SPORTS MARKETING
When Rebrands Go Wrong... USF, Michigan State, FSU, Auburn
The University of South Florida - Academics
USF Logo History
USF works to remake its muddled brand. Right now, 'it doesn't really say anything'
TAMPA — Turn in on LeRoy Collins Boulevard, past the gold university seal and the stiff serif letters that announce the University of South Florida, and signs point the way in muddled shades of green. Scattered Bull logos and mismatched block letters dot the campus, adding up to — what?
Online, the sense of USF's identity is even less coherent. On the school's homepage, four students chat in the grass. Except for their T-shirts in Bulls green, they could be anywhere in Universityland, U.S.A.
"It doesn't have a theme," said USF's chief marketing officer Joe Hice. "It doesn't really say anything."
That's why Hice has scrawled a phrase in green marker on his office whiteboard, a phrase he hopes will play a leading role in uniting USF's fragmented sense of self: BE BOLD. BE BULLISH.
The slogan is the seed of a major rebranding campaign set to launch in the coming months as USF tries to sharpen its brand image, which is lagging behind as the university makes serious academic strides.
"Why don't people know we're $500 million-plus in research? Why don't people know that we have great students?" Hice asks. "Because we haven't been telling the story."
By the time he was brought aboard six months ago, bringing experience in corporate and higher education marketing, USF had decided the time was right to rehab its image and attract more students. Leaders commissioned a survey of 1,000 people across the nation, with findings that just rekindled old headaches.
There's the albatross of USF's name, for one. Students and parents still think USF must be in Miami or Fort Lauderdale — or even San Francisco. Some write it off immediately.
"Sounds like a party school," one parent said.
Most parents outside of Florida couldn't say where USF is located. Nearly a third had never heard of it. And when they had, they just talked about its affordability, not its medical school or strong job placement rates.
Meanwhile, faculty wring their hands, frustrated that the momentum of their research is going unseen. Administrators lament the specter of USF's reputation as a commuter school, once derided as "U Stay Forever," even as residence halls keep sprouting and graduation rates keep climbing. Fundraising is up. Incoming student GPAs are up. Rankings are up.
"It's about time our reputation is as strong as our objective performance," USF System President Judy Genshaft said in her fall address, her Bull U earrings glinting in the stage lights.
In some ways, USF is an underdog trying to claw its way into the standings of schools — like the Gator Nation — with a 50-year head start. It wants to deepen its roots, beyond being the source of talent for Tampa Bay employers. It wants to be the hometown team. It wants loyalty, even love.
And that requires a coherent message.
"Like a badly named baby," a St. Petersburg Times editorial once said, "the University of South Florida has an identity crisis whose origins date back to its birth."
To be fair, when USF was born in 1956, it was the southernmost university in Florida. And there were far more confusing names on the table: University of the Western Hemisphere. Florida Peninsular State. The University of Temple Terrace.
"Can you imagine if today we were trying to explain to people where Temple Terrace was?" said Andrew Goodrich, senior associate athletic director for external relations. "So we think we have it bad, but not that bad."
One thing being considered, said USF trustee and advertising executive Jordan Zimmerman, is referring to USF as "the University of South Florida Tampa Bay."
Overall, USF wants to be seen as a knowledge powerhouse, more so than an athletic one. But leaders know athletics can be a gateway, and the story of USF's image is intertwined with sports.
The university's first mascot was the Golden Brahman, since Florida was a cattle-raising state. (Rejected: Chickens, Olympians, Camels.) It wasn't until the 1980s that USF became the Bulls.
It took decades to launch a football team, which debuted in 1997. Less inspiring was the Iron Bull logo, a dull silhouette that flattened sales. By the time the Bulls ascended to Division I, T-shirts were nowhere to be found.
By 2003, the Bulls had secured their first home game on national TV. Research grants hit $250 million. New Greek houses helped grow a much-desired residential identity.
Yet confusion endured. Sports commentators called the school "South Florida," conjuring images of the Miami skyline.
So USF put $200,000 into revamping the brand for the first time ever, looking to underscore its grand ambitions.
The school's kelly green got a little darker, yellow gave way to gold, and the loopy oversized S in the USF logo matured into a serif. The Iron Bull was swapped out for an enduring symbol, the horned "Bull U," emblazoned on football helmets.
"South Florida" was no more. Here was USF.
Still, students mixed up USF and the University of Central Florida. TIME magazine writing about USF researchers studying the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, said they hailed from "SFU."
Even this year, USF's football coach met with breathless high schoolers who asked, "Weren't y'all the team that went undefeated?"
That was UCF.
Student Kaitlyn Evans, 22, grew up in Orlando, but only became aware of USF's presence in the last few years.
"Their accomplishments aren't spread widely enough," she said. "You should at least know USF is there down the road."
