An email went out yesterday announcing this initiative, but we are sharing it again today to ensure that it remains top of mind.
Thank you all for the time and attention you put into creating promotional pieces for the programs you lead, the research you conduct, and the publications you create. There is no doubt that creating these items – large and small – takes a significant amount of time.
Late last year, we tallied an estimated number of print-related marketing pieces created by all of Extension (including county offices, program areas, various teams, permanent and temporary signage, etc.) during the calendar year. That educated estimate resulted in more than 40,000 items (excluding social media posts and many merchandise items). This is an incredible amount of exposure for Extension, the college and the university.
This level of exposure is one reason that Extension Administration has committed to building a stronger presence of brand mindfulness and a more proactive approach than we have been able to offer in the past.
There are multiple ways we will achieve this goal:
- Maintaining a proactive approach to managing brand guideline applications for Extension – both as an organization operating within communities throughout Ohio and as a unit within the college and the university.
- Providing an individual, constant point of contact for brand-related questions within Extension.
- Building a robust system to create, share and update marketing resources (e.g. templates, branding elements, social media guidance).
- Establishing easy-to-use procedures when creating Extension materials and requesting help.
Why? Because quite literally, everything we create for the public must be appropriately branded.
Building a communications team focused on the needs of Extension that can consistently meet these goals has been a goal itself for several years. We are being mindful about how we approach this initiative and developing resources to support all Extension professionals.
We commit to communicate with you about our next steps in the days and weeks ahead. In the meantime, we hope you share our excitement as we move forward with this initiative, Minding the Brand.
We’re all part of Minding the Brand.