BSU replaces 'Education Redefined' tagline
Seth SlabaughMUNCIE, Ind. — Ball State University on Monday will unveil a million-dollar refreshed brand that includes a new tagline.
"We Fly" replaces the prior catchphrase, "Education Redefined," which was dropped during Paul Ferguson's presidency.
"We Fly" signs and banners, including a giant one on the south facade of Teachers College, popped up all over campus during the weekend. The message will spread across the state on billboards, television commercials and other media.
Like the presidents of most other state schools in Indiana, BSU President Geoffrey S. Mearns sees value in adopting a slogan to help promote the university.
Here's how "We Fly" compares to other Hoosier higher education taglines:
• "Knowledge for Life," University of Southern Indiana.
• "There's more to Blue," Indiana State University's tagline, "has been quite successful for us," spokeswoman Libby Roerig said.
• “We are Purdue. What we make moves the world forward.”
• "Fulfilling the Promise," Indiana University. "While it does serve as a tagline, it is much more than that, as the foundation for IU's brand strategy," IU's associate vice president of marketing, Rob Zinkan, told The Star Press. "The university’s brand strategy was the result of a disciplined, inclusive, and research-informed process."
Ivy Tech Community College does not have a tagline.
Ball State's brand strategy, which is costing about $930,00 to develop and implement, is also research-based. All of the elements of the comprehensive strategy will be unveiled during a "Brand Launch Party" at 11:30 a.m. on Monday in Sursa Performance Hall.
In the past several years, Ball State "has not been as visible and vocal about sharing with the public all of the good news about the institution," Mearns told The Star Press last week. "We have not been telling with the appropriate passion and energy the stories of our students and our university."
RELATED: BSU President Mearns: We have a great story to tell
Essentially, a brand represents "everything the organization stands for," said Frédéric F. Brunel, an associate professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business.
"It facilitates awareness, differentiation, choice, loyalty, community, etc."
He called a higher-education tagline about flying "a bit daring."
"It's bold, yes," said Mearns. "But we also think it's commensurate with the trajectory of the university."
Brand strategists took advantage of two Ball State icons. BSU athletic teams have been known as the Cardinals for the past 90 years. "Beneficence," the bronze statue that has become the symbol of BSU, also has wings, which represent flight into the world when students graduate. Tag line artwork embodies both symbols.
Connecting "We Fly" to "other things that are already a part of Ball State's identity is something that could help make the slogan stick," Brunel said.
Ball State hired two consultants — Creative Communications Associates, Troy, N.Y., and SimpsonScarborough, Washington, D.C. — for market research, branding strategy, messaging, media planning and other services.
Different brand concepts were tested on prospective students as young as 15, current students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, donors, lawmakers and others, BSU spokesperson Kathy Wolf said.
"This is the university's first, in-depth branding of this magnitude," she said. "We have a great story to tell. Our students really have a different educational story to tell."
Ball State's immersive-learning projects bring together multi-disciplinary, student-driven teams guided by faculty mentors to address community challenges.
Projects range from producing videos for the Indiana Office of Tourism and Development to developing apps for Indiana State Parks to news coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil to creating an action plan for Muncie's hisotric East Central Neighborhood.
"At Ball State, you're forced to fly as soon as you walk in the door," one immersive learning student told Mearns and Wolf. "Another student said 'sink or swim,' " Wolf said. "Students and even faculty are scared to death of that stuff. But after they do it, they don't want to go back (to traditional academic models) … It's scary but exhilarating. Flying is like that."
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Seth Slabaugh is an education reporter at The Star Press who can be reached at (765) 213-5834 or seths@muncie.gannett.com.