2008 Woodie Awards
URI looks to update image
Robert Preliasco
Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Campus
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Or so is the image of the school that URI officials hope to put forward in a new branding effort for the university, a comprehensive advertising campaign that will begin this fall.
Branding is a practice often associated with corporations in which the company takes control of the image it projects.
"We realized we have to be more formal about the way we manage the image of the university," said business professor Ruby Dholakia, a co-chair of the branding campaign.
Dholakia said the campaign would create a comprehensive message for all of the material that the university publishes, including its Web site. There will also be radio and television commercials. The program will last for several years with the goal of improving the public's perception of URI.
The message of the campaign will focus on URI's history as a land, sea, and urban grant college, its uniqueness being in the smallest state, and its innovative nature that comes from having to fund itself. The proposed new university tagline says "Think Big. We Do," and features a globe reflecting the university seal.
"It seems to evoke images and association of global thinking being done at URI, that URI does great things," Dholakia said.
The university contracted with Massachusetts branding firm FORGE Worldwide on the campaign. The contract is worth $350,000 and included focus groups, surveys of students, faculty and alumni, design of the new logo and the price of television and radio commercials.
Vice President of University Advancement Robert Beagle said he expects the campaign to pay for itself.
"We see the whole branding effort as helping us produce more resources," he said. "It will help the university generate more students and more alumni donations and so forth."
He said he hopes it will also improve the university's image with Rhode Island's government, which may lead to greater state financial assistance when the budget crisis is over.
Beagle said the university's image has steadily improved over the years but has lacked a comprehensive message. He said the branding campaign would focus on the school's strengths, its programs, students and teachers.
Dholakia said students and teachers at URI would be a big focus of the campaign.
"I don't think we get recognition for all the great students we have," Dholakia said.
"In the past there were a lot of negative associations [with URI] and some of it lingers on," she said, in reference to URI's former reputation as a wild party school or a safety school, one that was not students' first choice.
"It's not true, we are much better than people think we are," she said. "We need to take control of our own story."