Our brand is our DNA. It’s how we act, think, speak and behave. It makes us stand out for something and stand out from the competition.
Having a consistent and authentic expression of that brand promise will be essential to continued growth and effectiveness. To do so, we need to align all institutional communications and marketing materials across the institution under this shared sense of purpose.
There are 3 main elements to the brand and related tools:
Role: Creates consistency, expresses differentiation across communication activities;
- Tone and manner
- Content choice
- Messaging
The Messaging Matrix will help you craft language that creates brand consistency.
This is the creative and consumer-facing expression of our purpose. York’s vision of the future, i.e. building a more innovative, just and sustainable world. This is both our creative campaign and a tagline, and will be consistent across high level advertising campaigns and communications, i.e, tone, fell + headline that resolves with Right the Future.
Role: Creates consistency across high profile communications to stand out vs. the competition.
- Advertising
- Main Focus of positive change
- Headline OR sign off
- Senior leader activities
- Video/written (language or sign off)
- Pan-University marketing/campaigns
- Websites
- Reports
- Viewbooks
Please be sure review the Institutional campaign guidelines prior to your next high level advertising campaign.
Employees at all levels of the University make decisions everyday. These decisions are often made based on certain degrees of subjectivity which can lead to inconsistencies in operationalization and enhancing the brand.
The purpose of the brand filter is to provide the York community specifically employees, and Faculty, with an objective screening process that will help to determine if decisions on initiatives and programs being considered is aligned with the brand strategy as well as being the right business decision.
Here are a series of key words that describe the essence of the York’s brand promise, personality and values. Using the brand filter will help York move from where it is today to where the university ultimately wants to be and how it wants to be perceived.
Role: Creates a guide on decision making to deliver on the brand.
- Events
- Promotions
- Relationships
- Programs
Download a detailed version of the brand filter here for your usage.