Branding
Understanding your brand is essential in expressing the identity of the organization and aiming the marketing communication efforts in the right direction. It is just as important to move your stakeholders to become brand ambassadors. In taking on the brand initiative at Hawaii Pacific University, I worked to involve stakeholders from the entire organization to contribute to the brand direction.
This brand strategy gave us a unique opportunity to create new visual elements that supported our strategic drivers and reflected our core values and long standing and deep ties to the land and our local culture.
To help us with this endeavor we partnered with a Hawaiian cultural icon- Sig Zane, known for his understanding of cultural history and the importance of place in Hawaii. Our partnership provided us a pathway to represent our brand architecture, values, and place to the community within a new logo – an image that is truly reflective of our institution and our ties to Hawaii.
By embedding the brand meaning with the cultural aspects of the logo, the story of the university was set. A story which everyone could understand and support. This, along with brand workshops, resulted in staff stepping forward to help in the marketing of the university.