ANN ARBOR – Concordia University Ann Arbor and Wisconsin recently launched a new brand platform and a new website.
For more than a year, Concordia, with support from Milwaukee-based marketing agency BVK, conducted research to answer one essential question: What does it mean to be a Concordian?
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Following hundreds of interviews with students, faculty, alumni and staff, and months of focus groups and action sessions, they came up with an answer:
"Concordia University. Live Uncommon."
According to Gretchen Jameson, leader of the re-branding effort and senior vice president of strategy and university affairs, dialogue across the university is what helped determined the new brand.
"In its essence, a brand is the concise distillation of the promise that an organization makes to its constituents consistently, dramatically and repeatedly," Jameson said in a press release. "When we began our process, we didn’t set out to create a new Concordia catch-phrase; instead, we initiated a process of discovery, a university-wide dialogue that will continue to unveil itself for years to come."
So why now?
Following Concordia University Ann Arbor's merger with Concordia University Wisconsin, and considering the shifting landscape of higher education, Concordia sought to establish an umbrella brand strategy.
Concordia University also has a thriving online presence and several center extensions beyond the Mequon and Ann Arbor campuses.
"Research confirmed what we knew all along,” said Jameson. “Concordians share the same DNA—similar strengths, recognizable character, and shared values across our campuses. So this positioning strategy is in complete alignment with how the organization operates on a daily basis."
About Concordia University
Concordia University is a nonprofit, Lutheran higher education community serving more than 8,900 students online, at two residential campuses in Mequon, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at nine satellite centers. The school is affiliated with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and is part of the Concordia University System, a national network of colleges.
The unique promise that Concordia extends to its students: to uniquely develop each student for a life of uncommon, Christ-led purpose. Learn more online at http://www.cuw.edu and http://www.cuaa.edu.