Truly Deeply/Madly

A Truly Deeply Brand Iden­tity Case Study
A few years back Deakin Uni­ver­sity came to us for help to re-launch their stu­dent union asso­ci­a­tion. New leg­is­la­tion was chang­ing the land­scape of stu­dent unions and DUSA under­stood they needed to cre­ate a new rel­e­vance to the stu­dent body on their mul­ti­ple cam­puses. DUSA is a stu­dent organ­i­sa­tion which is run by stu­dents of Deakin Uni­ver­sity, for stu­dents of Deakin Uni­ver­sity. DUSA mem­bers study off cam­pus and on, and include under­grad­u­ates, post­grad­u­ates and inter­na­tional stu­dents. What DUSA needed was a brand iden­tity that would help posi­tion the organ­i­sa­tion in a way that con­nected with the stu­dents. As stu­dent union mem­ber­ship became optional for the first time, DUSA found them­selves com­pet­ing against brands and other inter­ests for the stu­dents loyalty.

We ran a series of brand def­i­n­i­tion work­shops with the DUSA CEO, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Mar­ket­ing teams, key DUSA staff and of course a bunch of the stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We defined DUSA’s brand essence as

‘Cre­at­ing a vibrant and con­nected uni­ver­sity community’.

A New Brand Name for a New Era
When you go about cre­at­ing a new brand for an exist­ing organ­sa­tion, all exist­ing brand prop­er­ties need to be con­sid­ered against the defin­ing essence and val­ues. So it was with DUSA’s name. The process that defined DUSA’s brand propo­si­tion, essence and val­ues also con­sid­ered the devel­op­ment of a new brand name for the stu­dent union. Of all the things we do in brand, devel­op­ing new names is the most com­plex. Names are held close to the heart of cus­tomers, staff and busi­ness own­ers alike. Get­ting agree­ment on a new name can be a lengthy and painful process for all involved, and trade­mark­ing can extend the pain fur­ther. With DUSA we led a process that ran sur­pris­ingly smoothly. We had a client with a real appetite for change in order to meet the chal­lenges of the new land­scape they found them­selves in. We estab­lished a new name that reflected the val­ues of the brand and its desired per­son­al­ity mov­ing for­ward and spoke with a brand voice that con­nected with their stu­dent audi­ence. The new name was also selected for the oppor­tu­ni­ties it pro­vided for a unique visual brand image that could cut-through on cam­pus and res­onate with the students.

The new selected name was:

4U

Because DUSA didn’t have the abil­ity or oppor­tu­nity to edu­cate their mar­ket on why they had changed their name and brand. They went through a tran­si­tion period were they called themselves:

DUSA4U

A New Brand Iden­tity for 4U
To sup­port the tran­si­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­egy we designed a tran­si­tional ver­sion of the brand mark for appro­pri­ate and first point of con­tact com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The tran­si­tion brand mark had a life of 6–12 months as deter­mined by pick-up and accep­tance of the new visual identity.

The design approach we took for the 4U brand iden­tity sys­tem was uncon­ven­tional. The visual lan­guage of cor­po­rate brand iden­tity is typ­i­cally struc­tured and for­mal. The approach we took with the 4U brand iden­tity adopted a non-traditional approach that inten­tion­ally broke the rules of cor­po­rate iden­tity. We took our lead for the brand iden­tity design from the cul­ture of surf and street brands which approach their image with a loose, irrev­er­ent mind-set, often chang­ing the look of their iden­tity from sea­son to sea­son. This shift­ing style approach gave the 4U brand iden­tity design a real rel­e­vance to the stu­dent audi­ence and inten­tion­ally shifted the brand away from a sense of uni­ver­sity own­er­ship to one of stu­dent ownership.

We designed a core brand mark for 4U that was so dis­tinc­tive that as for­mat, form, colour and tex­ture shifted, the brand mark could always be clearly identified.

Another advan­tage of hav­ing a brand­mark that is so ver­sa­tile is that it also can run-with and adapt to chang­ing trends. An exam­ple of what we had in mind was plac­ing the DUSA4U brand­mark on a Tim Biskup sketchel.

A part of the the pro­mo­tion and intro­duc­tion of DUSA to the stu­dents, we cre­ated DUSA Ambas­sadors who would wear DUSA4U branded t-shirts. It was crit­i­cal from day one of the brand iden­tity change-over for DUSA to have brand ambas­sadors who would fly the flag for the DUSA4U brand. The ambas­sadors gave the newly devel­oped DUSA brand a face and per­son­al­ity to pass-on DUSA’s mes­sages to the students.

If you’d like to find out more about this project, or how we could define and cre­ate a dis­tinc­tive brand for you and your organ­i­sa­tion, why not give us a call.

Tim Wood
Design Creative

Tags: Brand Agency, Brand Design, brand designers, Brand Experience, Brand Identity, Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, Brand-Ambassador, brand-designers-Melbourne, brand-essence, Corporate Image, Deakin-University, DUSA, DUSA-4U, Graphic Design Melbourne, Interior Design, Melbourne Brand Strategy, Sketchel, Tim-Biskup, tim-wood, Truly Deeply

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