'Trigger' Events
Branding and strategic planning should be closely coupled. In this ideal world your long-term strategic plan outlines your long-term business objectives (including reiterating your commitments to your core mission, and any major changes, extensions, investments, etc.) and your aspirational brand identity (desired reputation points and associations). Likewise your annual plans track and measure your current business performance (rankings, admission yields, graduation rates, faculty recruitment and retention, media hits and exposures, alumni engagement, donor participation, etc.) along with your current brand image and positioning (current brand awareness, reputation, associations, etc.). Doesn’t this sound like Nirvana, Utopia and the Holy Grail all in one?!?! Well, sometimes theory and best practice do not always reflect current reality – but that’s no excuse for not setting out to more closely align your business and brand planning processes!
I mention this now because a recent client project made me think of how branding initiatives usually stem from some ‘trigger’ event. These ‘trigger’ events come in the form of changes in leadership (new presidents, chancellors, deans, vice presidents, etc.), the close or launch of a campaign, fluctuations in performance (unfortunately, usually of the undesirable kind), reactions to trends (decreasing number of college bound children), and as a client just realized the opportunity of transitioning from a school within a college to an independent college within the university. Whatever the ‘trigger’ event may be, the important part is to now view branding as an ongoing process, not just a simple project, and to incorporate branding into your annual and long-term strategic planning. And remember, you’ll never find nirvana, utopia or the Holy Grail if you don’t set out to do so!
-- Lo de Janvry