The lingering mix-ups underscore the difficulty of the task ahead: To clearly, concisely tell the world exactly who, what, and yes, where, USF is.
"We haven't yet seen the kids come up who say, 'When I was 10 years old I sat on my dad's lap when we beat Notre Dame, and now I'm 30 years old and I'm buying tickets and I'm going to love USF forever,'" Goodrich said. When that happens, "This place is going to explode."
No matter the age, it's hard to market a college, up against thousands of competitors all plagued by the same cliches.
"I see so many schools with these ridiculous taglines like 'Duty, honor, learning,'" said Roger Dooley, a college marketing expert. "What the heck does that mean? How does that differentiate you from a thousand other schools?"
Getting it right means leaving a lot on the cutting room floor. Even at UF, before Hice helped launch its iconic "Gator Nation" campaign, there were some unfortunate rejects, Hice said, most notably "An unparalleled university experience that lasts a lifetime."
Imagine that on a T-shirt.
USF hasn't locked into "Be Bullish," but it's the frontrunner among ideas including, "Be Herd," "The speed of USF" and "Let's build something."
USF has been using "Unstoppable" for its fundraising campaign, but the phrase has gone quiet of late since the $1 billion goal was achieved.
The winning slogan has to work across a system made up of three institutions and 50,000 students. It needs to work for engineering and fine arts, police and lacrosse. It has to work on hoodies and billboards and Twitter.
Perhaps even more important than a rallying cry is the push for a unified theme. Last year, Hice showed school officials some of the 80-plus logos across campus. There was a shiny gold USF Health logo in retro 3D, a Bull U with a stethoscope, a parade of clip art bulls.
The audience groaned.
"Coca-Cola has one mark," Zimmerman said. "We as a university have to have one mark that lives dynamically through every aspect of our university: The same look, the same feel, the same type, kerned the same way, so we speak with one voice."
Genshaft has said the push will require serious discipline, "so people do know, right away, the iconic view: That's the University of South Florida."
Hice will hold a university-wide "brand summit" this month to talk ideas ahead of a full-court marketing push this summer. The budget remains to be determined.
Some trustees have asked whether USF can be like Nike, instantly recognizable. Actually, Hice said, the Bull U is the school's Nike swoosh. And he plans on keeping it.
The U is asymmetrical, hard to center on a ballcap.
"But that tells a story," Goodrich said. "Listen — we're on the move. We're not sitting still. You can't square us up, boom, we're moving."
Look at the negative space between each column of the U, he said. It makes a T. The University of South Florida, Tampa. A secret in plain sight.
Preeminence Brings Change
USF unveils a new logo, with its signature bull front and center
TAMPA — After 18 years as president of the University of South Florida, Judy Genshaft has perfected her role as a walking billboard for the school. She's become known throughout the state for her green-and-gold dress suits, glittering lapel pins, bracelets and earrings sporting the athletics department's signature "Bull U," and even purses made of footballs and basketballs emblazoned with USF's logo.
But even Genshaft agreed that the university's branding needed a new look. And when she saw what her staff designed she couldn't help but introduce it to the campus during her annual fall address Wednesday.
During a high-energy video, USF's new academic logo was revealed: a lime green bull reminiscent of the golden brahman that first symbolized the university when it opened in 1960. But this new branding effort is also about defining USF's story to the world, Genshaft said.
The new motto: We share one goal. We transform lives. United, we shape the future.
The new rallying cry: Be Bullish.
"Don't you love it?" a grinning Genshaft asked before a packed auditorium of mostly faculty and staff at Marshall Student Center.
"We're not bound by tradition," she said. "Everything we have achieved we have earned, and it is up to us to determine what this new era will bring. At USF we shape our own future and there are no limitations."
With the USF System's three universities setting sights on merging accreditations under one umbrella by 2020, now was the perfect time to find a new way to introduce the school as a "preeminent institution," said Joe Hice, USF's new marketing director and the creative mind behind the University of Florida's "Gator Nation" re-branding campaign.
Genshaft won't have to give up her "Bull U" baubles anytime soon. Hice's team decided to keep the school's athletics logo as-is, but warned it should be used only by that sector of the university.
That means giving up homemade variations created by colleges and clubs throughout the years — like the Bull U wearing a stethoscope for the Internal Medicine department, or the Bull U flanked by big-mouthed bass used by USF's fishing club.
The new academic logo won't roll out across campus until homecoming week, which starts Oct. 14. It replaces the green-and-gold box of serif text that currently adorns business cards and street signs throughout the university's campuses. The new script is airy and modern, with open spaces in some of the letters meant to symbolize the university's expanding and diverse community, Hice said.
His team spent about a year gathering feedback on their ideas before birthing USF's new bull, which pulls together elements of the bronze bull statues on all three campuses. Its "optimistic, upward-angled head" mirrors the bull statue at USF St. Petersburg. The curved tail comes from the bull at USF Sarasota-Manatee. And its "regal stance" hails from the Tampa campus, from one of the bulls prancing down the large fountain outside Marshall Student Center, Hice said.
