps this approach appeals to someone from Wisconsin like President Shepard who is still enamored with the Pacific Northwest scenery, but I think his academic institution deserves better. It’s a university and not a convention bureau.

But how does the actual designer of the new WWU mark feel about it? He says, “I’m very meh about the design. I was asked to show them stuff the next morning, so I only had a couple hours to work it before [the] presentation. It’s certainly not the highest quality logo I’ve done. If I could have been apart of research, and had six weeks or so, I’d feel a lot better about it”. This is what we do after spending $112,000? Oh, and by the way, he originally wasn’t paid proving once again that you get what you paid for. Perhaps Western’s biggest problem is not perception, but with ethics? Now to be clear, President Shepard did call him into his office and offer him $500 (hush money?). The designer, apparently turned him down.

And so, now we have a new ill-conceived identity, a grammatically incorrect tagline, “Active Minds Changing Lives,” and all of this launching in the midst of when high school seniors everywhere are deciding on where to college. Perhaps President Shepard’s real game was to attract students from Wisconsin and elsewhere to visit beautiful Bellingham Bay and Mt. Baker and while they’re here pay three times as much in tuition and fees. Just don’t let them find out that you really can’t see Mt. Baker from campus. Now I know that visual communication can be very subjective. We all have our unique experiences, our likes and dislikes and generally random associations with various items. In the medical world, we say, “do no evil,” and in the visual communication realm the thing we need to keep in mind is, “do not confuse”. I think many of us are a bit confused. Look for a growing Facebook backlash soon.

In the final analysis, you can’t hold a whole design agency responsible for the poor outcome of a single individual. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole design industry? And if the whole design industry is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our creative institutions in general? I put it to you, isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you -want, but were not going to sit here and listen you to you badmouth the United States of America. In fact, my advice to you, President Shepard, is to start drinking heavily.