Goin' medieval on your brand

I've been talking to lots of communicators in postsecondary education lately and have discovered that a medieval oversight still bedevils modern branding and messaging efforts: what, exactly, is a university?

Even if they don't use these precise terms, all universities face the "branded house" vs. "house of brands" conundrum and many seem to be in a perpetual state of rebranding as a result. Far more than a semantic nicety, the distinction has serious implications for relationship-building -- and the budgets to support it.

At the University of Colorado I learned the hard way (by being told never to make this mistake again!) that while the Boulder campus may be referred to as CU, the Denver campus is UC. Come on, it says CU on the football helmets, and the football helmets are on TV!

But this is the point: the University of Colorado does not present itself as a single institution. UC does not have a football team; CU does. Google "University of Colorado" and three separate home pages appear, in this order: University of Colorado at Boulder; University of Colorado Denver ("at," inexplicably, is out); and UCCS/University of Colorado at Colorado Springs ("at" is in again). Each site has a different look and independent searching and navigation. They are distinct Web sites for distinct physical sites.

A fourth Web site, which appears lower in the same Google search, largely explains what's going on:

Founded in Boulder in 1876, the University of Colorado has evolved into a network of four unique campuses, each set against the dramatic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains: the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Colorado Denver, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

This site leans most heavily upon the Boulder campus's branding, including the CU logo and the textual use of "CU" to refer to the entire system, suggesting Boulder's predominance within the system. (The relationship of the two Denver campuses requires further explanation.)

The Denver campus's former Associate Vice Chancellor for Integrated University Communications provided his views on how the system's identity ought to be reflected in its Web presence. I participated in a similar branding tango at my two most recent jobs, so I can imagine the nature (if not quite the scale) of the challenge. The mere creation of such a job title says a lot about how universities perceive themselves.

When I first heard the terms "branded house" and "house of brands" I immediately gravitated toward the former, reflecting my desire to bring order to a chaotic universe and my on-the-job experiences. But if a student's or alum's loyalty lies with a residential college, a center, an eating house, a major or a team, surely that loyalty should be encouraged.

The answers are out there, but they'll never be easy to find, nor should they. Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard have been dealing with these questions for centuries; let's keep dealing with them, knowing that whether we win or lose on specific details of brand identity, we're all on the same side: education.