The three-pronged star burst on the animal's torso was taken from the university's seal and represents the three campuses.
"Despite all the success USF has seen over the past few years, our reputation hasn't really caught up," Hice said. "That's what were hoping to do with the campaign is create that emotional connection you have to have to make people pay attention to our story."
USF's marketing challenge is reflected in its national rankings, including the one from U.S. News and World Report, which hasn't improved the university's standings in nearly 14 years. Hice said that's because a university's "reputation" makes up a large portion of those scores, and USF has done little to market itself beyond the Tampa Bay area.
USF's last major marketing campaign was launched nearly 12 years ago, when the iconic "Bull U" was introduced as a new sports mascot. It has never before attempted an advertising campaign focused on academics, Hice said.
Even now, in an academic year when USF enrolled more than 47,000 students, the marketing staff had to round up when they reported that only 1 percent of about 2,000 surveyed adults and 14 percent of high school students from across the nation were even vaguely aware of the University of South Florida, Hice said.
In her address, Genshaft assured staff that will soon change. She highlighted some key milestones.
After 30 years of applying to the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society, USF was awarded its own chapter in August.
In the same month, the USF System welcomed a freshman class with an average high school GPA of 4.09 and SAT score of 1283 — the highest in the university's history.
First-year medical students surpassed both the university's records for highest average scores on the Medical College Admission Test and the scores of incoming students' at every other university in the state, Genshaft said.
USF also has increased research expenditures to more than $560 million, and earlier this year became one of only three public universities in the nation founded after 1950 to raise more than $1 billion in private donations.
A fresh, energetic look will help USF enter a new era as Florida's first metropolitan "preeminent" university, Genshaft said. And, if all goes according to plan, it will help the school attract the students and faculty it needs to keep that hard-won title.
"Now, more than ever before," she said, "it is time for us to share our story the right way — with one clear brand."
Backtracking
USF abandons unpopular new logo, adopts 'Bull U' design used by athletic department
TAMPA —The University of South Florida's search for a new academic logo has ended with a familiar look.
Last fall, the university unveiled a new logo featuring a full-bodied, lime-green bull — the school mascot — on a dark-green background with "USF" spelled out in lime green.
Some students and alumni pushed back, saying the drawing too closely resembles the logo of Wall Street's Merrill Lynch.
So, on Monday, after spending $1 million on the new design, USF announced it would abandon it and instead adopt the "Iconic Bull U," with the bull's-head profile forming a stylized letter "U." The school's athletic department has been using the design for almost 15 years.
READ MORE: 'We still hate it.' USF students and alumni respond to final logo design
"Think of what we have accomplished under the Bull U, the students we have attracted, the faculty we have attracted," reads an email sent to students, alumni, faculty and staff from Joe Hice, the university's vice president of communications and marketing. "We became pre-eminent and were awarded for our performance. We raised more than $1 billion."
USF also announced a return to its "traditional green-and-gold color palette."
The changes will begin immediately and continue throughout the summer, Hice wrote.
The logo fail comes at a cost of about $1 million, Hice told the Tampa Bay Times. That includes a $200,000 marketing campaign created with Spark Media that produced the academic logo, plus all the t-shirts, flags, signs and banners.
Flags and signs around campus will be taken down this summer, but the remaining merchandise will still be sold in campus stores.
USF decided to change course, Hice told the Times, before spending more money on the unpopular design — painting it on a campus water tower, for example.
The now-abandoned logo, he wrote in the letter, "we believed was a positive representation of our pride and optimism."
But, he added, "as you know, there has been a great deal of controversy over the bull image and the new color palette. ... We know that the feedback comes from a place of great pride and passion for USF, and we have listened."
The old academic logo was USF in gold letters inside a green box.
Hice told the Times there were early discussions about using the Bull U logo but ultimately a decision was made to create something new that would pull together elements of bronze bull statues at all USF campuses.
The optimistic, upward-angled head was to mirror the bull at USF St. Petersburg. The curved tail came from USF Sarasota-Manatee. And the regal stance was inspired by the Tampa campus sculpture.
Unpopular from the start, the new logo underwent tweaks. But changes hardly appeared noticeable when a new version was re-released last month.
"We wouldn't be Bulls if we didn't take risks," Hice wrote. "That's part of our nature; to push boundaries; to venture in new directions; to try new things."
Jeffrey Fishman, a 1992 USF graduate who has given at least $1.45 million to the school, told the Times that he was impressed that the university could admit "they made a mistake and were willing to make a change."
"USF's iconic U is widely known," Fishman said. "It is the face of USF."
Jay Mize, a member of USF's first football team and owner of Irish 31 pubs, agreed.
