Developing a university brand takes a tremendous amount of research, analysis, leadership and skill, and it needs a strong brand manager (BM) to guide the brand after it’s been established.
The BM’s job is important. Not only do they have to balance consistency with freshness, they also need to provide leadership on future brand direction while maintaining visual harmony with items created previously.
This balancing act gets complicated when individuals, faculties and other groups within the university voice their opinions on what their material ‘should’ look like. It’s a challenging role, the BM needs to police their requests, maintain relationships and educate the people who lack the knowledge, authority and skills to grasp the broader context of the brand.
People that aren’t responsible for the brand can take great offense when told that their needs conflict with the university’s visual and strategic direction.
It is tempting, at times, to let things slide — who likes conflict? But letting things slide is not an option when you’re the BM. It creates a slippery slope that becomes hard to police and logically inconsistent due to the concessions you’ve begrudgingly made in the past.
In the end not standing up makes your future job harder, not easier. Those issues you let slide end up creating the slippery slope that may just swallow you.
Picture this
It’s a day like any other. You’re lounging in your chair, feet up on the desk, throwing crumpled pieces of paper at your trash can that’s about 4 feet away.
Suddenly your phone rings. For a few seconds you can’t work out what the noise is. Then, panicked, you start pushing books and papers around, looking for your phone — it was here a few months ago!
Breathless and startled you answer the phone. It’s Bill from the science faculty. He’s just developed a new booklet and needs for you to manage the design process.
You agree to meet with him to discuss his needs.
A short while later you and Bill are talking, it seems like a straightforward job until Bill says “I’ve got a few sketches on how I’d like this laid out.”
You casually look over his poorly drawn sketches, thinking that you can just brush past his layout suggestions, but this guy is serious.
He’s also got an idea for a logo that he ‘needs’.
What are you going to do?
Education time, baby!
Jokes aside, this scenario happens all the time. It may not be a booklet, but it could be a website, secondary logo, invitation, icon etc.
Many BMs, especially the ones that ‘just want to be loved’, may crumble here. This is especially likely if the client has a stronger personality than you.
You’re getting paid the big-bucks to deal with this effectively. Bill has many opinions on what he thinks should happen. You, on the other hand, have years of experience, researched fact and strategy to overcome his objections.
What’s important is that you gain control of this situation. Your client needs to be educated on the internal processes and parameters when using your services.
Walk them through the design process and point out which ‘ideas’ will come under scrutiny. By being upfront with what is likely not to get through will make it easier for you to talk about at a later date e.g.
“Hi Bill, we had a look at your material and laid it out. As mentioned when we first spoke, this part of your idea did not fit within the universities brand guidelines, so we did ‘x, y and z’ to keep it consistent with our other material…”
It’s important to be warm and gentle as a BM.
Don’t be scared!
If you, as a BM, know you’re weak in this area, then plan ahead. Get some strategies in place for dealing with these requests. It’s always easier to deal with problems early on in the project.
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