We Define the Future

CSUSB Completes   Two-Year Journey to Create a Unique Brand Identity

Just like your personal identity makes you uniquely you, a brand identity is the special quality that sets any company or institution apart from all others on the block. It’s more than a logo. It’s more than a style guide. It’s more than a tagline. It’s an essential way to differentiate oneself from the competition.

How? A brand identity influences people’s experiences at every touchpoint. It subconsciously affects how they view your service offering, your relevance, even your trustworthiness. And it’s vitally important in helping people decide if they want to engage with you — and if so, to what degree.

For these reasons, many believe that establishing a brand identity is the single most important thing any organization can do.

Yet three years ago, CSUSB found itself at a loss — and set out to change it. What follows is how the university went from “challenge identified” to “mission accomplished.”

By Julie Bos

Born as a Strategic Initiative

The identity initiative originally came from a grass roots demand. In 2014, as CSUSB began creating its 2015-2020 Strategic Plan, the university identified “creating a campus identity” as one of five key strategic initiatives. In fact, campus identity was one of the most discussed needs, since it was so critical to helping strengthen CSUSB’s position and value throughout the region.

The objective became clear: Have a well-defined and supported university identity as measured by students, faculty, staff, alumni and community perceptions by June 2020.

“The launch of the new Strategic Plan fell in sync with CSUSB’s celebration of its 50th Anniversary in 2015-16, creating a timely opportunity for the campus to engage faculty, staff and students, as well as alumni, community leaders and prospective students in an exercise that could best define this university’s unique educational experience and impact,” said Ron Fremont, vice president of University Advancement. “With dozens of higher education opportunities across Southern California, CSUSB needed to find a way to stand apart.”

A Competitive Differentiaton

Victoria Seitz, a CSUSB marketing professor who also served as the co-chair of CSUSB’s Identity Task Force, knows the intrinsic value of a great brand identity.

“Remember, when it comes to higher education, people can go elsewhere — there’s a lot of competition out there,” she said. “If we don’t know what we stand for, other people will define us — and they have, not always positively. Being able to take all our strengths and put them into a single capsule that communicates what we stand for, helps to differentiate us from our competition — other local schools like UC Riverside, University of Redlands or even for-profit schools, like National University.”

She added, “When we know what we stand for, we can also better communicate our strengths, which helps people who come to the university to have realistic expectations and for those expectations to be met. Everyone wins.”

A Two-Year Journey, Two Thousand Voices

To discover and articulate CSUSB’s true culture, personality and identity, the university created an Identity Task Force to oversee the entire process — from research about current perceptions to the final creation of the identity itself.

Working collaboratively with a company called Brand IQ, the task force conducted several months of research to learn the thoughts and opinions of key stakeholders — across both the San Bernardino and Palm Desert campuses. Through traditional surveys and live, on-campus workshops during what was called the “Campus Invasion,” the team collected data from everyone they could.

“At the end of the day, a brand exists because it’s really what the university is — and that cannot be solely decided by the marketing department, faculty or people on the front lines,” said Robert Tenczar, associate vice president of the Office of Strategic Communication, and co-chair of the Identity Task Force. "They have an important perspective, but it’s not the only one.”

Because the stakes were high, the research team took the time to do it right. The discovery process required months — nearly a full quarter — and included surveys of prospective students, parents, alumni and other key stakeholders like legislators and representatives. The task force wanted to hear what CSUSB means to them and why it’s a school of choice. They also sought the opinions of faculty and staff — people both inside and outside of the classroom.

The goal was to engage each group in a series of audience-appropriate workshops and discussions designed to validate key institutional strengths and weaknesses, uncover common misperceptions, and identify potential areas of brand opportunity.

“This was not a top-down initiative that started with the campus president,” added Tenczar. “It was a collaborative effort that sought the opinions of more than 2,000 people. It was very important to hear as many voices and gather as many opinions as we could — both negative and positive.”

Our Five Brand Promises

A major part of CSUSB’s new identity is the five brand promises that support it. They clearly spell out the benefits that constituents receive and they represent the core ideas to promote in both internal and external marketing communications.

CSUSB is a leader in higher education. Through rigorous and relevant programs, lively discourse, and open exchange of ideas, we ensure that all who engage with our university are challenged intellectually and well-prepared for personal and professional success.

Coyote Pride is in all we do, recognizing the ability of selfless collaboration and unyielding determination to achieve our greatest aspirations. The transformative experiences that result are a bond that connects all in the CSUSB community.

Providing the personal attention and access to resources, CSUSB delivers quality instruction and outstanding learning experiences, while allowing students to graduate with among the lowest debt.

The value of a CSUSB education is measured in the success of our students, who leverage our academic strengths — a practice-based liberal arts curriculum and an experienced, industry-connected faculty — into lifelong learning and career opportunities.

Through award-winning community engagement, innovative centers and institutes, and dynamic program offerings, CSUSB finds creative uses of technology and benefits from its diverse community and robust study abroad offerings. We infuse global perspectives into our teaching, learning and research. We take the knowledge we create to all corners of our state, country and world, helping to influence national and international policy, promote culture understanding, and develop tomorrow’s leaders.

Decision Time

After collecting all the data, the task force analyzed the similarities and differences among CSUSB’s audiences regarding their perceptions and expectations of the university and motivations to engage with it.

From there, they proposed three distinctive concepts, tested them with key stakeholder groups, and eventually landed on a comprehensive brand architecture that included: a brand value proposition and promise; positioning statements for key audiences; differentiating brand essence; supporting brand messages; brand tone and personality traits; and tagline.

Whether it’s an alumnus attending an affinity event, a donor deciding to make a gift, an accepted student deciding to enroll, or a professor accepting a job offer, Brand IQ detailed which brand attributes most resonated with key audiences and were felt to be both true and distinctive of CSUSB.

All the research supported an overwhelmingly clear choice: “We Define the Future.”

This inspirational branding is a natural platform for telling stories of students, faculty members, alumni, donors, campuses and communities working together to achieve great things and influence not only thinking in their disciplines, but also the applications of their ideas around the community, the nation and the world.

“For the first time ever, CSUSB can truly elevate and market an identity throughout the Inland Empire,” said Fremont. “’We Define the Future’ is a statement that’s unique, bold and ambitious. It also works in perfect concert with our campus in Palm Desert, which also needed to elevate its identity as the only four-year university in the Coachella Valley.”

Going forward, the new identity helps the university speak with one voice, regardless of which department is talking about the institution.

“I’m so excited that we now have a singular identity — the entire university is now on the same page,” said Tenczar. “Now the fun part starts. We can help colleges and departments across CSUSB find their success stories that portray and resonate our identity and use them to tell the world how great we are. We’ll all be speaking with one voice, which will help people to recognize our reputation and its place in our community as an educational leader.”

Where We Go from Here