"Part of leadership is acknowledging when mistakes are made, placing egos aside and making it right," Mize said.
"I commend the USF leadership for doing exactly this and ultimately arriving at the correct decision for our university and our branding initiatives moving forward."
Michigan State University - Athletics
Backtracking
MSU to keep logo as part of new brand ID
Michigan State fans spoke, and the athletic department apparently has listened. The current logo for Spartans' sports teams isn't going anywhere.
Athletic director Mark Hollis said in a statement released Friday that the university, in conjunction with Nike, will unveil a new brand identity program in April, but it won't include a new logo. Last month, Michigan State had included a new proposed logo as part of a trademark application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.
The proposed design set off outcry among many Michigan State alumni and fans.
"The recent disclosure of an updated Spartan logo from a trademark registration process has resulted in a flurry of concern and discontentment among some of our students, alumni, and fans," Hollis' statement reads. "I have given careful attention to thoughtful comments received and sought additional counsel regarding how ideas might be incorporated into the overall strategic brand and identity process. ... After careful consideration, we will use the current Spartan logo design, first used in the late 1970s, to build our visual brand identity."
Score a big victory for MSU fans.
In the statement, Hollis stressed the importance of building a consistent and clear brand identity for Michigan State athletics. Michigan State asked Nike, its apparel partner, to conduct an extensive assessment of the school's brand.
He added that the assessment was free and that Michigan State, not Nike, would have final say on key decisions.
"We have been an athletic program of different greens, logos, word-marks, and uniform quality," Hollis said in the statement. "There has been a lack of consistency with regard to our brand. This inconsistency was a result both of using multiple suppliers for our apparel and of uniform decisions being made without a department-wide focus. ... Our primary objective is to achieve a strong and consistent Spartan brand, but rest assured that, as our mission statement attests, bringing Spartans together is one of our fundamental values."
It will be interesting to see the full branding package in April, but the logo was the hot-button issue here, and Michigan State made the right call to keep things the way they are.
Florida State University - Athletics
Backtracking
New FSU logo gets thumbs down in survey
Administrators at Florida State University may have thought that the brouhaha over the school's retooled Seminole logo was a thing of the past.
Call it wishful thinking.
Three researchers with ties to FSU on Monday released the results of a survey that found that few in the FSU community – 8 percent – prefer the new look.
Fifty percent of the respondents most like the original Seminole logo, and 42 percent favor the modified look created by Jodi Slade, a digital artist who works at FSU's medical school.
She designed her version of the Seminole logo in one night because she was not at all a fan of the logo the university is now using.
"I'm sticking to my guns – I'm not going to buy anything with the new logo on it," Slade said. "I'm incredibly humbled. To even be in the conversation of people discussing it, I'm still kind of in this shock."
FSU unveiled the new logo in April. University officials were immediately inundated with emails protesting the change. Facebook pages opposing the new logo sprang to life.
In a spring rife with controversy at FSU – an unflattering front page story in the New York Times involving the university's response to allegations of sexual assault involving its star quarterback, and a president search that went off track almost as quickly as it got underway – nothing has produced more outraged reaction by FSU alumni than the new logo.
The three men who conducted the survey received more than 6,500 responses to their query about the three different logos.
Joseph St. Germain, an FSU graduate and a vice president at Kerr & Downs, said he didn't have any preconceived expectations for the survey.
"We wanted to better understand the feedback, what people think about the logo," he said. "We were not trying to make change happen."
For the most part, the furor over the change has died down. Stefano Cavallaro, FSU student body president, said he believes most of his fellow students have gotten over their initial reaction to the change.
The fact that almost half of the survey respondents preferred Slade's logo says that modifying the logo was not the primary issue, Cavallaro said.
Auburn University - Athletics
Backtracking
Auburn's logo evolution results in brand backlash
Take a look at the Auburn University logos above. Look again. Look again. Yes, see those subtle differences? The arms of the U are a little wider. The white space between the A and the U has been covered up by the A. The base of the U is a little less rounded remove more white space at the bottom. All in all, pretty subtle. Yet, these proposed changes have caused quite the uproar on the Auburn campus. The school administration met with students and stakeholders almost a year ago to discuss proposed changes. Since then they have spent over $30,000 on these proposed (very subtle) modifications. And that doesn’t count the millions of dollars it would cost the university to actually implement these changes. Imagine the cost to just change out each and every sign all over campus. When the Auburn faithful saw the proposed changes, they have come out in force to stop the new logo from taking place. Almost 12,000 have signed this change.org petition. And this protest is over these very subtle changes. Imagine if Auburn wanted to really evolve the logo. Question is – what would you do? Listen to the stakeholders and keep the logo as it is? Proceed with making the change? Wonder why you just spent $30,000 that made almost no visible difference and angered your base of loyal donors? What would you do to get out of this jam now?