Branding OHIO through communication, collaboration and creativity

Photo courtesy of: University Communications and MarketingChief Marketing Officer Renea Morris

In the president’s Investiture Speech this past fall, he laid out a series of strategic pathways and initiatives developed following a listening tour that included visits to Ohio University’s various stakeholders and groups, including faculty, staff, students, regional campuses and satellite centers, state and U.S. government officials, alumni, and friends of Ohio University. From raising the University’s level of prominence to become a national leader for diversity and inclusion to building an engagement ecosystem, one of the strategic initiatives that he believes will build upon Ohio University’s strengths is specifically related to how Ohio University is perceived in the marketplace. The strategic initiative is:

“Taking our branding and marketing efforts to greater heights by finding new, strategic, consistent and rhetorically powerful ways to talk about the University.” 

To move the needle on this important initiative, we’ll need to build and sustain support from our various constituents, all of whom are important to help deliver the University’s message to all of our audiences. One of the ways to accomplish this is to encourage and empower our stakeholders to be highly engaged and vocal about the OHIO brand. It’s our story to tell, and we need to be equipped to tell it.

Over the next several weeks, University Communications and Marketing (UCM) is working with one of its own to find the best ways to promote OHIO to our internal stakeholders and to the outside world. Chuck Borghese, a faculty member at the Scripps College of Communication, will be working with UCM and with input from others across the University to help articulate the OHIO brand. According to Borghese, “While every college or unit at OHIO is different, this University does stand for similar ideals. We are all Bobcats. We have the same sense of pride.” We are passionate, and many of us bleed green. It’s what Borghese calls the “beating heart” that should be present in the ways we describe OHIO, whether it’s to a prospective undergraduate student or an experienced professional; the same thread should run through describing OHIO to regional campus students and prospective faculty members. 

Borghese brings a unique and well-seasoned experience set to this work, which includes 30 years working with several sizes and types of companies and clients to help them understand how a broad idea can be tailored to meet the needs of a variety of constituents, whether they are regionally-based or have unique needs based on their service offerings. His prior work with franchisee-oriented companies can help bridge the gaps we often find in our decentralized communications across the University. 

Through communication, collaboration and creativity, we’ll work with OHIO’s units to help move the brand forward in ways that are consistent and that will resonate with our various audiences and goals.

Photo courtesy of: University Communications and Marketing