Your Insights Are Needed for HU Branding Study

It’s been over 20 years. It’s time to do the work. Your assistance as an HU faculty/staff member is absolutely needed. It will only take 10-15 minutes. Details are below:

What: HU is partnering with the Brand Innovation Group of Fort Wayne to conduct a brand identity study, focusing on HU’s core values and brand attributes. Brand Innovation Group has a long history with HU, first assisting with the name change from College to University in 2005. Their mission statement is “Love God. Love People. Love Branding.” Their client list includes organizations such as Focus on the Family, Trane, Water Furnace, Aunt Millie’s, LPL Financial, and Dallas Theological Seminary.

What it isn’t: This is not a total rebrand project with a new logo. It also isn’t an extra budget expense. We were able to reallocate existing resources to facilitate the brand study.

Why: HU hasn’t done a brand study in over 20 years. The most recent was in 2004, before the name change in 2005. HU is a significantly different place now than it was in 2004 (DMA, nursing, agriculture, OTD, HU Arizona, ABSN, etc.).

The last brand study, in conjunction with the 2005 name change, produced focused institutional messaging that helped HU recruit the largest new student class on record in 2008, followed by the second and third largest classes in 2009 and 2010.

Professional marketers agree that leadership change is a great time to revisit brand identity.

How: Data is being gathered in a variety of quantitative and qualitative fashions. There will be up to 30 individual interviews and a large number of online surveys. The online surveys use the same questions as the individual interviews. Responses are intended to be anonymous to gather the most honest and helpful data.

Who: The Trustees and PACE members completed the survey last month, and now it is your turn. Other groups to be surveyed this month include alumni, parents, current students, and local community leaders.

When: The brand identity project is underway and will be completed in April in time for presentation to the Board of Trustees and the campus community.

Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N2BVGQP

Thank you for your valued participation! If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Jeff Berggren.